Do you believe in the self- fulfilling prophecy?
After looking for the physics information for other threads, I realised that it is not well publicised on the news etc..
OK we can’t discuss religion or politics, However the news seems to always be on a dark note i.e. how bad it all is. We tend to link to past mistakes so we can “Learn from them” eg war etc.
The thought is how much does this affect us in the “Now”.
Are we being battered into submission (being kept depressed). Being told all is woe and how bad the economy is stirring up old wounds rather than looking at how much we have achieved and how good it could all be if we would only let it happen? Is history a ball and chain on humanity or a helping hand?
So do you believe in the self-fulfilling prophecy we cause our own hell on earth (direct destiny) by only portraying the bad side to everything?
Regards
M. Gregg
After looking for the physics information for other threads, I realised that it is not well publicised on the news etc..
OK we can’t discuss religion or politics, However the news seems to always be on a dark note i.e. how bad it all is. We tend to link to past mistakes so we can “Learn from them” eg war etc.
The thought is how much does this affect us in the “Now”.
Are we being battered into submission (being kept depressed). Being told all is woe and how bad the economy is stirring up old wounds rather than looking at how much we have achieved and how good it could all be if we would only let it happen? Is history a ball and chain on humanity or a helping hand?
So do you believe in the self-fulfilling prophecy we cause our own hell on earth (direct destiny) by only portraying the bad side to everything?
Regards
M. Gregg
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Good morning.
Your question begins with the self-then speculates and blames something on them. In that I believe there is a disconnect.
It is self-determination.
I believe we have a much greater likelihood of being happy if we discern the truth in everything we do.
There are people who believe varying degrees of that which is not true.
To the degree that a person chooses to support that which is not true, they affect themselves and those around them in harmful ways.
Your question begins with the self-then speculates and blames something on them. In that I believe there is a disconnect.
It is self-determination.
I believe we have a much greater likelihood of being happy if we discern the truth in everything we do.
There are people who believe varying degrees of that which is not true.
To the degree that a person chooses to support that which is not true, they affect themselves and those around them in harmful ways.
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I see your point,
Proliferation of knowledge..
The link should be that the physics information was not so well known, when anything dark and depressing seems to get aired quite easily.
The news and media seem to have an obsession with hyping the worst and giving a passing thought to discovery and perhaps the best in mankind.
Regards
M. Gregg
yes correct..relying on spell check...oops sorry.I stand corrected..
Can a MOD please change the thread title..thank's
Regards
M. Gregg
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The way I see it, the self-fulfilling prophecy works both ways: the boom was caused by irrational exuberance, with people believing that debts really do never have to be repaid - economic growth will swallow them up; you can always sell your house for more than you paid, and so on.
I think we are now in a situation where, whatever the potential for economic growth, the debts can never be repaid, so all those investors who were relying on a future payday (e.g. pensioners) will be disappointed, and no one will lend afresh to those people who really are capable of being entrepreneurs.
(Plus the small matter of raw materials being scarcer than they used to be, fuel more expensive etc.)
Negative feedback works. Capitalism and democracy leave provision for feedforward as well, all the way down to the individual level. The news business only has enough time to tell you what's going wrong. Telling you what's working okay would take 1000000 hour days and leave you with such useful information as there being acceptable oxygen and CO2 transfer in your lungs, which you can pretty much take for granted.
thread title changed. It does not appear to be possible to change the poll title however. edit: ok found that too.
Plus the rather larger matter of the unforseen and so-far unexplained cessation of growth that was at the root of the problem. The assumption of growth was actually quite modest. There was no great craze of irrational spending: the gap was so big because actual growth fell so far short of even that modest expectation.
In short, it was a lack of prophecy of any kind, self-fulfilling or otherwise, that got us into this pickle. All the market gambling contributed was its transient response: pre- and post-plummet ringing. Nation states are slower, so it will be some time before we see where all this takes us.
Hedge fund managers, cast as evil masters of the self-fulfilling prophecy, pleaded their case very well. In proportion to their success, they provided invaluable feedback, as you say, and saved the day.
I fancy all revolutionary progress is self-fulfilling prophecy.
Take the common notion of "great leader", whether it be in science, marketing, politics, whatever. A problem with the notion is that a leader clearly has to be in the right place at the right time, and so circumstance might just as easily take the credit. Take Einstein for example. How did he manage to be where and when he was? To be truly great, rather than merely chosen by history, he must have seen a new future and convinced others to go in that direction. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
The obvious example, probably the biggest ever, would be The Communist Manifesto. Self-fulfilling prophecy is perhaps the hope of all propaganda.
Arguably, of course, the future would happen anyway, by some other means. It's just that real prophecy reduces the need for feedback, and might relieve us of painful phase error.
Take the common notion of "great leader", whether it be in science, marketing, politics, whatever. A problem with the notion is that a leader clearly has to be in the right place at the right time, and so circumstance might just as easily take the credit. Take Einstein for example. How did he manage to be where and when he was? To be truly great, rather than merely chosen by history, he must have seen a new future and convinced others to go in that direction. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
The obvious example, probably the biggest ever, would be The Communist Manifesto. Self-fulfilling prophecy is perhaps the hope of all propaganda.
Arguably, of course, the future would happen anyway, by some other means. It's just that real prophecy reduces the need for feedback, and might relieve us of painful phase error.
I think things are pretty positive despite the news. This TED talk demonstrates:
Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future | Video on TED.com
And he goes into much more detail in his popular book "Abundance."
There's also this book, which I haven't read but it has some interesting claims:
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined: Steven Pinker: 9780670022953: Amazon.com: Books
Do I believe self-fulfilling prophecy exists and that people can be influenced by their beliefs? Yes, but such beliefs generally don't completely control one's life.
Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future | Video on TED.com
And he goes into much more detail in his popular book "Abundance."
There's also this book, which I haven't read but it has some interesting claims:
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined: Steven Pinker: 9780670022953: Amazon.com: Books
Do I believe self-fulfilling prophecy exists and that people can be influenced by their beliefs? Yes, but such beliefs generally don't completely control one's life.
Self-fulfilling prophecies may appear to work for a while. If 'a while' exceeds about 5 years (the maximum attention span of politicians and senior managers) then people begin to believe that they are self-evidently true. Eventually the reality of arithmetic, physics or morality bites back and everyone seems surprised when the whole thing collapses quite quickly. At this point some people will say "I told you so", and it will be found (but often denied) that at least some of them did indeed say so but they were ignored or insulted.
I have just started reading "Wilful Blindness: why we ignore the obvious at our peril" by Margaret Heffernan.
I have just started reading "Wilful Blindness: why we ignore the obvious at our peril" by Margaret Heffernan.
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