The survival of the West and the USA depends on a return to respect for antiquity, history, the lessons that it teaches, and a respect for deferred pleasure in turn for community, innovation, success, and civility.

Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych painting "The garden of earthly delight". The outer panels are intended to bracket the main central panel between the Garden of Eden depicted on the left panel; all things in order, the center panel; unbridled freedom, opulence, debauchery, and the right panel depicted the Last Judgment; basically, hell or total destruction of all that was good. The triptych was a 16^th century dire warning on the perils of life's temptations

The Founding Fathers of the USA spent years studying the governmental forms and machinations of antiquity. They were especially influenced by the Athenian Republic. The nation was highly successful, affluent, and developed both tangible and intellectual wonders. The more success that a nation and its people enjoy, the more focused on self-interest and promiscuous behaviors. Although Bosch painted the Garden of Eden, around 1500 AD, it underscored the process our founding fathers understood. The Founding Fathers fully comprehended the self-destructive nature or unbridled freedoms.

The nearly unlimited freedoms afforded by a Republic fuels debauchery. Slowly altering the Republic into a Democracy. The Republic stands on the collective input of its people, deferring pleasure in return for stability and long-term happiness and civility. A democracy, where two wolves and one sheep vote on who is for dinner. As time goes on the democracy descends into anarchy and chaos. When the people are only focused on themselves there is no interest or the greater good or community. History proves the life cycle from Athenian and Roman culture to European and South American nations.

Whatever your personal beliefs about religion, few can argue the value of the community that it creates and the way that it binds its members together. Judeo Christian morals are tied to deferred pleasure. Those morals help to temper the natural human desire for immediate pleasure. Nothing great comes easily, progress, and long-term success is forged in tempered action and planning. With or without religion those values are the key to a lasting Republic.

Modernity, post-modern, and consumerism all exemplify a slide into immediate gratification. A nation whose people are obsessed with them will fail. All creativity, creation, development, and future planning is sacrificed for NOW! The USA is in the throws of that now. Our path to survival demands that we eradicate those preaching selfish immediate gratification. We must replace them with people who teach deferred pleasure in turn for great rewards down the road.

Language – The Meanings of Words – Nomenclature

Summary:

If language is the glue that binds a nation’s people together, the meaning of those words is crucial to that bond. If the meaning of words is not fixed there is no hope for those utilizing them will successfully communicate with others.

It is important to verify your understanding of facts and terms before applying them with authority. Early in my radio hosting career, I endured a frustrating debate with a guest. At the end of the rather annoying debate, while on a commercial break, I asked the guest a question. The answer that he gave revealed that the guest did not know the meaning of the term which he took such an issue with. Ever since the expansion of people’s vocabularies has been a pet project of mine. I have tried to inspire people to verify the meaning of the terms that they believe they know, especially if they use them regularly with authority. My grandfather played a “game” with me every night before I left their house or before bed. He would have me randomly flip open the pages of his gigantic marble white leather-bound Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary. Then I would put my finger on a page. The word on which I placed my finger, randomly, would be our new word. We would put the new word to use as much as possible until our next meeting.

Detail:

My leather-bound, 1975 edition of, the New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language provided the true definitions of the following words.

Nomenclature – “A system of names; the vocabulary of names or technical terms which are appropriated to a science, art, or other fields.”

Merriam-Webster Online – “a word or combination of words by which a person or thing is regularly known.”

While preparing for a radio show guest who I was interviewing next, I was performing my due diligence and fact-checking my points and lines of questioning. Part of the process was verifying proper nomenclature. It is far better to find an error in preparation than to embarrass yourself in front of a large audience. One of the terms was inflation. I searched it on Google. 96,300,000 results were found for the definition.

Investopedia said that inflation meant –

“Inflation is the rate at which the general level of prices for goods and services is rising and, consequently, the purchasing power of currency is falling. Central banks attempt to limit inflation — and avoid deflation — in order to keep the economy running smoothly.”

Google said –

“What are the main causes of inflation?
Causes of Inflation

The Money Supply. Inflation is primarily caused by an increase in the money supply that outpaces economic growth. ...
The National Debt. ...
Demand-Pull Effect. ...
Cost-Push Effect. ...
Exchange Rates.”

Economicshelp.org said –

“Inflation is basically a rise in prices.

A more exact definition of inflation is a situation of a sustained increase in the general price level in an economy. Inflation means an increase in the cost of living as the price of goods and services rise.”

The list went on and on.

Dictionary.com said –

“1 ·  Economics. a persistent, substantial rise in the general level of prices related to an increase in the volume of money and resulting in the loss of value of a currency (opposed to deflation).”

Then I went to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online (m-w.com). they said –

“2: a continuing rise in the general price level usually attributed to an increase in the volume of money and credit relative to available goods and services “

Then I took out my leather-bound edition of the New Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language

“an expansion of the volume of currency and bank credit, out of proportion to available goods and services, and resulting in a considerable and prolonged rise in prices, wages, and other costs.” Copyright 1975.

Rhetorically, do you think that the omission of the fact that inflation is caused by the action of a government printing more currency than it can back was an oversight? There cannot possibly be that many people in senior-level positions of the organizations positing the definition of inflation who don’t know that the government is its root cause. Therein lies the danger. If you were born after 1980 and taught in a public school in the USA you will not know that fact. I debated that fact with a bank manager at my bank. He asserted his MBA in finance telling me that inflation was a result of the financial imbalance of “many factors”. NO, NO, NO. It is the government printing currency that is backed by nothing, fiat currency, monopoly money!!! Words matter, understanding their meaning is crucial, not “I think” based on what you think it is by context.

The search for such a common term yielded a much more important lesson than its definition; you cannot depend upon electronic sources of information. Certainly, online sources cannot be trusted alone. Furthermore, even if you find hundreds of online sources that validate each other, that is no guarantee that they are correct. The amount of plagiarism, mimicry, and downright theft of content online is mindboggling.

Ray Bradbury had no idea when he wrote Fahrenheit 451 of the technological advances that were soon to come. The book is one of my favorites, everyone should read it. In an interview at Comic-Con he said that his inspiration was, “as a library person he was appalled by the images of Hitler burning books.”: That was the seed of the novel. Who would have known that the destruction of thought, stored knowledge, wisdom, and language would be affected by technology? The government does not have to burn the books because people throw them in the trash on their own volition. People don’t want books, they are cumbersome and expensive.

Conclusion:

When powerful publishers and electronic resources fail to preserve the meaning and context of the language WE MUST DO SO FOR OURSELVES. Unfortunately, there is a problem electronic documents are simple to erase, redact, and alter. Those alterations leave no trace of what was. In an instant change can be made without a trace of the preceding version. I have seen changes and deletions of entire videos, stories, words, etc. They were completely “disappeared.” I have told everyone that I know to buy several 1960’s hardcover dictionaries. Encyclopedias are good too. Ancient history does not change, but the way they present it does. Hard copies are indelible.

If you see a news article online and it is important, print a copy to the printer or better yet to pdf for safekeeping. The Las Vegas mass shooting incident was a powerful example. If you had saved the videos posted by witnesses on the street, moments after, you would have seen how they were all systematically removed over the next 24 hours. There are many free programs that allow you to print to pdf. Checkout Primo PDF or FoxIt Phantom PDF Printer, they are my favorites. When you go to print and article, you chose the program to print to PDF as the printer, name the file, and print. Voila you have hardcopy saved.

What is Dunbar's Number and why do we care?

Dunbar's Number is validated every time that we observe crime rates and corruption in large urban area. Cities cram many people into very dense units. Exponential increases in both the frequency and intensity of crime, violence, and more is evident in the cities, just as revealed in Dunbar's studies. Still urban planners continue to strive to pack more people into smaller areas. Dispite the mounting evidence of negative human consequences, the plans put forth by many urban planners, developers, and even the UN are based on the plan to jam 80% of the world’s population into 20% of the land. That plan is known as UN Agenda 2030 (previously known as Agenda 21).

Ignorance to Dunbar’s number and the other correlated theorems will not change the outcome. 200,000 years of historical data prove that Dunbar’s number is a good starting point. The 80/20 plan will yield only one possible outcome, the need for more policing, government regulation, oversight, and controls. The crime, violence, and antisocial behaviors associated with such high-density populations is intense. I am writing an article on my idea of "Mesh Network Societies", stay tuned.

Dunbar’s rule states that when societies/groups exceed 148 members bad things begin to emerge in the social interactions. Violence, sexual perversions, deceit, theft, and much more tear apart the sub-148-member group’s previously peaceful tranquility.

Dunbar’s Number plays an important part in the crafting of cohesive social unit. Understanding the significant causality and effect of Dunbar’s number is the very important. It is the postulated cognitive limit to a person's social circle, the number of people with whom a person can maintain stable social relationships.

Perspectives in Leadership and Group / Cohesion Survival

Despite the ubiquitous use of technology, Dunbar’s Number is bolstered by the Allen Curve which demonstrates a massive drop in communication between group members as the distance between them increases. Conversely, if they spend time in the presence of a person they are likely to keep in contact via other means when they are apart, short term.

There are many lessons to be learned for leaders. If you are not a leader, knowing the signs of good leadership and the earmarks of a solid cohesive unit will help you to choose wisely with whom you align yourself for the best survival results.

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, first posited his research findings in 1992. He discovered a correlation between primate brain size and the mean average size of their social group. In his paper, "Co-Evolution of Neocortex Size Group Size and Language in Humans”, he hypothesized a predictive mean group size for humans (Dunbar’s Number) at 147.8.  Dunbar studied census evidence, spanning from the Pleistocene humans 200,000 + years ago through the present time. His theorem, known as the Dunbar Number, is based upon research studying primate groups, primitive human villages, cultures, and tribes.

The research focused on neocortex size and its relationship to a perceived cognitive limit related to the number of individuals with whom anyone person can maintain stable relationships. While language played a part in the social group and its cohesion, primatologists and sociologists observed some troubling results when the numbers rose over 138.  Testing with both non-human primates and humans Dunbar discovered Dunbar's number, a 95% confidence interval of between 100 and 230. Dunbar believed after all his research that the optimum / “sweet spot” predicted “mean” social group number for humans was 148.

Research focused on defining the building blocks of successful social unit cohesion; what makes a group/clan/society survive and succeed as a unit together. Anthropologists, linguists, engineers, technologists, primatologists, sociologists, and many others have tested, studied, and studied the phenomena and always prove out Dunbar’s number. There is a voluminous amount of peer reviewed research supporting Dunbar. We, as did countless researchers, see innumerable examples of this in play all around us.

Dunbar's number has been popularized in countless business and management books around the world.  Creative license has popularized Dunbar's number as 150.  The number is often referred to as the tipping point.

One of the most intriguing stories that Malcolm Gladwell related in his book; “The Tipping Point” was about the company who manufactures Gore-Tex. The company, in an effort to increase profit and efficiency, discovered through a process of elimination, that Dunbar’s Number was the key to their quest. They broke their workforce up into 150-person groups. Each building housed 150 employees, as they said, “Each time the 150 parking spots were filled, we built another building”. They were highly successful.

Surveys of village and tribe sizes validate that nearly all Neolithic farming villages, Hutterite settlements, and even professional armies in Roman antiquity limited themselves to 150 as the basic unit size. This was not a coincidence.

Check out the article entitled: Perspectives in Leadership and Group / Cohesion Survival the article outlines how the theories and rules below may act as building blocks in the formation of a powerful and successful cohesive unit / society:

• Dunbar's number
• The Allen Curve
• Émile Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society - Mechanical and Organic Society - The Mechanical Society is the best for the people, Organic Society protects the government/society
• Ferdinand Tönnies two conceptual models for types of human association: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
• Lenski's theories of sociological evolution
• The Hawthorne 1924 studies (extremely important insight)
• Peace Among Primates, read the section regarding natural born killers
• Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin sounded the alarm about the trends of modern materialism

"Co-Evolution of Neocortex Size Group Size and Language in Humans”