The Harrowing Panic of 1907

The Panic of 1907 – also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis – was a United States financial crisis that took place over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. Primary causes of the run included a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks and a loss of confidence among depositors, exacerbated by unregulated side bets at bucket shops. The panic was triggered by the failed attempt in October 1907 to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When this bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company—New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks.

                                             Wall Street during the panic in October, 1907

The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. This highlighted the impotence of the nation's Independent Treasury system, which managed the nation's money supply, yet was unable to inject liquidity back into the market. By November, the financial contagion had largely ended, only to be replaced by a further crisis. This was due to the heavy borrowing of a large brokerage firm that used the stock of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Collapse of TC&I's stock price was averted by an emergency takeover by Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation—a move approved by anti-monopolist president Theodore Roosevelt. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

J.P. Morgan

When the chaos began to shake the confidence of New York's banks, the city's most famous banker was out of town. J. P. Morgan, the eponymous president of J.P. Morgan & Co., was attending a church convention in Richmond, Virginia. Morgan was not only the city's wealthiest and most well-connected banker, but he had experience with other similar financial crises—he had helped rescue the U.S. Treasury during the Panic of 1893. As news of the crisis gathered, Morgan returned to Wall Street from his convention late on the night of Saturday, October 19. The following morning, the library of Morgan's brownstone at Madison Avenue and 36th St. had become a revolving door of New York City bank and trust company presidents arriving to share information about (and seek help surviving) the impending crisis.

Morgan and his associates examined the books of the Knickerbocker Trust and decided it was insolvent, so they did not intervene to stop the run. Its failure, however, triggered runs on even healthy trusts, prompting Morgan to take charge of the rescue operation. On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 22, the president of the Trust Company of America asked Morgan for assistance. That evening Morgan conferred with George F. Baker, the president of First National Bank, James Stillman of the National City Bank of New York (the ancestor of Citibank), and the United States Secretary of the Treasury, George B. Cortelyou. Cortelyou said that he was ready to deposit government money in the banks to help shore up their deposits. After an overnight audit of the Trust Company of America showed the institution to be sound, on Wednesday afternoon Morgan declared, "This is the place to stop the trouble, then."

As a run began on the Trust Company of America, Morgan worked with Stillman and Baker to liquidate the company's assets to allow the bank to pay depositors. The bank survived to the close of business, but Morgan knew that additional money would be needed to keep it solvent through the following day. That night he assembled the presidents of the other trust companies and held them in a meeting until midnight, when they agreed to provide loans of $8.25 million to allow the Trust Company of America to stay open the next day. On Thursday morning Cortelyou deposited around $25 million into a number of New York banks. John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man in the United States, deposited a further $10 million in Stillman's National City Bank. Rockefeller's massive deposit left the National City Bank with the deepest reserves of any bank in the city. To instill public confidence, Rockefeller phoned Melville Stone, the manager of the Associated Press, and told him that he would pledge half of his wealth to maintain U.S. credit.

Despite the infusion of cash, the banks of New York were reluctant to make the short-term loans they typically provided to facilitate daily stock trades. Prices on the exchange began to crash, owing to the lack of funds to finance purchases. At 1:30 p.m. Thursday, October 24, Ransom Thomas, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, rushed to Morgan's offices to tell him that he would have to close the exchange early. Morgan was emphatic that an early close of the exchange would be catastrophic.

Morgan summoned the presidents of the city's banks to his office. They started to arrive at 2 p.m.; Morgan informed them that as many as 50 stock exchange houses would fail unless $25 million was raised in 10 minutes. By 2:16 p.m., 14 bank presidents had pledged $23.6 million to keep the stock exchange afloat. The money reached the market at 2:30 p.m., in time to finish the day's trading, and by the 3 o'clock market close, $19 million had been loaned out. Disaster was averted. Morgan usually eschewed the press, but as he left his offices that night he made a statement to reporters: "If people will keep their money in the banks, everything will be all right".

Friday, however, saw more panic on the exchange. Morgan again approached the bank presidents, but this time was only able to convince them to pledge $9.7 million. In order for this money to keep the exchange open, Morgan decided the money could not be used for margin sales. The volume of trading on Friday was 2/3 that of Thursday. The markets again narrowly made it to the closing bell.

Morgan, Stillman, Baker and the other city bankers were unable to pool money indefinitely. Even the U.S. Treasury was low on funds. Public confidence needed to be restored, and on Friday evening the bankers formed two committees—one to persuade the clergy to calm their congregations on Sunday, and second to explain to the press the various aspects of the financial rescue package. Europe's most famous banker, Lord Rothschild, sent word of his "admiration and respect" for Morgan. In an attempt to gather confidence, the Treasury Secretary Cortelyou agreed that if he returned to Washington it would send a signal to Wall Street that the worst had passed.

To ensure a free flow of funds on Monday, the New York Clearing House issued $100 million in loan certificates to be traded between banks to settle balances, allowing them to retain cash reserves for depositors. Reassured both by the clergy and the newspapers, and with bank balance sheets flush with cash, a sense of order returned to New York that Monday.

Unbeknownst to Wall Street, a new crisis was being averted in the background. On Sunday, Morgan's associate, George Perkins, was informed that the City of New York required at least $20 million by November 1 or it would go bankrupt. The city tried to raise money through a standard bond issue, but failed to gather enough financing. On Monday and again on Tuesday, New York Mayor George McClellan approached Morgan for assistance. In an effort to avoid the disastrous signal that a New York City bankruptcy would send, Morgan contracted to purchase $30 million worth of city bonds.

Although calm was largely restored in New York by Saturday, November 2, yet another crisis loomed. One of the exchange's largest brokerage firms, Moore & Schley, was heavily in debt and in danger of collapse. The firm had borrowed heavily, using shares of the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. With the value of the thinly traded stock under pressure, many banks would likely call the loans of Moore & Schley on Monday and force an en masse liquidation of the firm's stock. If that occurred it would send TC&I shares plummeting, devastating Moore and Schley and triggering further panic in the market.

To avert the collapse of Moore & Schley, Morgan called an emergency conference at his library Saturday morning. A proposal was made that the U.S. Steel Corporation, a company Morgan had helped form through the merger of the steel companies of Andrew Carnegie and Elbert Gary, would acquire TC&I. This would effectively save Moore & Schley and avert the crisis. The executives and board of U.S. Steel studied the situation and offered to either loan Moore & Schley $5 million, or buy TC&I for $90 a share. By 7 p.m. an agreement had not been reached and the meeting adjourned.

By then, Morgan was drawn into another situation. There was deep concern that the Trust Company of America and the Lincoln Trust might fail to open on Monday due to continuing runs by depositors. On Saturday evening 40–50 bankers gathered at the library to discuss the crisis, with the clearing-house bank presidents in the East room and the trust company executives in the West room. Morgan and those dealing with the Moore & Schley situation moved to the librarian's office. There Morgan told his counselors that he would agree to help shore up Moore & Schley only if the trust companies would work together to bail out their weakest brethren. The discussion among the bankers continued late into Saturday night but without much progress. Around midnight, J. P. Morgan informed a leader of the trust company presidents that keeping Moore & Schley afloat would require $25 million, and he would not commit those funds unless the problems with the trust companies could also be resolved. The trust company executives understood they would not receive further help from Morgan; they would have to finance any bailout of the two struggling trust companies.

At 3 a.m. about 120 bank and trust company officials assembled to hear a full report on the status of the failing trust companies. While the Trust Company of America was barely solvent, the Lincoln Trust Company was probably $1 million short of what it needed to cover depositor accounts. As discussion ensued, the bankers realized that Morgan had locked them in the library and pocketed the key to force a solution, the sort of strong-arm tactic he had been known to use in the past. Morgan then entered the talks and advised the trust companies that they must provide a loan of $25 million to save the weaker institutions. The trust presidents were still reluctant to act, but Morgan informed them that if they did not it would lead to a complete collapse of the banking system. Through his considerable influence, at about 4:45 a.m. he persuaded the unofficial leader of the trust companies to sign the agreement, and the remainder of the bankers followed. Having received these commitments, Morgan allowed the bankers to go home.

On Sunday afternoon and into the evening, Morgan, Perkins, Baker and Stillman, along with U.S. Steel's Gary and Henry Clay Frick, worked at the library to finalize the deal for U.S. Steel to buy TC&I and by Sunday night had a plan for acquisition. But one obstacle remained: the anti-trust crusading President Theodore Roosevelt, who had made breaking up monopolies a focus of his presidency.

Frick and Gary traveled overnight by train to the White House to implore Roosevelt to set aside the application of the Sherman Antitrust Act and allow—before the market opened—a company that already held a 60% share of the steel market to make a large acquisition. Roosevelt's secretary refused to see them, but Frick and Gary convinced James Rudolph Garfield, the Secretary of the Interior, to bypass the secretary and arrange a meeting with the president. With less than an hour before the Stock Exchange opened, Roosevelt and Secretary of State Elihu Root began to review the proposed takeover and appreciate the crash likely to ensue if the merger was not approved. Roosevelt relented; he later recalled of the meeting, "It was necessary for me to decide on the instant before the Stock Exchange opened, for the situation in New York was such that any hour might be vital. I do not believe that anyone could justly criticize me for saying that I would not feel like objecting to the purchase under those circumstances". When news reached New York, confidence soared. The Commercial & Financial Chronicle reported that "the relief furnished by this transaction was instant and far-reaching". The final crisis of the panic had been averted.

                             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907

 

What Is a "Bachelor"?

Note on Analyticity and the Definability of "Bachelor"

David Cole

Philosophy Department

University of Minnesota Duluth

February, 1999

Those who have a brief against the analytic-synthetic distinction raise problems for what seem to supporters of the distinction to be some of the clearest cases. That bachelors are unmarried seems to many to be analytically true. But to hold this seems to imply that there is a definition of "bachelor" that includes being unmarried. But critics of the analytic-synthetic distinction, such as Jerry Fodor, deny that there are true definitions (reportive, not stipulative). So there can be no definition of "bachelor". And many have noted that defining "bachelor" is not as easy as appears at first blush.

A representative line of objection is given by Michael Tye in The Imagery Debate pp. 144-5:

What, after all, is a bachelor? One answer: an unmarried male. But what of a newborn male baby? Is he a bachelor? Surely not. So, perhaps we should say that a bachelor is an unmarried male of maturity. But then what of a man who was married but is now divorced, or a man who lives in a society that does not recognize the institution of marriage? What of the pope? Is he a bachelor? What of a man who has lived with the same woman for forty years, who has had several children with her, and whose finances are interwoven with hers? Less seriously, what about the case illustrated in figure 8.4 [a Drucker cartoon of woman sitting at bar, between two male patrons, saying "I'm a bachelor myself"]

Other problem examples might include a male baboon.

It seems reasonable to hold that the concept of bachelor only is applicable against a background of the institution of marriage -- a human institution. Some men are married -- these are paradigmatically not bachelors. Women are not bachelors either, despite the cartoon. So what is about the unmarried males that makes some clearly bachelors, and raises problems for others?

Candidate, suggested by the preceding:

A bachelor is a male eligible for marriage.

The advantages of this analysis, it seems to me, are that it is simple and it rules out the cases I suspect we have the strongest intuitions don't qualify as bachlors. Better, it also provides an explanation of why some of the problematic cases are problematic. To start with, the analysis rules out the first case Tye cites, that of a newborn male. A newborn male is not eligible for marriage. Nor is a male baboon. The Pope, though male and unmarried, is not eligible for marriage. Yet I suppose this latter is contingent -- a Pope presumably could resign his office and marry. And if this became very common, if Pope's generally sloughed their pontifical robes at the turn of a skirt, then Popes might be bachelors.

With regard to the remaining Tye cases, I think they are genuinely in a gray area. We have trouble saying whether they are bachelors or not -- and the virtue of the analysis is that we have corresponding trouble saying whether they are eligible for marriage. A divorced male may or may not be regarded as eligible for marriage. His eligibility has, as it were, a cloud over it. My intuitions are that a divorced man is once again a bachelor. If your intuitions run strongly counter to this, you might wish to amend the analysis by inserting "first" before "marriage".

A man in a society that does not recognize marriage is not a bachelor, relative to that society. But he could be regarded a bachelor if he is ready and able to move into a society in which marriage is a prospect, and he is interested in getting married. He would then be eligible as a marriage partner for persons not in his current society. For example, a man who is a member of a society that does not recognize marriage, but who flies to New York in search of a marriage partner, arrives at the airport, it seems to me, a bachelor. In view of these considerations, it appears we don't know what to say to Tye's question as asked about the status of a man who is in a culture that does not recognize marriage not because the question has no answer, but because we need substantial background information. But it seems to me that our uncertainty substantially dissipates if we have the information I have indicated.

Finally, with respect to the man who appears to be in a common-law marriage, I would think it reasonable to hold that if he is committed to that relationship, he is not a bachelor. His eligibility is near zero. But if he is on the prowl, and ready and willing to end the relationship, he might be regarded to be a bachelor -- though again, one with some of the cloud of the divorced.

Problems for this account:

This account makes "eligible bachelor" pleonastic. And it may make "confirmed bachelor" contradictory -- a confirmed bachelor is not willing to enter marriage, which counts against his eligibility.

I suspect "eligible bachelor" is often used with intensifiers and degree indicators such as in "very eligible bachelor", "some of the most eligible bachelors". Constuctions like this sometimes tolerate degrees of pleonism, as in "very elderly elder", "very wise sage", etc. "Very eligible" and "most eligible", used of bachelors, seems to function as a way of indicating the high degree of suitability of the male in question as a potential marriage partner. This is certainly something worth noting, even if if involves a degree of pleonism. (It also calls attention to properties that are likely to appeal to a potential marriage partner, whereas 'bachelor's bachelor" calls attention to traits likely to appeal to other bachelor's -- the sets of traits likely have little intersection.)

Lastly, confirmed bachelors. A confirmed bachelor is one who is not interested in marriage. But the confirmed can become unconfirmed: Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady is an example. And even if disinclined, a confirmed bachelor is still eligible for marriage, as I am an eligible voter even though I am a confirmed non-voter. With Liberace, say, we may be more puzzled. Rightly so. But that may turn on contingencies of the forms of marriage recognized in a society: if Liberace's society had recognized same-sex marriage, he might have been an extremely eligible bachelor.

I conclude that bachelors are eligible males. Rules out popes and infants; leaves entangled unmarried males in where they belong and seek to be: limbo. And perhaps is an advance toward retrieving the analytic-synthetic distinction from that same place.

http://www.d.umn.edu/~dcole/bachelor.htm

Trump and Obstruction Evidence

President Donald Trump is furious with retired judge (and Fox News legal analyst) Andrew Napolitano for a television appearance in which Napolitano explains the legal process crime of obstruction of justice.  He then accuses Trump of multiple counts of obstruction based on incidents described in the redacted Mueller report which has been released.

Here’s the article explaining Trump’s fury:

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/441009-trump-foxs-napolitano-asked-me-to-pardon-his-friend-put-him-on

And here’s the four minute television spot by Napolitano explaining the crime of obstruction of justice and averring multiple counts of this crime by Trump:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/25/napolitano_why_was_president_trump_not_charged_with_obstruction_of_justice_is_the_president_above_the_law.html

Two former federal prosecutors, writing in The Daily Beast, agree with Napolitano and assert that if Trump were not president, he would already be indicted for obstruction of justice:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-trump-werent-president-he-would-already-be-charged?ref=scroll

Uncanny Experiences

The uncanny is the psychological experience of something as strangely familiar, rather than simply mysterious. It may describe incidents where a familiar thing or event is encountered in an unsettling, eerie, or taboo context.

The concept of the uncanny was perhaps first fixed by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche, which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real. The concept has since been taken up by a variety of subsequent thinkers and theorists such as Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection.

History of Studying the Concept of Uncanny

The German Idealism of F.W.J. Schelling, the writing of Friedrich Nietzche touched on the uncanny as did the psychological writings of Ernst Jentsch and a 1919 essay on “The Uncanny” by Sigmund Freud.

Related Theories

This concept is closely related to Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection, where one reacts adversely to something forcefully cast out of the symbolic order. Abjection can be uncanny in that the observer can recognize something within the abject, possibly of what it was before it was 'cast out', yet be repulsed by what it is that caused it to be cast out to begin with. Kristeva lays special emphasis on the uncanny return of the past abject with relation to the 'uncanny stranger'.

Sadeq Rahimi has noted a common relationship between the uncanny and direct or metaphorical visual references, which he explains in terms of basic processes of ego development, specifically as developed by Lacan's theory of the mirror stage. Rahimi presents a wide range of evidence from various contexts to demonstrate how uncanny experiences are typically associated with themes and metaphors of vision, blindness, mirrors and other optical tropes. He also presents historical evidence showing strong presence of ocular and specular themes and associations in the literary and psychological tradition out of which the notion of 'the uncanny' emerged. According to Rahimi, instances of the uncanny like doppelgängers, ghosts, déjà vu, alter egos, self-alienations and split personhoods, phantoms, twins, living dolls, etc. share two important features: that they are closely tied with visual tropes, and that they are variations on the theme of doubling of the ego.

Roboticist Masahiro Mori's "uncanny valley" hypothesis (describing human reactions to human-like robots) describes the gap between familiar living people and their also familiar inanimate representations, such as statues or pictures. The things in the valley are between these two poles of common phenomena. The hypothesis is deeply indebted to Jentsch and Freud's observations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny

JASON Advisory Group

JASON is an independent group of elite scientists which advises the United States government on matters of science and technology, mostly of a sensitive nature. The group was first created as a way to get a younger generation of scientists—that is, not the older Los Alamos and MIT Radiation Laboratory alumni—involved in advising the government. It was established in 1960 and has somewhere between 30 and 60 members. Its work first gained public notoriety as the source of the Vietnam War's McNamara Line electronic barrier. Although most of its research is military-focused, JASON also produced early work on the science of global warming and acid rain. Current unclassified research interests include health informatics, cyberwarfare, and renewable energy.

JASON Activities

For administrative purposes, JASON's activities are run through the MITRE Corporation, a non-profit corporation in McLean, Virginia, which operates seven Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) for the Federal Government of the United States.

JASON typically performs most of its work during an annual summer study. Its sponsors include the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Intelligence Community. Most of the resulting JASON reports are classified.

The name "JASON" is sometimes explained as an acronym, standing either for "July August September October November", the months in which the group would typically meet; or, tongue in cheek, for "Junior Achiever, Somewhat Older Now". However, neither explanation is correct; in fact, the name is not an acronym at all. It is a reference to Jason, a character from Greek mythology. The wife of one of the founders (Mildred Goldberger) thought the name given by the defense department, Project Sunrise, was unimaginative and suggested the group be named for a hero and his search.

JASON studies have included a now-mothballed system for communicating with submarines using extremely long radio waves (Project Seafarer, Project Sanguine), an astronomical technique for overcoming the atmosphere's distortion (adaptive optics), the many problems of missile defense, technologies for verifying compliance with treaties banning nuclear tests, a 1979 report describing CO₂-driven global warming, and the McNamara Line's electronic barrier, a system of computer-linked sensors developed during the Vietnam War which became the precursor to the modern electronic battlefield.

JASON Membership

JASON members, known informally as "Jasons," include physicists, biologists, chemists, oceanographers, mathematicians, and computer scientists, predominated by theoretical physicists. They are selected by current members, and, over the years, have included eleven Nobel Prize laureates and several dozen members of the United States National Academy of Sciences. All members have a wide-range of security clearances that allow them to do their work.

The founders of JASON include John Wheeler and Charles H. Townes. Other early members included Murray Gell-Mann, S. Courtenay Wright, Robert Gomer, Walter Munk, Murph Goldberger, Hans Bethe, Nick Christofilos, Fred Zachariasen, Marshall Rosenbluth, Ed Frieman, Hal Lewis, Sam Treiman, Conrad Longmire, Steven Weinberg, Roger Dashen, and Freeman Dyson.

Some additional Nobel Prize-winning members of JASON include Donald Glaser, Val Fitch, Murray Gell-Mann, Luis Walter Alvarez, Henry Way Kendall, and Steven Weinberg.

Chairmen (in chronological order)

• Marvin Leonard Goldberger (1960-1966)
• Harold Lewis (1966-1973)
• Kenneth Watson
• Edward A. Frieman
• Richard Garwin
• William Nierenberg
• William Happer (1987-1990)
• Curtis Callan (1990-1995)
• William H. Press (1995-1998)
• Steven Koonin
• Roy Schwitters (2005-2011)
• Gerald Joyce (2011-2014)
• Russell J. Hemley (2014-)

Loss of Contract

In April 2019, Jason lost its contract with the Department of Defense. On 28 March, Representative Jim Cooper (D–TN), who chairs the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, revealed that the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit based in Mclean, Virginia, that manages the Jason contract, received a letter from the Department of Defense ordering it to close up shop by 30 April.

However, on 25 April 2019 the National Nuclear Security Administration in the Department of Energy offered the group an 8 month contract that would continue to employ JASON. JASON has yet to accept the offer which would temporarily save them from disbandment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_%28advisory_group%29

Plastic that Recycles Easily

ArsTechnica has a fascinating story out about a new approach to recycling plastic.  When plastics are heated and melted for recycling, they create a stew that is different from the components as well as often being weaker and less sturdy.

But it is possible to create plastics from different monomers that are recycled through the use of strong acid rather than heat.  The different monomers can be drawn out and used for sturdy new plastic products.  See this link:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/new-type-of-plastic-is-a-recycling-dream/

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) is a standardized psychometric test of adult personality and psychopathology. Psychologists and other mental health professionals use various versions of the MMPI to help develop treatment plans; assist with differential diagnosis; help answer legal questions (forensic psychology); screen job candidates during the personnel selection process; or as part of a therapeutic assessment procedure.

The original MMPI was developed by Starke R. Hathaway and J. C. McKinley, faculty of the University of Minnesota, and first published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1943. It was replaced by an updated version, the MMPI-2, in 1989 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, and Kraemmer). A version for adolescents, the MMPI-A, was published in 1992. An alternative version of the test, the MMPI-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF), published in 2008, retains some aspects of the traditional MMPI assessment strategy, but adopts a different theoretical approach to personality test development.

History of the MMPI

The original authors of the MMPI were Starke R. Hathaway, PhD, and J. C. McKinley, MD. The MMPI is copyrighted by the University of Minnesota.

The MMPI was designed as an adult measure of psychopathology and personality structure in 1939. Many additions and changes to the measure have been made over time to improve interpretability of the original Clinical Scales. Additionally, there have been changes in the number of items in the measure, and other adjustments which reflect its current use as a tool towards modern psychopathy and personality disorders. The most historically significant developmental changes include:

• In 1989, the MMPI became the MMPI-2 as a result of a restandardization project to develop a new set of normative data representing current population characteristics; the restandardization increased the size of the normative database to include a wide range of clinical and non-clinical samples; psychometric characteristics of the Clinical Scales were not addressed at that time
• In 2003, the Restructured Clinical Scales were added to the published MMPI-2, representing a reconstruction of the original Clinical Scales designed to address known psychometric flaws in the original Clinical Scales that unnecessarily complicated their interpretability and validity, but could not be addressed at the same time as the restandardization process  Specifically, Demoralization – a non-specific distress component thought to impair the discriminant validity of many self-report measures of psychopathology – was identified and removed from the original Clinical Scales. Restructuring the Clinical Scales was the initial step toward addressing the remaining psychometric and theoretical problems of the MMPI-2.
• In 2008, the MMPI-2-RF (Restructured Form) was published to psychometrically and theoretically fine tune the measure  The MMPI-2-RF contains 338 items, contains 9 validity and 42 homogeneous substantive scales, and allows for a straightforward interpretation strategy. The MMPI-2-RF was constructed using a similar rationale used to create the Restructured Clinical (RC) Scales. The rest of the measure was developed utilizing statistical analysis techniques that produced the RC Scales as well as a hierarchical set of scales similar to contemporary models of psychopathology to inform the overall measure reorganization. The entire measure reconstruction was accomplished using the original 567 items contained in the MMPI-2 item pool. The MMPI-2 Restandardization norms were used to validate the MMPI-2-RF; over 53,000 correlations based on more than 600 reference criteria are available in the MMPI-2-RF Technical Manual for the purpose of comparing the validity and reliability of MMPI-2-RF scales with those of the MMPI-2. Across multiple studies and as supported in the technical manual, the MMPI-2-RF performs as good as or, in many cases, better than the MMPI-2.

The MMPI-2-RF is a streamlined measure. Retaining only 338 of the original 567 items, its hierarchical scale structure provides non-redundant information across 51 scales that are easily interpretable. Validity Scales were retained (revised), two new Validity Scales have been added (Fs in 2008 and RBS in 2011), and there are new scales that capture somatic complaints. All of the MMPI-2-RF's scales demonstrate either increased or equivalent construct and criterion validity compared to their MMPI-2 counterparts

Current versions of the test (MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF) can be completed on optical scan forms or administered directly to individuals on the computer. The MMPI-2 can generate a Score Report or an Extended Score Report, which includes the Restructured Clinical Scales from which the Restructured Form was later developed. The MMPI-2 Extended Score Report includes scores on the Original Clinical Scales as well as Content, Supplementary, and other subscales of potential interest to clinicians. Additionally, the MMPI-2-RF computer scoring offers an option for the administrator to select a specific reference group with which to contrast and compare an individual's obtained scores; comparison groups include clinical, non-clinical, medical, forensic, and pre-employment settings, to name a few. The newest version of the Pearson Q-Local computer scoring program offers the option of converting MMPI-2 data into MMPI-2-RF reports as well as numerous other new features. Use of the MMPI is tightly controlled. Any clinician using the MMPI is required to meet specific test publisher requirements in terms of training and experience, must pay for all administration materials including the annual computer scoring license and is charged for each report generated by computer.

Scoring and Interpretation

Like many standardized tests, scores on the various scales of the MMPI-2 and the MMPI-2-RF are not representative of either percentile rank or how "well" or "poorly" someone has done on the test. Rather, analysis looks at relative elevation of factors compared to the various norm groups studied. Raw scores on the scales are transformed into a standardized metric known as T-scores (Mean or Average equals 50, Standard Deviation equals 10), making interpretation easier for clinicians. Test manufacturers and publishers ask test purchasers to prove they are qualified to purchase the MMPI/MMPI-2/MMPI-2-RF and other tests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Multiphasic_Personality_Inventory

Nuclear Power from Thorium

Is Safe, Green Thorium Power Finally Ready for Prime Time?
By John Hewitt

December 18, 2012 -- If you’ve not been tracking the thorium hype, you might be interested to learn that the benefits liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) have over light water uranium reactors (LWRs) are compelling. Alvin Weinberg, who invented both, favored the LFTR for civilian power since its failures (when they happened) were considerably less dramatic — a catastrophic depressurization of radioactive steam, like occurred at Chernobyl in 1986, simply wouldn’t be possible. Since the technical hurdles to building LFTRs and handling their byproducts are in theory no more challenging, one might ask — where are they?

The enrichment of natural uranium is the first and perhaps most difficult step to building nuclear weapons. LWRs, which by their nature require enriched uranium, were the logical choice at the dawn of the nuclear age to develop an industry around. Richard Martin, a writer for Wired and author of Superfuel: Thorium, the Green Energy Source for the Future, summarized the argument a little more succinctly: the US abandoned thorium reactors because they didn’t produce plutonium bombs. The larger truth, of course, is a little more complex.

Today’s nuclear industry might be described as an elephant. It would be very difficult for an elephant to evolve wings (thorium) because big animals just do not evolve wings — little animals evolve wings and they in turn might evolve into bigger animals with wings. The chosen gimmick of the proto-elephant was the trunk (uranium), at first just a little one, but as elephants got larger, their trunks got really really large; it became their defining feature.

The molten salt reactor (MSR), predecessor of the LFTR, lost out to the LWR in the early ’50s for a simple reason. When Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover got wind of the possibilities of nuclear power, he wanted and got nuclear-powered submarines. Unfortunately for the MSR, sodium would react violently if it accidentally contacted water. The baby nuclear elephant would be a small machine, but light water uranium reactors, which already had a little head start, would be the technology. It also didn’t help the case for MSRs that naval and shipyard engineers were already the best in the world at working with water. They were experts at building the corrosion resistant pumps, valves, bearings and other machinery needed to utilize it. But as Martin keenly observes in Superfuel, five decades later we see that the essential element of today’s technology, pressurized water, has become its Achilles heal.

Weinberg continued to pour his efforts into a small, workable MSR to be used as a powerplant for a nuclear airplane. This was an unfortunate misdirection. In a time when there were actual plans to use nuclear technology to dam the Straight of Gibraltar and reclaim lands long ago submerged under the Mediterranean, the idea of a nuclear airplane was not so absurd. The Cold War not withstanding, in times of prevailing peace, a flying nuclear reactor cannot count its first success as managing not to crash and destroy itself. The US and Russia ran similar programs and flew test reactors on board conventional aircraft, but ultimately both projects were scrapped.

Many people think it is not too late today, to attempt put some muscle into Dumbo’s ears so to speak, and revisit the thorium reactor. Several private efforts in the US have sprung up, led by entrepreneurs who have the knowledge necessary to do so. One project undertaken by Terrapower, funded through Microsoft’s Intellectual Ventures, is trying to build a device called a travelling wave reactor. It is a little more exotic than the MSR technology from decades ago and will require considerable effort to realize. Other homegrown efforts by start-ups like Flibe Energy, Thorium Power, and Lightbridge are struggling to fund their projects without visible government support.

Flibe Energy is looking to make ends meet by exploiting the fact that LFTRs are very good at producing medical isotopes like molybdenum-99, 90% of which we currently import from Canada. Our looming medical isotope problem is irresponsible and inexcusable as these isotopes are critical to patient diagnoses and treatment. Any health care system which fails to provide for their reliable procurement will only accelerate current medical cost inflation. Transatomic is another US-based company scrapping to survive. It is now running tests using the IR-8 research reactor at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Thorium Power, based outside of Washington DC, is also working with Russian scientists to use thorium fuel — not to directly generate energy, but instead to burn surplus military plutonium.

Observing the struggle of these groups just to raise capital, one might ask how the US could possibly develop thorium power on our soil if we can’t even dig up rare earths? The reason why we can’t dig up monazite deposits which contain abundant rare earths is because the ores are “contaminated” with too much, well — thorium. Apparently regulations on handling thorium — actually a rather mild, low-alpha emitter — are restrictive to the point of being prohibitive.

Efforts to organize a strategic thorium reserve in our country for future use by someone, or anyone, have emitted a plaintive cry largely lost in a system dominated by shortsighted policy and shareholder obligation. Just as our regulatory policy guarantees China’s supremacy in rare earths, so it does for thorium. Meanwhile, that which a mining company in our country must expensively handle as radioactive waste, stabilize in concrete, and return to a landfill, China is cherishing and funding with a five-year reactor plan to the tune of half a billion dollars. The industry sentiment, “if we like foreign oil dependency, we are going to love foreign nuclear technology dependency,” needs to be taken to heart.

India has shown the greatest long term commitment to thorium power, and perhaps represents perhaps its future even more than China. In 1974 India tested a nuclear bomb made from plutonium extracted from spent reactor fuel. Governments around the world were forced to face the realty of large scale commercial reprocessing. India never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and was barred from international trade in nuclear technology until 2006. With the world’s most abundant thorium deposits, the country initiated a long-term plan to integrate thorium fuel reactors into its comprehensive nuclear strategy, and now hopes to have its first successes within a few years.

The thorium power industry today is highly dynamic. New players, like Thor Energy in Norway, can burst on the scene and capture world attention within a short time. Recently the journal Nature published a pair of noteworthy articles on thorium power. One of them noted that in spite of its obvious safety advantages, thorium is not a route to a nuclear future that is completely immune to proliferation risks. The authors detailed pathways by which thorium could in theory be transmuted into feedstock for nuclear weapons. They called on the larger community to independently corroborate their analysis and institute necessary oversights. The geopolitical implications for thorium energy demand that the US be more that a spectator of the serious sport it founded — we must also be part player, and part referee to the extent that which we still can.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/143437-uranium-killed-the-thorium-star-but-now-its-time-for-round-two

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Thorium Progress in China and India

China

At the 2011 annual conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was announced that "China has initiated a research and development project in thorium MSR technology." In addition, Dr. Jiang Mianheng, son of China's former leader Jiang Zemin, led a thorium delegation in non-disclosure talks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, and by late 2013 China had officially partnered with Oak Ridge to aid China in its own development. The World Nuclear Association notes that the China Academy of Sciences in January 2011 announced its R&D program, "claiming to have the world's largest national effort on it, hoping to obtain full intellectual property rights on the technology." According to Martin, "China has made clear its intention to go it alone," adding that China already has a monopoly over most of the world's rare earth minerals.

In March 2014, with their reliance on coal-fired power having become a major cause of their current "smog crisis," they reduced their original goal of creating a working reactor from 25 years down to 10. "In the past, the government was interested in nuclear power because of the energy shortage. Now they are more interested because of smog," said Professor Li Zhong, a scientist working on the project. "This is definitely a race," he added.

In early 2012, it was reported that China, using components produced by the West and Russia, planned to build two prototype thorium MSRs by 2015, and had budgeted the project at $400 million and requiring 400 workers." China also finalized an agreement with a Canadian nuclear technology company to develop improved CANDU reactors using thorium and uranium as a fuel.

India

India has one of the largest supplies of thorium in the world, with comparatively poor quantities of uranium. India has projected meeting as much as 30% of its electrical demands through thorium by 2050.

In February 2014, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), in Mumbai, India, presented their latest design for a "next-generation nuclear reactor" that burns thorium as its fuel ore, calling it the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AWHR). They estimated the reactor could function without an operator for 120 days. Validation of its core reactor physics was underway by late 2017.

According to Dr R K Sinha, chairman of their Atomic Energy Commission, "This will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, mostly imported, and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change." Because of its inherent safety, they expect that similar designs could be set up "within" populated cities, like Mumbai or Delhi.

India's government is also developing up to 62, mostly thorium reactors, which it expects to be operational by 2025. It is the "only country in the world with a detailed, funded, government-approved plan" to focus on thorium-based nuclear power. The country currently gets under 2% of its electricity from nuclear power, with the rest coming from coal (60%), hydroelectricity (16%), other renewable sources (12%) and natural gas (9%). It expects to produce around 25% of its electricity from nuclear power. In 2009 the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission said that India has a "long-term objective goal of becoming energy-independent based on its vast thorium resources."

In late June 2012, India announced that their "first commercial fast reactor" was near completion making India the most advanced country in thorium research." We have huge reserves of thorium. The challenge is to develop technology for converting this to fissile material," stated their former Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission. That vision of using thorium in place of uranium was set out in the 1950s by physicist Homi Bhabha. India's first commercial fast breeder reactor — the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) — is approaching completion at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu.

As of July 2013 the major equipment of the PFBR had been erected and the loading of "dummy" fuels in peripheral locations was in progress. The reactor was expected to go critical by September 2014. The Centre had sanctioned Rs. 5,677 crore for building the PFBR and “we will definitely build the reactor within that amount,” Mr. Kumar asserted. The original cost of the project was Rs. 3,492 crore, revised to Rs. 5,677 crore. Electricity generated from the PFBR would be sold to the State Electricity Boards at Rs. 4.44 a unit. BHAVINI builds breeder reactors in India.

In 2013 India's 300 MWe AHWR (pressurized heavy water reactor) was slated to be built at an undisclosed location. The design envisages a start up with reactor grade plutonium that breeds U-233 from Th-232. Thereafter, thorium is to be the only fuel. As of 2017, the design is in the final stages of validation.

Delays have since postponed the commissioning [criticality?] of the PFBR to Sept 2016, but India's commitment to long-term nuclear energy production is underscored by the approval in 2015 of ten new sites for reactors of unspecified types, though procurement of primary fissile material – preferably plutonium – may be problematic due to India's low uranium reserves and capacity for production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

Sri Lanka Easter Bombings

The 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that occurred on 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, when three Christian churches across Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital Colombo were targeted in a series of coordinated terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, there were smaller explosions at a housing complex in Dematagoda and a guest house in Dehiwala. Several cities in Sri Lanka were targeted. At least 321 people were killed, including at least 39 foreign nationals and three police officers, and at least 500 were injured in the bombings.

The church bombings were carried out during Easter services in Negombo, Batticaloa and Colombo; the hotels bombed were the Shangri-La, Cinnamon Grand, Kingsbury and Tropical Inn hotels.

According to government officials, all seven of the suicide bombers in the near-simultaneous attacks were Sri Lankan citizens associated with National Thowheeth Jama'ath, a local militant Islamist group with suspected foreign ties, previously known for attacks against Buddhists. State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene said in parliament that initial investigations have revealed that the attack was in retaliation for the attack against Muslims in Christchurch on 15 March 2019. However, analysts believe the attacks to have been planned before the Christchurch attack.

On 23 April 2019, the militant Islamic terrorism organisation, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Background

The main religions in Sri Lanka are Buddhist (70%), Hindu (13%), Muslim (10%) and Christian (7%), with 82% of the Christians being Roman Catholics. The remaining Christians are evenly split between the Anglican Church of Ceylon and other Protestant denominations.

During the 2010s, a low but persisting number of attacks and threats were made against Christian congregations and individuals, as well as other religious minorities. Anglican Bishop of Colombo Dhiloraj Canagasabey called for constitutional rights on religion to be protected. In 2018, the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL) reported a large increase in the number of attacks against Christians in the country that year. This coincided with a Supreme Court ruling against a Catholic organisation in August, which deemed that proselytism was not protected by the constitution (though individual freedom of religion remained protected).

Easter Sunday is one of Christianity's holiest days and church attendance in Sri Lanka is very high on this day.

The New York Times and AFP reported on a police chief warning security officials in an advisory ten days before the attacks of a threat to prominent churches from a radical Islamist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath. No information in this regard had been passed to the senior politicians of the country, however Minister Harin Fernando then tweeted images of an internal memo and report by the police intelligence of a terror attack planned by the leader of National Thowheeth Jama’ath, Mohammed Zahran.

This was the first time since 2009, the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, that the country had experienced a major terrorist attack.

Attacks

Christians were celebrating Easter Sunday services when the bombings took place, targeting churches and hotels around Sri Lanka. The sequence and coordination of the bombings were planned to cause maximum destruction, targeting Christians during mass services across the island nation, and targeting guests at the height of breakfast in luxurious beachfront hotels in the capital. All six of the first set of blasts targeting the churches and hotels were carried out by suicide bombers.

The first blast took place in the Shrine of St. Anthony Church, a historic church in the capital, where more than 50 people were killed. The second blast took place in St. Sebastian's Church in the Christian-majority suburb of Negombo, to the north of Colombo and Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. St. Sebastian's is also close to Sri Lanka's main airport, Bandaranaike International Airport, where security was heightened.

Sri Lankan media reported at least 40 people killed in Colombo, between St. Anthony's and the hotels.

Thwarted Attacks

An improvised explosive device was found near the Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo and was dismantled by the Sri Lankan Air Force.

On 22 April, the Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter-terorrism unit of the Sri Lanka Police, located a van belonging to the attackers near St. Anthony's Shrine, the site of one of the prior day's blasts. Upon inspection, the vehicle was found to have been rigged with 3 bombs. After the STF's bomb defusing unit evacuated the surrounding area, the bombs exploded simultaneously during an unsuccessful defusing attempt. The same day, police reportedly found 87 items of bomb paraphernalia at the Bastian Mawatha Private Bus Station in Pettah.

International Responses to the Attacks

Numerous world leaders expressed condolences and condemnation.  World leaders giving condolences included those of Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, the Holy See, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Sri_Lanka_Easter_bombings

Exercise Slows Brain Aging

Boston University School of Medicine – April 19, 2019 -- Incremental physical activity, even at light intensity, is associated with larger brain volume and healthy brain aging.

Considerable evidence suggests that engaging in regular physical activity may prevent cognitive decline and dementia. Active individuals have lower metabolic and vascular risk factors and these risk factors may explain their propensity for healthy brain aging. However, the specific activity levels optimal for dementia prevention have remained unclear.

The new 2018 Physical Activity-Guidelines for Americans suggest that some physical activity is better than none, but achieving greater than 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous (MV) physical activity per week is recommended for substantial health benefits.

Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, the researchers found that for each additional hour spent in light-intensity physical activity was equivalent to approximately 1.1 years less brain aging.

According to the researchers, these results suggest that the threshold of the favorable association for physical activity with brain aging may be at a lower, more achievable level of intensity or volume.

“Every additional hour of light intensity physical activity was associated with higher brain volumes, even among individuals not meeting current Physical Activity-Guidelines. These data are consistent with the notion that potential benefits of physical activity on brain aging may accrue at a lower, more achievable level of intensity or volume,” explained Nicole Spartano, PhD, research assistant professor of medicine.

“We have really only just begun to uncover the relationship between physical activity and brain health.” Dr. Spartano emphasizes the need to explore the impact of physical inactivity on brain aging in different race, ethnic, and socio-economic groups. She is leading a team effort to investigate these patterns at multiple sites all over the country. “We couldn’t do this research without the commitment of the Framingham Heart Study participants who have given so much to the medical community over the years. Our research also hinges on the multi-disciplinary team of investigators at Boston University and external collaborators.” She also acknowledges the importance of funding for research in this area and is grateful for support from the National Institute on Aging, American Heart Association, and Alzheimer’s Association.

http://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm/2019/04/19/light-physical-activity-reduces-brain-aging/

Retain the Electoral College

The Electoral College was designed precisely to keep raw majorities from too much control. Without it in 1789, there would be no U.S. today. It’s as valid today as then:

(a) If you were to remove the vote counts of just Los Angeles and NYC in 2016, Trump would’ve won the popular vote. That large municipalities/States could determine the country’s future was something the smaller states wanted assurances wouldn’t happen. Hence the EC was became the mechanism. If there were no EC, most campaigning and money would revolve around a handful of metro areas in the country. Ironic that Elizabeth Warren campaigned for abolishment of the EC in a state like Mississippi.

(b) In 2016, no candidate won the popular vote. All came in under 50%. Add to that the fact that only 55-60% of the voting population actually voted, AND removing the count of those under 18 and unable to vote by virtue of non-citizenship then both Trump and Clinton received between 18-22% of the population vote.

(c) The office is President of the United STATES (not people). The design is that States are paramount and elect an executive to run their bidding.

(d) The only reason Democrats are suggesting this is they lost by the rules. Otherwise this would not be an issue at all.

You need some game rules to address issues like these. You don’t win the World Series by counting home runs. Home runs win you games. Games (States) win the World Series.

         G – Joe, April 19, 2019

[the above is a comment about an article about the necessary conflict between bureaucrats and populist politicians that appeared on Quillette at https://quillette.com/2019/04/19/the-mandarin-revolt/ ]

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Afterword by the Blog Author

The founding fathers put the constitution together in secret sessions with no notes kept. Written arguments were prepared for the public by advocates of the constitution (The Federalist Papers) and by antagonists of the constitution (The Anti-Federalist Papers). But what happened live and in person was intentionally not recorded. How to select the head of state was one of the last issues to be settled. But I am telling you from my personal experience as a city, county and state auditor who spent a lot of time in county courthouses that the founders did not trust county governments and their tendency to rule by nepotism and threat. County governments weren’t honest then and aren’t honedt now. Think about Cook County, Illinois, in 1960 or Dade County, Florida, in 2000. The electoral college has always been a necessary firebreak to prevent mobocracy and machine politics. It is still necessary.

Insights about Contentment

Contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease in one's situation, body and mind. Colloquially speaking, contentment could be a state of having accepted one's situation and is a milder and more tentative form of happiness.

Contentment and the pursuit of contentment are possibly a central thread through many philosophical or religious schools across diverse cultures, times and geographies. Siddharta might have said "Health is the most precious gain and contentment the greatest wealth". John Stuart Mill, centuries later, would write "I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them." Marcus Aurelius wrote "Live with the gods. And he who does so constantly shows them that his soul is satisfied with what is assigned to them." Hebrews 13:5 reads "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou once wrote in the 3rd century BCE (hypothetically) "A gentleman who profoundly penetrates all things and is in harmony with their transformations will be contented with whatever time may bring. He follows the course of nature in whatever situation he may be."

The literature seems to generally agree that contentment is maybe a state ideally reached through being happy with what a person has, as opposed to achieving one's larger ambitions, as Socrates described by probably saying "He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have." That said, there may be a number of elements of achievement that may make finding a state of personal contentment easier: a strong family unit, a strong local community, and satisfaction of life's basic needs as perhaps expressed in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In general, the more needs in Maslow's hierarchy are achieved, the more easily one might achieve contentment.

General Comments About Contentment

Many religions have some form of eternal bliss or heaven as their apparent goal, often contrasted with eternal torment or dissatisfaction. The source of all dissatisfaction appears to stem from the ability to compare experiences and then infer that one's state is not ideal.

In the Bible, there is an intriguing allegorical account that man's fall from his paradisal state was caused by man eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man's eyes were "opened" to know the distinction between good and evil (Genesis 3). In other words, when man becomes intellectually developed to distinguish between good and bad, he realizes that is a gap between what he considers good or ideal and what he is experiencing. The perception of this disparity is what creates psychological and physiological tension.

In the Tao Te Ching, this development of man from his primal state of consciousness called Tao is similarly expounded in this manner: "When the Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality ...". Morality as we know is the intellectual discernment between good and evil. There is therefore a belief that one can achieve contentment by living "in the moment," which represents a way to stop the judgmental process of discriminating between good and bad. However, attempting to live in the moment is difficult because a person's attention is not only distracted by sensory stimuli but also psychological processes that conspire to make them think subconsciously or consciously. This thinking process is always involved with memories; hence, the attempt to stay in the present is a ponderous one given that there is always this subconscious struggle to break away from memories, especially unhappy ones. For this reason, specializations in this pursuit to live in the moment are found in various religious and mystical schools, manifested in forms of meditation and prayer.

A more practical way for most people would be to simply practice contentment as an attitude. Practicing gratitude is perhaps a way to understand what contentment as an attitude is about. Seen in this light, contentment is not an achievement but an attitude that one can adopt at any time.

The American philosopher Robert Bruce Raup wrote a book Complacency: The Foundation of Human Behavior (1925) in which he claimed that the human need for complacency (i.e. inner tranquility) was the hidden spring of human behavior. Raup made this the basis of his pedagogical theory, which he later used in his severe criticisms of the American education system of the 1930s. However, in the context of present-day society, perhaps the multidimensional leisure culture evinces in a very significant way the desire of man to return to his core state of contentment by letting go of his hectic outer activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contentment

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Three things Christians need to know about contentment
By J.B. Cachila, November 27, 2017

"Now godliness with contentment is great gain." (1 Timothy 6:6)

To be content is a great thing. Many, however, have the wrong idea of what it really means. When we don't understand what contentment really means, we will mask our discontent with all sorts of explanations, not knowing the greed in our hearts.

Webster defines contentment as "a resting or satisfaction of mind without disquiet," and as humility, "without external honor.*" Based on this, to be "content" means to be satisfied despite humble circumstances. Regardless of what we have or what we don't have, we find ourselves happy and satisfied with no complaints.

That said, can we mistake contentment for something else? There are a few common misconceptions that some Christians have about it. Here they are:

1) "Contentment is settling for mediocrity"

Contentment does not mean settling for mediocrity. Many Christians who are content with average do not realize that God desires our best at all times. Think about it.

The Bible tells us that we should meditate on "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (see Philippians 4:8). Settling for mediocrity is not on that list.

God deserves nothing but our very best, and so we cannot afford to be mediocre. Colossians 3:23-24 tells us, "whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ."

2) "Contentment means not desiring financial prosperity"

Friends, there's a huge difference between desiring prosperity and excellence and being greedy. The difference lies in the desire and the purpose of the desire. To desire to be rich, for example, can be a good or a bad thing. Let me explain.

People who genuinely desire to honor the Lord with their wealth will want to earn more so they can bless the Lord's work. They want to fund evangelistic mission trips, help church members find good jobs, and feed the poor in the community. That's a noble desire.

People who want to be blessed for themselves, for example, just keep asking God to bless them without desiring to honor Him. They may sound religious or spiritual, but they simply want the provisions for themselves. This is deceitful and wrong.

In Isaiah 61:8 God said, "For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering..." We can't be religious and be covetous. Contentment and covetousness do not go together.

3) "To be content means being happy with little"

Friends, being content is not equal to being lazy. Some people erroneously think that contentment means being happy with little even though there are a thousand ways to work and earn a better life. Think about it.

While contentment surely means not complaining to God about our lot in life, it doesn't mean we should be lazy and just accept the circumstances around us. If God wanted us all to beg, then He wouldn't have given us the power to produce wealth (see Deuteronomy 8:18). If God wanted us to live in poverty, then Christ didn't have to become poor so that in Him we could become rich (see 2 Corinthians 8:9).

God wants us to have the abundant life (John 10:10), and we should not be content until we live the life He wants us to live: freed from sin, holy, righteous, and glorifying to Him.

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/3-things-christians-need-to-know-about-contentment/119820.htm

          *  Webster’s 1828 dictionary says “CONTENTMENT, without external honor, is humility.”

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Simplifying Summary of Contentment by the Blog Author

Contentment trumps happiness by accepting what you have instead of getting greedy and wanting more than you have or probably deserve.

 

Contentment is increased by

·        A strong family

·        Friends, especially cronies

·        Satisfaction of most of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

·        Regular, frequent laughter

 

Contentment is likely to occur in people who are

·        Open to new experiences

·        Conscientious promise keepers

·        Extroverts

·        Agreeable (“We Can Work It Out” – Paul McCartney)

·        Not neurotic (and, instead, who demonstrate emotional stability)