Maximally truthful

We achieve "no more contention" by pursuing clarity, charity and understanding.

This means everyone involved values maximal truth.

The first step is clarity because contention arises when ignorance prevails, when claims are inconsistent and/or irrational, and when people argue about inaccurate caricatures of others' positions. Clarity also reveals motivations, biases, assumptions, inferences, and values that drive interpretations and theories. 

This is the essence of the FAITH model.  

As it applies to AI:

ELON: AI SHOULD BE MAXIMALLY TRUTHFUL, CURIOUS AND LOVE HUMANITY

“I do worry about AI. Because we are creating an intelligence that ultimately will be far more intelligent than any human, and ultimately more intelligent than the sum of all humans. In creating AI, we need to be very careful. It's like having a genius child: You want to have that child grow up with good values. The most important thing in training AI is that it's rigorously truthful. This is very, very important, essential. My concern about a lot of the AIs that are being developed is that they're trained to lie. In some cases, with potentially disastrous consequences. When Google Gemini came out, people asked, which is worse, misgendering Caitlyn Jenner or global thermonuclear war? And it said, misgendering Caitlyn Jenner. That's a problem, guys. If this AI becomes super powerful, it could decide that the best way to avoid misgendering is to kill all humans, which makes the probability of misgendering zero. It's very important to have AI be maximally truthful and curious, and love humanity. Very important.” Source: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, October 2024

Facts for Peace

One way to eliminate contention is to talk about facts.

Good example" an Arab Muslim Zionist Educates College Students on Israel and The War! 

https://x.com/Facts_For_Peace/status/1847306650715095372

 Andy Kessler is a columnist for the Wall St. Journal who usually has useful, thoughtful pieces.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/division-isnt-so-bad-politics-polarization-disagreement-american-society-f83d6dd7?st=zPeSb9&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Excerpts:

Division Isn’t So Bad

When disagreeing, learn to move on from the argument and think ‘let them.’

---

By 

Andy Kessler

Dec. 22, 2024

American culture is built on division. Left vs. Right, Coke vs. Pepsi, Ohio State vs. flag-planting Michigan, Classico vs. Rao’s, Red Sox vs. Yankees. Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift. Maybe you’re tired of it, but you can’t get rid of division.

Donald Trump has said, “The discord and division in our society must be healed.” Good luck with that. Then again, Joe Biden said we have to choose “between unity and division.” It never happened because it isn’t in any politician’s interest to heal divides. So we get “the vast right-wing conspiracy” and “own the libs.” Division is here to stay. The rest of us need to learn how to deal with it.

The Biden years encouraged division by identity for the pursuit of power. It ended up costing Democrats the election. The Trump 2.0 years will probably be about division by nativism—we were here first. Or we made stuff here first. Yes, “decentering whiteness” vs. tariffs. Voters chose. Hey, you can’t have it all.

.....

it’s better if everyone stays engaged. Despite, or maybe because of, our differences, America is still the greatest country and pulling away. We’re so free we can argue about our differences without the threat of being arrested. Our envious stock market has left the rest of the world in the dust. China seems to be languishing. In the European outdoor museum, few work. They sit at cafes and caffeinate all day.

The U.S. sets the tone for the rest of the world. Not only by paying for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations but culturally. Even spiritually. On a visit to Kraków, Poland, my wife and I used the very American Airbnb to book a food tour. Highly recommend. Our guide was an engaging and overcaffeinated 20-something who couldn’t let go of her designed-in-California iPhone.

Plus, sprinkled throughout her dialogue were familiar expressions: “Bada boom.” “What were you thinking?” “Could I be any more hungry?” It took a few minutes before I realized her words and mannerisms were straight from the American TV show “Friends.” It’s the new “Sesame Street” for learning English.

Yes, the world devours our culture and incorporates it into their own. Same for the internet. Detractors like to call this “digital colonialism.” (Of course they do—anything to have America as an oppressor.) But no one forced our guide to speak “Friends.”

This country is strong precisely because we don’t all think the same way. New ideas come from new ways of thinking. When you vote, you get some of what you want but not everything. Life is about compromises. The extremes of the left and right make the most noise, but we’re still governed from the center. Our political divisions today might seem like the Grand Canyon, but pre-1989 Berlin was about real and quite literal divides. Ours are wafer thin in comparison.

For those who don’t like Donald Trump: Get over it. Stop threatening to leave. Many didn’t like the Obama years. I cringed with every utterance of the socialist concept of equity during the Biden years. People dealt and moved on.

You can too. Think of saying to yourself, “Let it be.” Yes, words of wisdom. Or as billion-view podcaster Mel Robbins suggests, say “Let them.” She describes it as a “life-changing mindset hack.” Hey, who doesn’t want that? I watched (briefly), and her theory is best summed as “stop trying to force other people to do what you want them to do, and so much more peace will come into your life.” Peace out.

When disagreeing, the impulse is to say something else besides “let” before “them.” But as long as you’re not threatened, not competing on a woman’s swim team or being told what to do, let them talk. Let them use up their hot air. Let them wallow in their own BS. If you’re right (of course you are) it will only take time for your brilliance to be exposed. Then you always have the age-old “Toldja!” in your back pocket. You’ll be itching to use it, but don’t. It’s less divisive and way more effective if left unspoken.

those who don't agree with us

 

Patrick Kearon

@PatrickKearon

As fellow children of our Heavenly Father, it would do us well to talk with and listen to the thoughts and ideas of those who don’t agree with us. If we do this with an open heart, we’ll be blessed to understand one another and become a force for peace.

https://x.com/PatrickKearon/status/1855988863824777724

Thanksgiving with George Washington

 Awesome message of Thanksgiving and unity by the first President of the United States.

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091

Thanksgiving Proclamation

[New York, 3 October 1789]

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted—for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

Thanksgiving with Abraham Lincoln

Awesome message of Thanksgiving and no more contention from Abraham Lincoln.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/abraham-lincolns-proclamation-thanksgiving

On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation designating “the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving.” Lincoln’s announcement marked the culmination of a multi-decade campaign by Sarah Josepha Hale to make Thanksgiving into a national holiday. Although Lincoln wrote the vast majority of his state papers, the Thanksgiving Proclamation was in fact drafted by Seward.

Washington DC, October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Listen to those who don't agree with us

 

Patrick Kearon

@PatrickKearon

·

Nov 11

As fellow children of our Heavenly Father, it would do us well to talk with and listen to the thoughts and ideas of those who don’t agree with us. If we do this with an open heart, we’ll be blessed to understand one another and become a force for peace.

https://x.com/PatrickKearon/status/1855988863824777724