Category: Politic

Shaping Our Future

Language Development, Scientific Thinking, and Human Independence

October 19, 2026

The better we understand our history, the better we understand how things work. And the better we understand how things work, the better equipped we become to shape our future.

But how much do we really know about ourselves?

How many of us understand that our evolutionary ancestors existed for millions of years before the emergence of language based on meaningful words?

How many of us understand that the development of language represented one of the most consequential turning points in human evolution?

And how many of us have ever seriously investigated the extraordinary role language has played in transforming human existence?

These are not insignificant questions. They are fundamental questions about who we are, how we became who we are, and what we are capable of becoming.

1. Before Language, and After Language

Animals communicate. Our evolutionary ancestors communicated long before the emergence of the sophisticated linguistic systems that characterize human societies today.

But communication and language are not necessarily the same thing.

The emergence of meaningful words fundamentally transformed the possibilities of human existence.

Through language, human beings progressively developed the capacity to describe events beyond their immediate surroundings, preserve experiences, transmit knowledge across generations, construct explanations, formulate hypotheses, and organize collective action around imagined futures.

Language did not create every form of intelligence or learning. But it dramatically expanded humanity’s capacity to understand, predict, plan, and transform its environment.

Consider the numbers. Our species, Homo sapiens, is about 300,000 years old. Genetic studies suggest that the capacity for language was present at least 135,000 years ago, and human beings have been speaking to one another for at least 100,000 years. Writing, by contrast, appeared only about 5,200 years ago. If the history of our species were compressed into a single day, writing would appear at about 11:35 p.m., and the printing press less than three minutes before midnight.

Then came a second turning point. More than 5,000 years ago, in Mesopotamia, human beings invented writing. Unlike speech, which every child acquires from the community around them without formal instruction, writing is a technology. It must be deliberately taught, and when a society stops teaching it, it can disappear, as it did in Greece for roughly four centuries after 1200 BCE. The first writing was used to count grain, record taxes, and track debts. It was an external memory. Later, it preserved myths, epics, and sacred texts, in which fiction and history were often blended.

A third turning point came with the printing press and the scientific revolution, about four centuries ago. Writing became more disciplined: shared definitions, standardized spelling, and precise terminology allowed scientists to record observations, replicate experiments, and build on one another’s work across distances and generations. Writing freed knowledge from the limits of a single human memory.

But that precision has remained largely the privilege of those who read and write at a high level. As recently as 1820, only about 12% of the world’s population could read, and by 1900, barely 21%. As we will see, a fourth turning point may now be within reach.

Think about that!

If language played such a fundamental role in transforming humanity’s evolutionary trajectory, why is advanced language development not among the highest priorities of every educational system on Earth?

Why do we spend so much time teaching people what to say, what to remember, and what to believe, while often devoting insufficient attention to teaching them how to examine the meanings of words, investigate propositions, and discriminate between competing explanations?

2. Language Development Is More Than Speaking

Having the ability to speak does not necessarily mean having a highly developed language repertoire.

A person may possess thousands of words and still lack the conceptual understanding necessary to evaluate what those words represent.

Consider words such as:

Freedom. Liberty. Free will. Truth. Justice. Democracy. Rights. Beliefs. Morality. Well-being.

How many people use these words every day without being able to define them precisely?

How many defend ideas they have never critically examined?

How many make consequential decisions based on concepts whose meanings, implications, and practical consequences they have never investigated?

And how many believe they are exercising independent judgment when their responses are largely influenced by verbal environments constructed and reinforced by others?

This is where language development becomes a fundamental question of human independence.

The objective is not merely to acquire more words. It is to develop increasingly sophisticated repertoires for understanding meanings, identifying relationships, evaluating evidence, and discriminating among the conditions and consequences those words represent.

Without these abilities, individuals become more vulnerable to misinformation, unsupported assertions, and manipulation.

3. When Language Becomes an Instrument of Manipulation

Consider a phenomenon that continues to characterize human societies in the twenty-first century.

Highly educated religious authorities may use sophisticated language, philosophical arguments, and even scientific terminology to present literal creation narratives as established historical or scientific facts.

Some continue to teach that the universe, Earth, living organisms, and human beings were created within six literal days.

Yet extensive evidence from cosmology, geology, genetics, archaeology, and evolutionary biology contradicts such a chronology.

It is worth understanding how such beliefs arose. For most of human history, our ancestors faced the sun, the rain, the stars, illness, and death without any knowledge of their causes. Human beings readily detect intention and agency in the world around them, so explaining these forces through powerful beings made complete sense. It was a reasonable response to the evidence available at the time, not a failure of intelligence.

Today, the situation is different. Every phenomenon that has been carefully investigated has turned out to have a natural explanation, and no supernatural claim has withstood rigorous testing. The questions that remain unanswered, such as the origin of the universe or the nature of consciousness, are reasons to investigate, not gaps to fill with the supernatural.

The issue is not whether someone has the right to believe a religious narrative.

Freedom of religion protects the right to hold and express religious beliefs. It does not establish the empirical truth of those beliefs.

A religious narrative may have theological, symbolic, philosophical, or cultural significance. But presenting an account as a scientifically established historical event requires evidence appropriate to that claim.

How is humanity helped when individuals are taught to accept unsupported empirical assertions as demonstrated facts?

How is humanity helped when children are not systematically taught to distinguish fiction from nonfiction, theological propositions from scientific explanations, or personal convictions from empirically supported conclusions?

How can people shape their future if they have not developed the repertoires necessary to investigate the explanations they inherit?

These questions are not attacks on the right to believe.

They are questions about which claims can count as established facts, and about the conditions necessary for intellectual independence.

4. The Scientific Community Reveals Something Even More Important

Consider an observation frequently discussed by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

A 1998 survey of members of the United States National Academy of Sciences found that approximately 7% of responding scientists expressed belief in a personal God.

Many would emphasize the 93% who did not. Dr. Tyson asks a more revealing question: among the most accomplished scientists in the nation, why is the figure not zero?

The 7% demonstrates that advanced scientific expertise and religious belief can coexist within the same individual.

But it also raises a more fundamental behavioral question:

Does the acquisition of highly developed scientific repertoires in one domain necessarily produce scientific discrimination across every other domain of human life?

Apparently not.

A scientist may demonstrate extraordinary analytical abilities when investigating physical phenomena while continuing to maintain religious beliefs acquired through an entirely different learning history.

The question is sharper than it may first appear. A personal God, as commonly described, acts in the world: answering prayers, performing miracles, intervening in human affairs. Those are claims about events, and claims about events are precisely what scientific methods are designed to evaluate. By the standard this essay defends, such a belief is irrational: it is not based on objective evidence. It is maintained by a learning history, not by data. This is not a judgment of anyone’s character or intelligence. It is evidence that the same standard of evaluation has not been applied across every domain.

Above all, the phenomenon illustrates something essential:

The development of sophisticated language and scientific repertoires does not guarantee that those repertoires will generalize across all situations.

And that is precisely why systematic training in conceptual discrimination, evidence evaluation, and scientific reasoning is so important.

5. Political Behavior: When Words Pull Votes Away From Stated Preferences

Now consider political behavior.

Let me state my own standard openly: I support whatever the evidence shows will benefit the great majority, beginning with those who have the least. That is a value commitment, not neutrality. What I ask of every reader, and of myself, is to apply that standard through evidence, not labels.

Millions of Americans express support for policies associated with progressive political agendas, including expanded healthcare coverage, affordable education, and stronger economic protections.

Yet their electoral decisions do not always correspond to those expressed policy preferences.

Consider Bernie Sanders and his proposals for healthcare, education, wages, and economic inequality.

Or consider Florida in 2020. Voters approved a $15 minimum wage, a policy Sanders had long championed, with about 61% of the vote. Yet the same electorate also chose the presidential candidate whose party opposed raising the federal minimum wage to $15. Stated preference and vote, side by side.

Whether a particular policy benefits an individual must be established through careful analysis, not political affiliation. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between people’s stated policy preferences and their electoral behavior raises important questions.

Why might someone support a particular policy but reject it when associated with a political label?

Consider the word SOCIALISM.

A person may support public education, Social Security, Medicare, and other publicly financed programs while reacting negatively to a proposal described as socialist.

Why?

What behavioral histories have established the functions of that word?

What happens when the emotional response to a political label becomes more influential than an examination of the policy’s actual consequences?

The same process operates across the political spectrum. Words such as “GMO” or “nuclear” can trigger strong rejection, including among many progressives, regardless of what scientific assessments have found. In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 88% of scientists in the American Association for the Advancement of Science said genetically modified foods are generally safe to eat, compared with only 37% of the general public. A label can override evidence for anyone.

The same questions arise in political campaigns involving religious language.

Consider the 2026 U.S. Senate race in Texas. Democratic candidate James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has made his faith central to his campaign. Opposing campaigns and PACs have run ads built around short clips of his past remarks on religion and gender, in one case using an AI-generated likeness of him. Talarico has acknowledged that some of his past comments “missed the mark,” while his campaign argues that others were stripped of context. Talarico, in turn, has run an ad accusing his opponent of violating some of the Ten Commandments.

Both sides are drawing on voters’ religious convictions.

When political messages invoke people’s previously established religious beliefs to influence their evaluation of a candidate, an important behavioral process may occur.

Instead of examining a candidate’s proposals, qualifications, and anticipated policy consequences, individuals may respond primarily to religious associations evoked by the political message.

Of course, religious convictions can legitimately inform political preferences. The concern arises when statements are distorted, context is removed, or emotional associations replace accurate information.

The scientific question is not whether people should support a particular politician. It is whether they possess the conceptual and analytical repertoires necessary to evaluate political propositions independently of misleading verbal stimuli.

This applies to every political party, ideology, and candidate.

The issue is not whom people vote for.

The issue is whether they understand what they are voting for, what they are voting against, and the likely consequences of their decisions.

6. Artificial Intelligence: Another Turning Point in Human History

Today, humanity has developed Large Language Models (LLMs), extraordinary technological systems capable of processing and generating language at an unprecedented scale.

These systems can facilitate research, explain complex concepts, translate languages, support education, and assist with increasingly sophisticated problem-solving activities.

Yet, at the same time, hundreds of millions of human beings still lack adequate opportunities to develop advanced literacy, conceptual understanding, and scientific reasoning. UNESCO estimates that roughly 750 million adults cannot read at all.

What sense does that make?

How can we celebrate the extraordinary development of artificial intelligence while failing to prioritize the systematic development of human intellectual capabilities?

And who will benefit most from these technological advances?

Those who can formulate precise questions, evaluate explanations, identify contradictions, and discriminate between reliable and unreliable information may be better positioned to use these technologies effectively.

Others may become increasingly dependent on explanations they cannot independently evaluate.

But this outcome is not inevitable.

Artificial intelligence can also become a powerful instrument for expanding educational opportunities and developing human language repertoires.

I have been drawn to writing, to working with words and concepts, since I was a child. I have kept a personal blog since 2014, yet only about 30% of what I draft has ever been published. I also have hundreds of other texts, along with studies and research. Thanks to AI, I can now review and polish them faster, and make them more accurate, more factual, and more precise. But I do not simply accept whatever AI tells me. I am a scientist, an expert in Applied Behavior Analysis, a researcher and a writer, and I hold a PhD in Education. I use AI as a tool, and I keep full control over my work. AI never decides or dictates what I write; every suggestion passes through my own judgment. Like any other source, AI can reflect biases built into it, and it makes mistakes. AI will benefit the great majority to the extent that we learn to use it to develop the very skills this essay is about.

This may be that fourth turning point in the history of language. For thousands of years, precise knowledge has lived mainly in writing, and therefore mainly among those who read well. Today, voice technologies and artificial intelligence make it possible to bring that precision back to the spoken word, the form of language every human being already masters. English is increasingly becoming the world’s common language, but the great majority of humanity still lives, thinks, and learns in its own languages. The goal is not one universal language. It is a universal spoken culture of precision, in every language, accessible to every human being, whether or not they read well.

Consider this: of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, nearly half still have no writing system at all. Every one of them is spoken.

The fundamental question is whether we will use these technologies to expand humanity’s intellectual independence or allow existing inequalities in knowledge and critical reasoning to become even more consequential.

7. The Ability to DISCRIMINATE

This brings us to the most important concept in this entire discussion:

DISCRIMINATION!

In behavior analysis, discrimination involves responding differently under different stimulus conditions as a result of learning.

In the context of language development and scientific reasoning, increasingly sophisticated discrimination allows individuals to identify meaningful differences among concepts, propositions, evidence, and consequences.

It helps us distinguish:

  • What we know from what we merely believe.
  • What has been demonstrated from what has only been asserted.
  • A scientific explanation from an unsupported speculation.
  • A fictional narrative from an empirically documented event.
  • A correlation from a causal relationship.
  • A persuasive argument from a valid argument.
  • A political slogan from an evidence-based policy analysis.
  • A person’s conviction from the accuracy of that person’s claim.

But discrimination must be learned, practiced, reinforced, and generalized across different environments.

It does not automatically emerge simply because someone becomes older, earns academic degrees, acquires professional credentials, or develops an extensive vocabulary.

8. Can We Really Shape Our Future Without Advanced Language Development?

Our evolutionary ancestors influenced their environments long before the emergence of complex language.

But there is an extraordinary difference between influencing one’s environment through immediate behavior and deliberately constructing a future through systematic investigation, conceptual reasoning, scientific prediction, and coordinated action.

The emergence of meaningful words dramatically expanded that second capacity.

And the continued development of language, conceptual understanding, and scientific reasoning remains fundamental to expanding it further.

A person who cannot adequately evaluate competing explanations is more vulnerable to accepting conclusions supplied by others.

A person who cannot identify the practical implications of political or economic propositions may struggle to determine how those propositions relate to their interests.

A person who has not learned to distinguish evidence from assertion may become dependent on authorities whose claims have never been independently examined.

And a society that fails to systematically develop these repertoires across its population risks allowing its collective future to be disproportionately shaped by those who control information, institutions, and persuasive language.

This is not an inevitable limitation of human beings. It is an educational challenge that humanity has the capacity to address.

9. The Scientific Thinkers Circle: An Invitation to Shape Our Future

If you want to become increasingly capable of shaping your future, begin by studying one of the most consequential developments in human evolution:

LANGUAGE!

Learn about its origins.

Investigate how it develops.

Expand your vocabulary.

Study how words acquire meanings.

Learn how concepts are formed and how verbal relationships influence behavior.

Develop your ability to examine propositions, identify contradictions, evaluate evidence, and distinguish scientific explanations from unsupported assertions.

Above all:

LEARN TO DISCRIMINATE!

Not merely between words, but between the conditions, relationships, and consequences those words represent.

Because the ultimate objective of advanced language development is not simply to speak eloquently, argue persuasively, or accumulate information.

It is to understand reality more accurately, reason more effectively, make increasingly informed decisions, and participate more independently in shaping the conditions of our existence.

This is the educational vision behind the Scientific Thinkers Circle.

We are committed to making the foundations of language development, conceptual discrimination, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning understandable and accessible to every human being.

We believe that these capabilities should not remain privileges associated with academic institutions, professional credentials, or socioeconomic status.

They should become fundamental educational opportunities available to everyone.

I must also be honest about this essay itself. It is written at a high language level, and that creates a contradiction I cannot ignore. The people who most need these skills are often the least likely to read a text like this one to the end. If I write only at this level, I speak mainly to those who already have the repertoires I am advocating for.

I have seen this contradiction firsthand. I recently shared a short video in which Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and his colleagues discussed artificial intelligence in an elegant and familiar way. I asked five people to watch it and tell me what they understood. Four of them told me it seemed very interesting, but that they understood little of it, because the vocabulary and concepts were not part of their repertoire. Around the same time, I asked about a dozen leaders of the Hayti de Demain movement, committed and capable people, to translate a short French text I had written into Kreyòl. Most of them could not translate one of its central sentences. Not because they lacked intelligence, but because they had learned in a language they do not live in every day. Neither experience was a formal study. Both showed me the same thing: when the words are not part of our repertoire, the message does not reach us, however simple it may seem to the person who wrote it.

The answer comes from my own discipline. In behavior analysis, we do not demand the final behavior at the start. We begin where the learner is and reinforce each step toward the goal. That process is called shaping, and it is what we mean by shaping our future.

This essay is written for those who can carry the message further: teachers, parents, clinicians, and community leaders. The Scientific Thinkers Circle will reach everyone else in the ways people actually learn: plain-language versions of these ideas, spoken explanations, short videos and audio messages, materials in Kreyòl, Spanish, and other languages, and trained facilitators who bring these skills into schools, homes, and neighborhoods. Used well, artificial intelligence can help adapt the same message to every reader’s level and language.

This matters especially for Hayti. Our culture is largely oral. Nearly all Haytians speak Kreyòl, while only an estimated 5 to 10 percent are fluent in French, yet most of our children are still taught in French. Precise knowledge delivered in spoken Kreyòl may reach the great majority faster than any campaign that first requires them to master reading in a language they do not speak every day.

Kreyòl itself shows both the problem and the opportunity. It is a young language, born about three centuries ago in colonial Saint-Domingue. Most of its vocabulary comes from French, with contributions from African languages, from the Taíno heritage of the island’s first inhabitants, and from Spanish and English. Its standard spelling was officially adopted only in 1979. Because Kreyòl has rarely been used in science, law, or higher education, many of the words in an essay like this one have no established Kreyòl equivalent. That is not a weakness of the language itself. Every language builds its technical vocabulary by borrowing and adapting words; English took much of its own from French and Latin. Kreyòl can do the same, sounding new words the Kreyòl way and writing them consistently. Developing a writing system, a dictionary, and a scientific vocabulary once took generations and great expense. Today’s technologies can make that work faster and far less costly.

A message about language development that only the highly developed can understand would fail its own test. We intend to pass it.

Because humanity’s greatest achievement should not be measured solely by the sophistication of the technologies we create.

It should also be measured by the extent to which we develop the intellectual capabilities of the human beings who create, use, and live with those technologies.

And now, as artificial intelligence introduces another major transformation in human history, we face a fundamental responsibility:

To ensure that human intellectual development advances alongside technological development.

We can learn to question.

We can learn to investigate.

We can learn to discriminate.

We can learn to understand.

And through these capabilities, we can become increasingly effective participants in shaping our present and constructing our future.

Michael Jackson called on all of us, in his song “Heal the World,” to build a better world for everyone. That is the collective consciousness we are working to develop: one powerful enough to transform how humans live on Earth.

THE FUTURE SHOULD NOT SIMPLY HAPPEN TO US. WE SHOULD DEVELOP THE CAPABILITIES TO SHAPE IT.

WILL YOU JOIN US?

Dr. Ash

Scientific Thinkers Circle

Shaping Our Future Through Language Development, Scientific Thinking, and Human Independence.

SHAME ON THOSE CHRISTIANS!!!

SHAME on THOSE CHRISTIANS!!!

When I was a child, I learned that a Christian is someone who will defend the truth, someone that keeps his words once he has enunciated them. My teachers taught me that a Christian should not be a POLITICIAN because POLITICIANS are renowned for being “LIARS and FAKE.” I do not have any problem with politicians, [one rarely finds honest ones]… My question is with those Christians who knowingly elect them while claiming they promote “good moral values”; shame on those Christians.

Today, in the US and abroad, I have discovered that some Christians are worse than politicians. Not only do they flip flop at their convenience, but they also have the nerve to keep preaching their so-called “good values and morals” …

SHAME on those Christians faking that they are pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, and protesting a movie on Netflix, when they show no concerns for making this world a better place for all. They are simply distracting you from what really matters. SHAME on THOSE! Do not listen to them, they are FAKE; even if they are your pastors, elders, priests, etc. Our fight for a Better World for All has just started. We must carry it all the way to the next generations until we as a society make it true.

THREE PERSONS – SAME GENERATION, but DIFFERENT REALITY:

John Lewis Led and participated in over 1000 protests, arrested 45 times, and is considered a world icon for defending the Rightless ones!
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, notorious for fighting for equal rights and against gender discrimination even as an Associate Justice on the supreme court, also a world icon!
Donald J Trump, like his father, lives to promote his own/social white privilege. He is known as a racist, a cheater, a liar, and a selfish who never plays by the rules, even as President.

Two of them spent their entire lifetime fighting for others’ rights, the other spent his whole life living and protecting his white privilege even if that means disregarding others’ rights. YES, between John LEWIS, Ruth GINSBURG, and Donald TRUMP, the choice could not be more straightforward for those who are able to compare and contrast.

When Christians support Donald Trump, they are destroying John Lewis’ and Ruth Ginsburg’s legacies…When Christians support Mitch McConnell, they are telling the whole world that they do not care about others’ rights to choose, to love, to live free, to be fed, to have shelter, and to get medical treatment. By the way, those are fundamental rights, human rights… and real Christians do support them.

When Christians support Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz, they tell you: It is okay to say one thing today and change it tomorrow if it fits your interests. On October 3rd, 2018, Washington Examiner reported a statement from Lindsey Graham saying: “I’ll tell you this if an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait until the next election,” And he added: “You can use my words against me,” that was two years ago. However, right after the passing of Justice RBG, shamelessly, he found new reasons to change his mind, and he tweeted: “I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.” Honesty, Integrity, Truthfulness are of no VALUE to those Christians…Shame on THEM!

When you hear those Christians talk about the “BIBLE”, remember that same Bible was used to keep women without rights, slavery ongoing, discrimination against black people, and to justify the holocaust. Same as when you hear those republicans talk about the “Constitution”, remind them that Ruth Ginsburg based all her positions on that same CONSTITUTION. It is time for these people, Republicans, and fake Christians to stop using either the bible or the US constitution to maintain and promote their own personal/social privileges, while disregarding others’ rights…

A real CHRISTIAN should always be a defensor and protector for the fatherless, the weak, the poor, the unfortunate, the immigrant, the disabled, and minorities. No REAL Christian should be too capitalist or so individualist…SHAME on THOSE who are! It is time to call them out!

A REAL CHRISTIAN should join the fight to keep John LEWIS’ legacy alive, a man that has been arrested 45 times only for defending the Rightless…VS another man (Donald Trump) that has never experienced the loss of any right.

Throughout history, Christians (knowingly or unknowingly) have always been on the wrong side of human history, (Women’s rights, rights for people living with disabilities, slavery, black discrimination, the Holocaust, etc.).  Still today, they seem to not have learned the lessons. SHAME on THOSE who should have known better today.

America, the Jungle?

America back to the Jungle state…

When the US General Attorney, Mr. Williams BARR, states during an interview at CBS, Tuesday, September 15, 2020, that universal mask mandate or lock-down is like “slavery” in the sense of taking people’s freedom away, we know we are not living the reality we wanted to believe.

When the President of the United States, Donald Trump, with the complicity of his administration, decides to hijack the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a world-renown scientific health institution in the US, to promote his alternative guidelines with respect to Covid-19, ignoring the CDC scientists’objection.


When this president, during a town hall, Tuesday, September 15, 2020, says, Mask is not so effective in preventing the spread of the virus against the well-documented view of the scientific community; And to go on stage next day to say that the CDC director made a mistake when saying the vaccine will not be ready until next year, and that mask is safer than any vaccine… Oh lord!


When all this president has done and said overtly and covertly can get the blessing of his supporters, we know for sure this is not the reality we could ever imagine we are living.

Besides, when, like never before in the US history, all these people coming out from the Trump administration talking, testifying on how terrible this president has been, how he is unfit for the job, how he doesn’t care for the people, how he dehumanizes them, and yet, his supporters, the ones with high or not so highly developed critical thinking skills keep showing that support and want eagerly to reward him with a second term, we know these times we are living in cannot be the real ones we thought.

When listening to his own voice saying how he downplayed the virus causing, as of today, close to 200 thousand deaths, lost of thousands of small businesses, schools still unable to reopen safely, and yet he had the courage to now say he never downplayed it, instead he up-played it…

When he keeps showing no concern for the ones dying daily but comparing to what the number of deaths should otherwise be, based on the previous prediction, and feels proud about it publicly…

People, when you thought you were living reality and suddenly you realize you were dreaming…It was a dream, yes, America was a dream, and I say: Thank you, Trump. Thank you very much for waking us up from that dream.
We just woke up from the dream of living in a country where reasoning, common sense, lawfulness, truthfulness, liberty, fairness, science, humanity, and more were its guiding principles. We thought we were living those things, but thanks to Trump, we are realizing it was just a dream. It was a dream because America was never really living those things, rather an aspiration, an idea for so many believing that; and Trump just told us, openly, that was a dream.

The guy openly tells us and shows us who he is, how he thinks and how he is and the people keep liking him, and want him as their president, as the leader of this country. They did that once, and they are about to do it again. In the meantime, there is not even one institution within the US system where it is possible to stop this man. He controls them all. What does that mean?
We need to simply understand who these people are. The ones within the US system supporting him, and the ones voting for him. They are all like Trump. This is what it means. No other relevant explanation, because the braves have already come out and have told us he is not the man for this job.

How is it that we are even accepting the fact that he can rerun for President? No guidelines in the Electoral Council to disqualify him. No guidelines in the Supreme Court to disqualify him. Based on everything we know today from direct sources? Who can be the accomplices of Trump if they were not like him in those days of light, of information, of direct reporting, overwhelming evidence of his mental incapacity, his ego, his disregard for the same people who support him? His state of continuous denial of the facts, or of science whenever his personal interests are in play? Did the people read the Senate report on how Trump welcomed the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election? Did the people read the impeachment document? All these scandals around one president, his own Secretary of Defense, along many others, saying he is not fit for president?

For the first time ever, within about 4 years of his presidency, so many books coming out to tell only one story: How Trump is unfit for President and yet those like him not only chose to keep him in power but want him again for another 4 years.

Trump can promote his truth regardless of what the whole world combined says. Only what he says is true, and anyone else, whoever you maybe, if you say anything contrary to what Trump says or believes, you are wrong in the eyes of his supporters, Trump will throw you under the bus and you are wrong in the eyes of the ones who keep him in power. What makes it even worst, you may bring the overwhelming evidence with you, you are still wrong. Things only are the way Trump sees them at the time he does.

So, people, if AG Barr was able to compare the lock-down to the time of slavery, I can also draw the following with respect to what is happening in Trump America: This is not even 2000 years ago, this is 8, even 10 thousand years ago or more. This is the “JUNGLE.”

The power at the hands of the strongest, they have all the power, and whatever they say or do, has to be true, respected, and followed. That is the JUNGLE, yes America is still in the JUNGLE and we did not know that. Or we were dreaming we were not in the JUNGLE. So sad. That is so sad, America with Trump is like going back to Jungle or we have always been in the jungle believing, just dreaming that we were not there, and here comes Trump to remind us all our sad reality. There is only Trump, there is no law, there is no fairness, there is no science, there is no humanity, there are no critical thinking skills, no objective data evidence-based driven decisions except how TRUMP SEES and BELIEVES.



How to make Injustice, Discrimination, Poverty, and so on, a thing of the past? The murder of George Floyd, another stimulus to awaken the people

Today, Saturday, May 30, 2020, is a date that I remember well since it was a day like this that my father died when I was only 13 years old. I will turn 48 in just 10 days. As I am listening to young folks, to my daughter who is 14 still, the other one who is 11, I cannot stop being hopeful about the future of this world, like my father was about mine. He told me, just two days before he was gone: “I know you will be fine.” That was the last time I spoke to him.

I know there will be a better tomorrow for our world because we have come from so far. From the day when slavery was normal, conquering others’ land was normal, showing no concern for human dignity was normal, extinguishing some animals, to watching the former police officer, Mr. Derek Chauvin, kill George Floyd as if it was still normal to him, and to the other 3 police officers assisting him to commit murder while being recorded knowingly…, I cannot be more than hopeful that normal is a concept which meaning is yet to be understood.

I cannot be more than hopeful, when I watched Governor Cuomo say: “Violence is not the answer”, and then quoted Dr. King saying that “only love can drive out hate”, and later on, to watch LZ Granderson in the situation room with Wolf Blitzer respond to him saying: I always hear that in relationship with people protesting, sometimes rioters, following an act of violence. I never really hear “violence is not the answer” before that. I don’t hear it directly towards the police department.”

I cannot be more than hopeful when I watched a protester this afternoon from LA say: “The power is with the people, the power is with the numbers” and then he added: “ the truth is, it is not the people who rise up out of anger, righteous anger, who chose the path or any kind of violence, it is the state that is for centuries got on and done whatever they wanted, and then let us just protest and be critical of it.”

The truth is there is no violence that can equal the violence humanity has gone through as a whole…So whenever you hear them talk about a reaction being violent, or that it includes some violence, which we might wish weren’t, let’s take some time to ask: How is it, that we don’t hear that before, when it is still occurring from the system? How is it that people want us to believe in the so-called “normal” when it is in fact “uneasy quiet”? I heard LZ say that we don’t want normal, we want better than normal, although he clearly differentiates the term from uneasy quiet, the problem is people will still misunderstand what normal is since they never experience it throughout their whole lives.

This world has never been normal, and it is not normal. Normal will be when we make injustice, discrimination, poverty, scientific illiteracy, around the whole world, a thing of the past. We need to acknowledge that this is not normal in any way, shape, or form. The people have the real power to make that happen, and until they realize that they have the numbers to outnumber those maintaining this broken system ongoing, I am afraid it will still look unachievable. However, thanks to technology, people can feel, experience the injustice as it is taking place. And hopefully, collectively, they will come together and overturn this broken system along with all its subsequent systems.

The broken system is well represented by those 4 former police officers. Let us look at the one preventing the witnesses from getting too close to the one murdering George. His role was to make sure; no one disturbs the system. He was like a subsystem within the big system. How many are playing this role now? There is a reason why he has not been charged yet. We barely accuse the accomplices of the system. Sometimes we focus only on the perpetrator as if he would be able to it all by himself. We must accuse all of those supporting this broken system, and wanting to make us believe in the so-call “normal” or the so-call “justice is impossible”, “we will never get there” etc.

It is a pattern; we have the other two police officers helping the murderer by making sure George’s mobility is limited. How many of those we have now playing this role for the system not to be overruled, nor overturned, making sure that the people’s reaction is limited and controlled, or even manipulated.

Hopefully, technology can allow people to understand the game that is being played. Young people with high critical thinking and scientific skills are no longer buying it. Although it will take time, energy, and effort to overturn the status quo, along with its normal way of leading the world, we will surely, at some point in time, talk about injustice as a thing of the past.

When the governor of Minnesota is able to say out loud, firmly and with certainty of power behind him, that the entire weight of the United States government will be brought to restore order in Minneapolis, I can feel the fear of those playing their role in keeping this system in place. The governor had only one thing to say: Charge those 3 other officers with the evidence we have to calm people down, he could also say we are going to use the entire weight of the Federal and state government to end police and white supremacy terror, to end this injustice in the Criminal Justice that is “Abhorrent”  according to Governor Cuomo’s own description of the criminal justice in the US.

Of course, the system has its way to distract us from the cause of the problem, which is the same system, and those who infiltrated it to pursue their objectives; like those officers, who knew they were being recorded but still didn’t care, because they will find their way out. They had no fear at all, no empathy, no decency for the victim claiming, “I can’t breathe” and kept their cool even when paramedics arrived and said: “You are killing this man.” The system has its way, like always…distraction. The life of George didn’t merit the governor or the County Attorney to act quickly, claiming there was not enough evidence to bring charges against those former police officers, but yes, there is enough evidence to use the entire weight of the government to restore order. This is the way out of the system. The focus is on allowing people to protest because they have the right to do so, not because their protest matters, not because they want to follow up, but they want to restore order, their way, the system’s way.

Although we are seeing protests almost everywhere, we are still far from making injustice a thing of the past. When Dr. King said: Returning Hate for Hate multiplies Hate” and that “Only love can drive out Hate” because according to Dr. King, “Hate cannot drive out Hate”, he was day dreaming, because historically, that has never proven true. When and where has “Love” ever driven out “Hate”? To affirm this kind of statement, one must do so about some kind of overwhelming evidence. 60 years after his assassination, we still do not have any evidence of what he said as true. While I can agree that maybe hate cannot drive out hate, because of lack of evidence that supports otherwise, I must disagree with his conclusion as well. There is no such thing as Love that only can drive out Hate. Maybe he was being optimistic about an idea or a belief that he had about “Love and Hate”.

The point here is, Dr. King said it, and because of what he meant for the civil rights movement (obviously after his assassination), it must be true. And others are quoting him, conveniently I shall say. We need to raise the level of our understanding of the terms and concepts we use, or we repeat in the 21st century. We should not refer to human behavior (observable, measurable event) because of some internal/spiritual/magical power call Love or Hate. We should study human behaviors as they are, the result of effect of some identifiable variables in their environment. I do not know if there is hate or love in people’s heart, and I do not care. I need to understand and look at how people behave and look for the why but objectively. Talking about love or hate is, merely put, subjective. Finding the Functions of any type of human behavior, and act upon those facts to promote and create behavior change is so far, based on evidence, the right thing to do, objectively talking.

Although we are talking about a systemic problem, we should clarify that the system does not behave. However, the ones working for the system, behave. They behave a certain way because those behaviors have been reinforced, one way or any other way. The behavior of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer, who is now charged with third degree murder, has been reinforced in the past through the system. The structure of the system is reinforcing to the behaviors of those in it.

The system is reinforcing Donald Trump’s behaviors, and he is the President of the United States. He reinforces the behaviors of Derek Chauvin, as well as the other 3 former police officers along with the thousands that keep behaving the same way. The protests, alone, have not been able to shape the structure of the system, in the sense that it does and clearly include aversive consequences to those behaviors. The protests are not part of a systematic approach, they are sporadic, and they evaporate quickly. We need more than just protests! If we keep being emotional, sporadic, we are simply being played, meaning, the system is the one controlling our behaviors. In other words, the system is also reinforcing our passiveness most of the times.

But, again, this is a pattern from far and almost everywhere in the human society.  A thorough approach is needed from the people, the system has proven its inability to restructure itself from the inside. Keep in mind, that the system, is a whole, every single institution that is part of it, is playing the sole role to preserve it. Numerous Non-Governmental Organizations are accomplices. Other Associations, Fundations, as well. Religions play a major role. This is where it gets the most out of its stability, because, religions’ views or beliefs, keep people busy thinking about GOD and gods. They distract people from developing scientific thinking, they are not sporadic, they are constant, they even became a way of being for most people still in my generation.

Nevertheless, I cannot be more than hopeful, the millennials, the Y generations are divorcing from almost everything we inherited from our ancestors, mostly their belief systems. Obviously, this is becoming more real every day after, thanks to technology. They are convinced by evidences, objective truth, not by dogmas or subjective views about the world, the universe, life, etc. They are showing the entire world that they have the power to change its course.  However, the ones in the system, are also making sure this does not happen. Just imagine, how the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is pushing people to go to Church amid the Pandemic Covid-19. Trump is the representation of the Status quo. He works for the system that has always protected his interests. Once he was out physically, but he was still manipulating those working in it. Now he became the Executive Chief, he can really do whatever he wants as he, himself, said. And make no mistake, he is not alone.  He did not get there by himself, and if he is still president, it is because he has a lot of accomplices. They are doing their work as well to keep things the way they are.

Now, let us look at the big picture of the state of the world. Yes, we want black lives, all lives to matter in the US and around the world, but this is simply a tiny aspect of the big picture. By focusing on it, every time there is an overwhelming violation, like the most recent one in Minneapolis, we are playing the game of the system. Occasionally, those things will happen, and we want to make sure there are protocols in place to take care of them. But, to get there, we cannot lose focus on the big picture, the real state of the world. We need to start a permanent movement that will end when Injustice, Discrimination, Scientific illiteracy, Poverty, are only mentioned in the history books our grandkids will be reading, or from the memory of those who live after it ended to tell it to their kids.

While we watched on video the murder of George Floyd by an unworried man, along with his accomplices, thousands are being dead away from the cameras of our smartphones, millions are being killed because of hunger, non-access to health care, etc. While we successfully watched SpaceX along with NASA launching the First-Ever Human Rocket Launch to International space, which was exciting and encouraging, in the US soil, 40 million Americans are living in poverty. The system is reinforcing to those that lead it, and they are not the majority.

The power is with the majority, the power is with the numbers, the power is with the people. And those working for the system are afraid that you know just that. We must overturn the system and design it the way it works best for the majority, meaning, “normal”. And for that to happen, we need not only to outnumber those whose behaviors are maintained by the system but most importantly, we need to outsmart them. We need to use technology to do so. Technology to spread not only the news but mainly knowledge. We need to spread scientific thinking so that we, the people, be part of the change of our reality, and proactively. Being proactive means to reach full control of the system, through a thorough approach that is conceived and implemented on evidence-based.

This implies looking back at the basis of the legal system. What makes a law, normal? So many laws are in place just to protect the system, so we need people with critical thinking skills combined with scientific thinking to review the philosophy, the objectives behind so many laws in our legal system. That goes from the global legal world view to the office of the mayor in the city, to the school in the community, to the traffic system. Some attempts have been made with the Justice Reform initiative by President Obama, but what has the Trump administration done with it? They took us back. Do the People know that information? Have the people read the final report on 21st Century Policing, submitted in May 2015? Did the people know that this Reform could be compromised if they elected Trump? When the governor of New York publicly acknowledged today that the Nation’s history of discrimination and racism are dated back to hundreds of years, I fully appreciate his honesty as governor. And when he said: “I share the outrage at injustice”, I could not be more than hopeful. However, when he added that violence is not the answer, never is…and then quoted Dr. King; then I realized we could be in this circle another hundred years. Like everyone who commented on his statement, violence was the answer then, how is it that it is not the answer today? And by the way, there is this paradox here- isn’t violence what keeps this system in place? Because, when the governor of Minnesota said he is going to send the national guard out, isn’t that a form of violence? Or does violence only occur when civilians are protesting, or anything that doesn’t come from those in the system? When Trump tweeted “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” isn’t that violence? I am going to have to return on the question of what is or is not violence.

Again, let us go back to reality. For example, I share the passion to go to Mars. I, myself, would like to go there one day, but I share double, triple passion to see this world a better place for all of us, living beings and living things, included but not limited to the ones very smart, with high IQ,, low IQ, as well as the ones with severe developmental disabilities. The people have the sole power to make this world a better place. They first need to be aware of that. Second, they must learn how to use that power to make that happen effectively. That is the reason why they need to have access to scientific knowledge and technology. Third and lastly, they need to decide to make it happen and act accordingly.

And then, only then, we will make injustice, discrimination, poverty, scientific illiteracy… each one, a thing of the past.

How will the world look like when unlike it is now in America we have about or less than 1 out 3 non college graduated people?

Oh Yeah, just wait for it: 1/3 Americans or a just little more are college graduated, meaning 2/3 are not. What does it mean when 2/3 of a population are non college graduated folks?

It means they do not know what science is. Much less do they know about facts as the main driven good decisions making. These people have not achieved high critical thinking skills, thus, they base their decisions on superficial explanations, on emotions or feelings. These people are easily manipulated, misled. That is exactly how in 2016, America elected Donald Trump as their president, and most likely he will be reelected in 2020.

Conservative Populist Republicans in America are the best storytellers for promoting alternative reality to non college graduated folks. For example, just watch Fox News from 7 to 11 PM weekdays and compare their behaviors to the 8 years of Obama presidency.

On November 21, 2019 (Yesterday), Ron Brownstein, a senior editor at “The Atlantic” published the most exhaustive article I have ever read: “Trump’s War on Expertise is only intensifying.”

In his article, Brownstein wrote: “As an array of career diplomatic and military officials offer damning testimony against Trump—a procession that will continue today with the appearance of former National Security Council adviser Fiona Hill—the GOP is reprising arguments from 20th-century conservative populists that portray experts as untrustworthy and contemptuous elites out to subvert the will of ordinary Americans. The challenge Trump faces is that such attacks may backfire among the growing number of Americans with advanced degrees, a population that is now much larger than when such conservative firebrands as Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace wielded  similar arguments decades ago.”

This war has been going on since day one of humanity, and for the last 10 thousand years, it is still on. Although in certain civilizations, it doesn’t have significant power precisely because the trend shows a different path than the one conservative populist republicans still promote here in America, like it is the case in the third world countries.

Also Ron Brownstein added: “When, in 1952, McCarthy attacked the State Department’s “bright young men” with “the finest college education,” only about one in 14 American adults older than 25 held a college degree, according to census figures; by the time Wallace ran as a third-party candidate 16 years later, the number was nearly one in 10.Now more than one in three adults holds a college degree. That means more Americans than ever are earning their living at least partly with the knowledge and skills they have acquired through study, like the experts Trump ridicules and marginalizes.”

So, if Democrats want to take back the power (Congress, Senate and Executive) in 2020, they need to understand that data works against them: 1) 1/3 is not the majority, and still some within this group don’t automatically embrace Democrats views and 2) 2/3 will not use critical thinking skills (most of them of course) to make their decisions. Democrats did great in 2018, however 2020 is a different road. They must be able to create a coalition similar to Obama’s in 2008 according to Senator Harris during the presidential debate held on last Wednesday, november 20, 2019.

I witnessed the republicans defending Trump on the Mueller Report, Ukraine impeachment along with all other misbehavior/wrongdoings he has shown just being president and I keep asking myself the same questions many others are still asking like Ron Brownstein when he wrote “ Just how far will Republicans go for Trump?” in The Atlantic (November 14, 2019).

It could seem outrageous if I didn’t understand clearly what is going on. Republicans will go as far they can to support Trump as they went to show how much they hated Barack Obama. Trump is everything they really are. Trump is the manifestation of what Republicans deep inside are. Do you forget how far they wanted to go to destroy Obama? Since day one, their minority leader publicly said they will do everything they could to make the Obama presidency a failure and guess what? That is exactly what they did during 8 long years. They never supported Obama.

one has to be out of mind to even dream that conservative republicans will give up on Trump. When Trump said he could shoot someone in 5th Ave, New York and walk away, he knew what he was saying, republicans will save him, because he knows them, he knows their thinking, their belief systems. Donald Trump has been proven right so far.

Democrats nowadays as well as Democrats back then would give up on their president if Obama, Clinton had done just 25% of what Trump has done, or maybe, Republicans nowadays would if Democrats never had Obama as their president. In order to destroy Obama’s legacy, since they couldn’t fail his presidency, anything is acceptable, justifiable, even Trump the way he is.

During this impeachment inquiry, Republican Congressmen Nunez, Jordan, Castor and others showed no shame at all in defending the “defenseless”. The only reason why they did so, they know that 2/3 of Americans don’t have critical thinking skills. Even if they watch Dr. Hill reading her opening statement or answering republican questions powerfully, they are unable to understand the level of crime, abuse of power, Trump has committed as president. Even though they heard Ambassador Sondland said clearly “everyone was in the loup and it was no secret, Yes there was Quid Pro Quo”; even though they heard and saw Lt Col Vindman said to his dad: “Everything will be fine for telling the truth”. What we see as obvious because we use critical thinking skills to understand that everything Trump does connects him to Russia more than America…2/3 of Americans can’t see it.

And the game goes on… Trump will find a way to play the republican senators and convince them not to worry because he knows that about 2/3 of Americans not only forget easily but don’t have high critical thinking skills to understand what experts say, what science says. Guess what? These Republican senators will simply fall in Trump circle. He really knows how to manipulate them. History will remind us what Democrats stood for in 2020 and how these senators gave up on their oath to protect the constitution of America against all.

In the same article by Ron Brownstein, he reported that professor Donald F. Kettl, an expert in public management and public policy told him Trump is not supported by conservative intellectuals or the traditional republican party unlike the conservative populists.

The question Chairman Schiff asked yesterday about congress republicans back then versus now has a simple answer: Back then, Conservative intellectuals in any party will put evidence, facts before their own political benefits, but today, conservative populist republicans understand the game and they don’t care about moral, values, the rule of law…whenever they don’t personally or politically benefit from them. Conservative populist republicans are still using the fact that about 2/3 of Americans are scientifically illiterate in their favor.

It is about time that experts voices will be heard, understood and followed. It is about time that most 2/3 of Americans will be college graduated folks. It is about time that people will no longer base their decisions on superficial explanations, on alternative reality. This is true as well for Democrats that have exploited this level of ignorance, this level of scientific illiteracy to only benefit themselves. It is about time that either independents, republicans or democrats will behave according to facts in order to get the majority of people’s vote.