Today is France’s Independence Day! Thank you to all of you who braved the pouring rain to attend today’s session, the last session before the summer “vacation”.

Today, we quickly read through chapters 3-6 and discussed some of the worksheet questions.

In particular, we discussed about Ransom’s and Weston’s philosophies of life, and their differences.

We also talked about how human beings are always trying to understand their world, partly out of curiosity and partly to escape from fear and anxiety; thus, Weston’s explanations help ease Ransom’s fears.

Another topic was rights: the fundamental right is the right to life, because while humans can take life away, they cannot give life. Related to this  is “the non-aggression principle“.

We also talked on some completely different topics: TOC, kanban, Ohno Taichi, and JiT (Just in Time). Because JiT and the kanban system were designed by Japanese, it is perhaps tempting to think that these systems are peculiarly Japanese, developed by and for the particular Japanese aesthetic. However, the truth is perhaps more prosaic: these systems are highly developed rational and logical systems and are dependent on an application of scientific methods.

I came across TOC quite by accident, while searching for examples of syllogisms online. What I discovered was this and his recommended reading list. (Here is the first TOC novel, The Goal, in Japanese).

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