Remember those oil rigs that President Obama assured us really do not cause spills? Well another one just exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion of the rig 80 miles off the Louisiana coast further undermines Obama’s insistence on lifting the long moratorium on drilling off our East Coast.
The platform is owner by Mariner Energy of Houston. The rig was not producing oil or gas at the time but it is unclear if there was a spill with this explosion. However, there are reports of a spreading oil spill around the rig. Other reports state that there were four or five active wells on the rig. Update: There are conflicting reports on the sighting of a spill from the explosion.
The Administration is committed to opening up the coast to drilling — even arguing for weeks that the oil from the BP spill had mysteriously disappeared until outside groups pointing to a huge 22-mile-long oil plume under the water.
Despite the President’s assurances, there have been other leaks at rigs — an inconvenient fact for the Administration.
Source: Miami Herald
Yeh … if the first explosion didn’t wean Obama off of his dependency on the Oil Masters, neither will the second … or the third … or the ……..
The NY Times reported 1 confirmed injury and no deaths … we may all be thankful for that, at least.
Ah, the joy of an under-regulated oil industry – we should all write thank-you notes to President Bush and his sidekick Dickey. I wonder if the cause of this one will turn out to be massive negligence like the Deepwater Horizon seems to be.
From the Miami Herald article:
“The platform was not producing oil and gas, according to the operations report.
…
“There were ongoing maintenance activities underway,” she [Melissa Schwartz, spokeswoman for Bureau of Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement] said…”
and:
“A company report said the well was drilled in the third quarter of 2008 in 340 feet of water.”
Huh? A two year old rig isn’t producing anything, AND it explodes?
I guess we’ll get more details as things go on. I hope that the fact that it wasn’t producing means that it’s “turned off” somehow, and that relatively little oil will be spilled here.
tomdarch,
As I understand it, they put concrete plugs in when they’re not using the well – that’s what the Deepwater Horizon was doing a slipshod job of when it exploded. So hopefully this one wont be spewing oil… (or at least not as much)
Blouise: I think we can safely say that Barack Obama the Constitutional Lawyer has fully morphed into President Barack Obama the Corporate Lawyer. His principal client, of course, is the Ex-Presidents Mutual Protective Society,Inc., but he has time to serve other corporate clients as well.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Why-Are-Democrats-Giving-Up-on-Energy-Reform-442 Obama does not have much support for energy reform, and he will have even less after the November elections.
Drill baby Drill!
We don’t need to steenkin’ regulations!
After all… these companies have plans to save the seals in the event of a rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And it worked… BP did not harm one seal since its rig blew out!
Scott B,
It is my understanding that no polar bears have been inconvenienced either.
And the people of LA will still probably complain about the free oil for life. Damn ingrates…..
Obviously, JT missed the “Lord of the Rings” scene explaining this heroic beacon in the Gulf. Watch out for Orcs you Louisianians!
why is this a problem? accidents happen all the time. Three Mile Island pretty much shut down nuclear power in this country for no good reason. So a little oil gets spilled and a few birds die. What about the people that depend on the good jobs oil companies provide? Save the birds screw the people?
I think the Discovery Channel bomber thought that way.
No birds. No people. Just like no bees equals no people or no plankton equals no people. You destroy a node on the web and destroy or cripple adjacent nodes. It’s called a food web because it’s all connected, Byron.
Buddha:
people don’t need to be interconnected to most of the natural world, we can make our own environment and grow our own food. If bees die out we will be able to produce some sort of nanobot bee to do our pollinating.
If Polar Bears die or the Spotted Owl disappears it will have no appreciable impact on humans. Species go extinct and have been doing so for as long as life has been on earth. If every thing was interconnected as you say, all life would have died out before it even got started. Humans are able to adapt to our environment, that is we are so successful.
A few birds dead from oil is not going to impact us one way or the other. Anyway oil is a natural product so don’t you think nature has evolved ways to deal with it? It doesn’t just leak because some humans cant control their well heads.
And conversely if humans died out on 9/3 most of the natural world would go on, a few species would probably die having become dependent on us but Polar Bears wouldn’t even notice our passing (even if they could).
The web of life has nodes that act as guardians, in other words they are sentinels against mass extinction. They are chain breakers. They must exist otherwise life on earth would not.
No Byron, all life is dialectically interconnected through a myriad of unseen feedback loops. Moreover, there is no “nanobee” yet produced at an effective cost to do the pollinating over our land masses. Even if there were such a machine it wouldn’t be nearly as efficient or cost effective as the magnificent honeybee, slowling being wiped out I’d venture to guess by all the odious shit that perfidious companies like Monsanto & DuPont dream up & spew out.
The value of something like a rainforest lies not in clear cutting it for agriculture or teak wood yachts for decadent swine but in its biodiversity, where innumerable undiscovered compounds that might cure cancer or aids lie waiting to be discovered.
The problem with capitalist pigs is they imagine Industry vs. Environment is a Zero Sum game. It’s not. Both can happen in harmony. The problem is that “harmony” takes off a few cents a share off the dividends of greedy stock holders whose short sightedness is a detriment to all.
They must be curtailed. They will be curtailed. A revolution in consciousness is slowly but surely taking place in the minds of the masses to an extend that one day in the not too distent future the most endangered of all species will be capitalist pigs.
Byron,
“people don’t need to be interconnected to most of the natural world, we can make our own environment and grow our own food.”
That’s simply wrong. We might be able to some day in the future, but not right now. The closest we have come is the limited success of the Biosphere 2 project and even then they had to change it from a closed system to a flow through system. Read that as “dependent upon imports from nature”. Today we as a species are very dependent upon the natural world and its complex interacting open flow through systems.
Our modern agricultural processes, productive as they are, damage the environment. Without them, people would starve en masse. As it is, pesticide and herbicide run off are killing and mutating amphibians and fish and poisoning what was once potable water with minimal or no treatment. The deforestation of South America is destroying one of the most biodiverse areas on the planet and killing species that have been evolving for untold millennium that could hold cures for disease or chemical processes that could replace toxic processes currently in use.
“The web of life has nodes that act as guardians, in other words they are sentinels against mass extinction. They are chain breakers. They must exist otherwise life on earth would not.” If you’re including humans as ‘guardian node’, that’s simple hubris on your part. If mankind died tomorrow, in 200 years, you’d have to be an alien archaeologist to tell we’d ever existed. But if all the plankton died tomorrow, this planet would be a tomb with our species clawing at the lid. Just like it would be a tomb without potable water or clean air within the tolerances under which our species evolved.
“I think Nature’s imagination is so much greater than man’s that she’s never going to let us relax.” – Richard Feynman
To think that we can at this point in our social, mental and technological development replicate nature’s processes to sustain life for all humans as we know it is incredibly arrogant and misinformed. Technology is by in large destructive to natural processes at this point. Natural processes we depend upon for water, food and air. Nanotechnology may hold the key to changing that fact, but we are just barely wading into that technological pool. And for all its great promise, it’s still a technology that could kill us all if misapplied.
Technology as our “savior” is as false and as killing a God as any of the make believe ones humans have created across the ages. If you count on it to save our species to the point you disregard the stewardship of the Earth as a necessity, you’re a fool.
KF,
Seriously man. You’ve been on fire lately. You are very correct that industry versus nature is not a zero sum game.
”
why is this a problem? accidents happen all the time. Three Mile Island pretty much shut down nuclear power in this country for no good reason. So a little oil gets spilled and a few birds die. What about the people that depend on the good jobs oil companies provide? Save the birds screw the people?
I think the Discovery Channel bomber thought that way.
”
Wow… just… wow. I could not imagine a more callous, ignorant statement. Let’s remember all the people that died on the Deepwater Horizon — they can’t very well enjoy their “good jobs” now, can they? To say nothing of all the fishermen, etc. that lost their jobs because of the disaster. Or all the cleanup workers suffering health problems. Or, yes, the birds. Or the fish, turtles, and whatever other remnants of the ecosystem didn’t manage to survive the disaster — all very conducive to human existence, as others on this thread have pointed out.
Is there no tragedy that you won’t downplay, Byron? Have you no empathy whatsoever?
I almost feel like invoking Godwin’s Law on you with that “Discovery Channel bomber” comment — it’s such a ridiculous generalization. Just because one environmentalist is nuts does not mean all environmentalists are nuts. (I, for one, count myself as someone who deeply cares about the health of the earth.) There’s a very sharp distinction to be drawn between one’s motives and one’s actions. I suppose you also think that the Cordoba House project should be opposed because it is a project headed by Muslims who, after all, are all murderous terrorists. It’s science.
“They must be curtailed. They will be curtailed. A revolution in consciousness is slowly but surely taking place in the minds of the masses to an extend that one day in the not too distent future the most endangered of all species will be capitalist pigs.”
Wow, I guess that’s why most of the world is embracing capitalism after about 150 years of the utter failure of Marxist principles. Can I have some of what you are smoking Karl?
FFN:
my compassion extends to the people who lost their lives and the ones who have lost their livelihoods for the immediate future, I could care a less about a brown pelican or a blue crab.
I didn’t make a generalization, you did. He was obviously deranged.
If I were that Imam I would not build it there but then I am not him.
As for oil field workers, they know the risks of working offshore. They choose to do it and take the risks. It is generally safe but sometimes it isn’t. You can be hit by a car walking across the street, do you quit walking across the street?
Thus proving the shortsightedness and egocentric nature of capitalism.
Nonesense. Ignorenec is obviously bliss for capitalist pigs.
Free health care for all is a Marxist principle. Virtually every industrialized nation has it. This country just struggled for it and barely lost, thanks to all the bootlickers of the insurance lobby, including Obama.
Thanks to capitalist pigs, this country recently was forced to seriously consider nationalizing the banks, a profoundly Marxist principle.
After the Gulf Oil spill this country seriously debated the merits of nationalizing oil companies, another Marxist principle. BP was almost forced into receivership until Obama let them off the hook.
A gallup poll recently showed that over 55% of young people 18-25 like the idea of Socialism.
Hundreds of millions across Latin America, in what’s known as the Bolivarian Revolutions, are adopting Marxist principles after 40 years of misrerably failed capitalist ones.
With the abject failure of US capitalism today, one thing is certain, people are more than ever looking for alternatives to a congenitally predatory system that consistently puts profits over people.
Karl:
I would like to see that poll. Anyway people 18-25 usually don’t have any money. When they start making it things change.
In fact I know a Bolivian who came here and he says Bolivia is worse under Evo than it was but then he used to be a Marxist until he started running a business.
Good luck with your corruption of young impressionable minds, you have to get them much younger than 18, you need to start the indoctrination around 4-6 so it holds or by 30 you can forget about it.
One is not a trend, B. It’s an anecdote at best and one of Twain’s “damned lies” at worst (a fallacious statistic based on a flawed sample space).
I’ll let Karl deal with the rocks you threw at him personally though. He’s a big boy.
Follow the exposure of oil as the root cause of cancer on Twitter at:
https://twitter.com/doctorlee445/status/22820554491
RePost and reTweet
Byron,
“As for oil field workers, they know the risks of working offshore. They choose to do it and take the risks. It is generally safe but sometimes it isn’t. You can be hit by a car walking across the street, do you quit walking across the street?”
When a manufacturing plant in China that locks its workers in for 16 hours a day and pays them next to nothing burns down, do we say “Well, they chose to undertake it freely! Sucks for them!”? I think you’re rather missing the point. The point is not whether they undertook the job freely, they clearly did. The question is whether we want to live in a society where these are the choices that people have to make. Is the choice between a condition of virtual slavery under the “free market” and starvation a choice that should be forced upon people in a decent, humane society?
Karl Friedrich,
I would trust Byron when he says impressing a preferred socio-economic system needs to start early. Look at what early exposure to capitalist ideas did for him! His conviction is unshakable! A true indoctrination success story.
FFN:
China is a communist country with a market that the government allows to exist. Business can pretty much do what it wants because it is an extension of the state. It is used by the state to achieve state directed goals.
How are people going to survive if there is no business? Free markets do not create slavery they liberate human beings. Why do you think we have the standard of living we have and why do you think it is decreasing?
Virtual slavery? Poppy cock, communism is actual slavery. There is a big difference between free markets and fascism which is what we basically have in this country although it has a patina of respectability because most people are too stupid to separate markets and government but it is nonetheless destructive as earlier forms. Think TARP bailout and government take over of GM. In my opinion big mistakes.
FFN:
My father voted for Adlai Stevenson so I was not exactly indoctrinated in capitalist philosophy from an early age. I came to that conclusion on my own after doing much reading and seeing some of the world and how things are.
Since then I am ever more convinced that a free market is the natural order for human behaviour and that political freedom is necessary as well. Human beings are not smart enough to control markets and can only do so through force. When economies are controlled people are controlled and vice versa. Both political and economic freedom are necessary for true human liberty.
And don’t go telling me I am an anarchist, I am not. Government is necessary and the founders gave us a pretty good model but left some doors open that people with tyrannical tendencies have exploited through the years. I think the anti-federalist papers have some thing to say about those doors.
Gorder Port:
I have a critical tweet as well-communism has killed over 100 million people and counting. I am willing to get rid of oil refineries if you are willing to get rid of statism. That might be a fair trade.
By ALAN SAYRE
NEW ORLEANS, La. – The Coast Guard is saying there are no immediate signs of a spill from an oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.
All 13 crew members were rescued from the water in the second such disaster in the Gulf in less than five months.
The Coast Guard initially reported an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the fire, about 200 miles west of the site of BP’s massive spill. But officials said at a Thursday afternoon news conference that boats at the platform have not seen any oil sheen.
http://enr.construction.com/yb/enr/article.aspx?story_id=149365574
How is it that the entire world has been drilling and pumping oil for decades and suddenly when Obama needs a ‘bump’ for his Cap and Trade laws, we have TWO oil spills within a few months?
Then there’s Geoge Soros’s need for rigs to pump the oil out of his big purchase of offshore oil off Brazil. Now he’s got the rigs.
And trust me, we may have to be subjected to more of George’s ‘oil spewing photos anmd the Hershey’s Syrup doused pelican if Pelosi is unable to bully the legislature into passing Obama’s latest oppression.
Byron,
Capitalism has generated enormous wealth and now it is concentrating it – that’s why the middle class standard of living is declining and there was no government takeover of GM (the government is not in control of GM and you know that). Keeping the auto industry solvent preserved hundreds of thousands of jobs at GM and Chrysler and probably millions in the industry as a whole – what do you think would have happened if all of those jobs went away?
Byron’s got it backwards again. There’s nothing “free” about the free market. It’s always’s been a stacked deck, that is, rigged market and the key to economic success, at least in the history of the USA (and China too), has been protectionism. The rhetoric of free markets is what Uncle Sam preaches to his subjects but does not practice himself.
I thought we established long ago on these threads that the biggest recipients of welfare in this country are huge corporations that get innumerable & mind boggling government subsidies, contrary to a free market. If markets really were free then the richest farmers in this country wouldn’t have gotten rich by being paid NOT to grow soybeans, nevermind that 80% of America’s land is owned by just 7 Agribusinesses that get more subsidies than any food stamp program ever dreamed of.
China is capitalist, not communist. If they were communist then the difference between the poorest strata and the richest would be around 5, similar to the old Soviet Union, not a factor of 220, like it is in the USA. Moreover, China became such an economic powerhouse the same way the USA did, not through free market nonsense which is gobbeldygook reserved for 3rd world dependencies and East European rubes, but rather by protectionism and government subsidy of large corporations.
Finally, I wrote a post last night showing links with the poll numbers for the increasing popularity of the idea of socialism amongst Americans but when I entered it I got a message saying: “Waiting for Moderation”?
Karl,
You can include just two links in a comment. If you include three or more links, your comment will await moderation till the end of time.
Byron said: ["I would like to see that poll."]
My recall of the exact numbers were inverted but the writing is clearly on wall, and surprisingly so since these numbers reflect all ages, not just youth:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/11-6
After a forty year Cold War (really 70 since the Bolsheviks received Uncle Sam’s enmity since 1918) and trillions spent on a trumped up bogey man who was never the real aggressor, not to mention a propaganda indoctrination system that would make even Goebbels proud, with Pentagon plants in every commercial media outlet, particularly Fixed News, the statistics are remarkable and the trend is increasing, largely due to the monumental failure of 21st century capitalism which almost exclusively transfers wealth from bottom to top in the most pernicious fashion, and increasingly despised by the masses.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/125645/socialism-viewed-positively-americans.aspx
Bottom line is Socialism is steadily gaining popularity, and if the poll actually was concentrated on the 18-25 year old demographic the numbers would almost certainly be double.
["Anyway people 18-25 usually don’t have any money. When they start making it things change."]
That’s the point. All the vital statistics of US capitalism today indicate the vast majority of these young people won’t “start making” any money any time soon. It’s a bleak future of downward mobility. Those masses of people are the fuel of the coming revolution.
With daily headlines like: Years of gloom looming for the housing market or: Protracted recession in store for the US economy — it’s only only natural that bankrupted capitalism gets abandoned during crises since the last time the US had such a great depression Socialism was more poplular than ever amongst the masses and nothing but a good old imperialist world war with over 50 million slaughtered got the US out of that mess.
Thanks Elaine M!
Really, Byron.
Your above posts sound positively brainwashed. Like Karl, recalling the discussions about corporate welfare, I recall earlier threads where it seemed like you were making headway into finally understanding that socialism and communism are not the same thing. You constantly refuse to see there is a distinction between social democracy, democratic socialism, socialism in general and pure forms of capitalism (which you endorse) and communism.
Your logic is twisted. I’ll spell out that nature of this logical fallacy to you again in hopes that it will stick this time. I’ve said it before – you’re thinking like an engineer (and I don’t mean in the good way). Absolutes are not how the world works in toto despite the world containing absolutes. The speed of light is the absolute speed limit but the choices in velocity are not either zero or 186,000 miles per second.
The choice between free markets and other forms of economic systems not a binary choice between capitalism and communism, but rather a choice from a spectrum of model behaviors.
The problem with your thinking is that it’s a formal logical fallacy – a pattern of reasoning which is always wrong due to a flaw in the logical structure of the argument which renders the argument invalid. Specifically, by insisting on viewing the analog universe in a binary way, you are quite prone to making what is specifically known as the bifurcation fallacy. This is a logical error created when the thinker insists on one of two outcomes creating a form of false dilemma.
You want a real life example of the logical error at work other than the one in your head concerning economics?
Bush saying “You’re either for us or against us” when it came to combating terrorism.
It’s a false dilemma that disregards quite real possibility that people could be either neutral or that they could endorse different tactics than those Bush chose – which if you recall was the tactic of invading a sovereign country that had not attacked us (Iraq) for his and Cheney’s families personal profit instead of attacking those who manned and funded the 9/11 attacks, their business partners the Saudi Arabians.
You are making the same logical error Bush did.
And I know you can do better than that.
You are also guilty of making false equivalences. Again, socialism is not communism, but rather a spectrum of economic model behaviors that rely on – and here’s the important word – varying degrees of controlled markets to ensure the greatest stability of society as a whole.
And Karl is 100% correct.
Your form of capitalism guarantees revolution at some point.
Byron,
China has a system rather like our own — a state-capitalist system in which a tiny elite control the workings of the economy. Your comment “Business can pretty much do what it wants because it is an extension of the state. It is used by the state to achieve state directed goals.” equally applies the United States economy. And, I would add, so does the converse because the state is essentially captured by capital interests. That’s why GM and Goldman get bailed out — your examples.
“How are people going to survive if there is no business?” Well, I would say the entire history of the pre-capitalist world disproves the notion that capitalism is somehow required for human survival. (Of course, there can be different forms of social organization more appropriate for a modern technologically advanced society than the ones employed in centuries past.)
“Free markets do not create slavery they liberate human beings.” I think a lot of people would think otherwise… like those actually subjected to free market economies. Post-1954 Guatamala comes to mind. Or Haiti today. Or read “The Condition of the Working Class in England” … do the people in that book seem “liberated” to you?
“Why do you think we have the standard of living we have and why do you think it is decreasing?” I’m not really sure what you mean by this.
“My father voted for Adlai Stevenson so I was not exactly indoctrinated in capitalist philosophy from an early age.” Yes, Adlai Stevenson… who can forget that great communist revolutionary? Are you saying that Adlai Stevenson (or any mainstream US politician) wasn’t a capitalist? That would be rather shocking to me.
“Since then I am ever more convinced that a free market is the natural order for human behaviour and that political freedom is necessary as well. Human beings are not smart enough to control markets and can only do so through force. When economies are controlled people are controlled and vice versa. Both political and economic freedom are necessary for true human liberty… And don’t go telling me I am an anarchist, I am not.”
I would never accuse you of being an anarchist because you’re rather the opposite. If you want to know what an _actual_ anarchist thinks about these things, we can turn to Noam Chomsky’s work, where he addresses both of the claims you made in the above quotation.
http://www.pentaside.org/article/chomsky-govt-in-the-future.html
(Starting with the paragraph that reads “Now it might very well be asked whether such a social structure is feasible, in a complex, highly technological society. There are counter arguments and I think they fall into two main categories. First category is that such an organisation is contrary to human nature, and the second category says roughly that it is incompatible with the demands of efficiency. I’d like to briefly consider each of these.” )
Anarchists do regard “wage slavery” to be very similar to “chattle slavery” — the only difference being that the former is temporary.
And to briefly respond to your response to Gorder Port, if we tallied up the body count of capitalism vs (what leaders of the states call) communism, I’m pretty sure who would come out on top. Between the slave trade, working laborers to death, genocide of native peoples, worldwide military expeditions, etc, I’d like to give the edge to capitalism — a wide edge.
BIL,
“you’re thinking like an engineer (and I don’t mean in the good way)”
I’d like to know exactly what you mean by this because I’ve often thought the same thing and have trouble putting it into words. What is at about engineers that cultivates this mindset? And what is that mindset, exactly?
FFN,
I think it’s their tendency to think in terms absolute – either a structure has the requisite tolerance or it fails – rarely if ever do they think in terms of partial failure. This mindset comes from, in my opinion, from a combination of natural proclivity (in varied degrees according to the individual) and their training.
What is more disturbing his how this kind of extreme thinking in general is reflected in the unusual percentage of terrorists with backgrounds in engineering.
Here are links to two articles on that subject. The first is from Slate and the second is a white paper produced by an Australian engineering firm.
Build-a-Bomber Why do so many terrorists have engineering degrees?
Engineering and Terrorism: Their Interrelationships
Byron,
Disregarding that WRONG bit about man being able to survive without the environment(another false dichotomy by the way, man IS the environment), I’d like to ask a question.
Have you ever considered the implications of you assuming that the government needs to consider the effect of it’s actions on job creation?
Byron,
This one is for you.
And here’s the homework that goes with the tune . . .
Extortion anyone?
BP Says Limits on Drilling Imperil Oil Spill Payouts
Since economics have become part of the thread . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Buddha:
really good videos. Now you know why I like markets free from government intervention.
No, Byron, I don’t. Your logic is on its face fallacious. As in formally wrong. I can see the lessons of Zen are wasted on you. Your dichromatic worldview is inherently flawed. Now I see one thing as evidenced by your posts: you’re as brainwashed about free markets as any cultist.
They are, and money by extension, are your God.
Please feel free to try and prove otherwise.
I reiterate (in hopes that like water the words and logic will wear away the stone of your skull) . . .
“The problem with your thinking is that it’s a formal logical fallacy – a pattern of reasoning which is always wrong due to a flaw in the logical structure of the argument which renders the argument invalid. Specifically, by insisting on viewing the analog universe in a binary way, you are quite prone to making what is specifically known as the bifurcation fallacy. This is a logical error created when the thinker insists on one of two outcomes creating a form of false dilemma.
You want a real life example of the logical error at work other than the one in your head concerning economics?
Bush saying “You’re either for us or against us” when it came to combating terrorism.
It’s a false dilemma that disregards quite real possibility that people could be either neutral or that they could endorse different tactics than those Bush chose – which if you recall was the tactic of invading a sovereign country that had not attacked us (Iraq) for his and Cheney’s families personal profit instead of attacking those who manned and funded the 9/11 attacks, their business partners the Saudi Arabians.
You are making the same logical error Bush did.
. . .
You are also guilty of making false equivalences. Again, socialism is not communism, but rather a spectrum of economic model behaviors that rely on – and here’s the important word – varying degrees of controlled markets to ensure the greatest stability of society as a whole.”
As long as your logic is formally faulty, you are building your castle on a foundation of sand.
When your logic is a lie, then you are lying to yourself. You remind me of the words of Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov . . .
“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete beastiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea- he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility… Do get up from your knees and sit down, I beg you, these posturings are false, too…”
FFN:
“And to briefly respond to your response to Gorder Port, if we tallied up the body count of capitalism vs (what leaders of the states call) communism, I’m pretty sure who would come out on top. Between the slave trade, working laborers to death, genocide of native peoples, worldwide military expeditions, etc, I’d like to give the edge to capitalism — a wide edge.”
I’d like to see those numbers.
“I reiterate (in hopes that like water the words and logic will wear away the stone of your skull) . . . ”
Damn BIL, I like this, bon mots!, and I’m gonna use it too….
Buddha:
“No, Byron, I don’t. Your logic is on its face fallacious. As in formally wrong. I can see the lessons of Zen are wasted on you. Your dichromatic worldview is inherently flawed. Now I see one thing as evidenced by your posts: you’re as brainwashed about free markets as any cultist.
They are, and money by extension, are your God.”
Shit I wish money was my god, I see about as much of it as Christians or Muslims do of theirs. At least the Greeks had some good statues.
No money is not my god but I do like freedom.
Byron,
Your logic fails. Address the logic, not your wishful thinking. As evidenced by your statements you equate money with freedom – another false equivalence. Freedom to make as much money without restraint and without consequence.
Freedom as used by people like Jefferson was an inherent state of being unrelated to wealth.
Address the logic.
Because if you don’t, your protestation notwithstanding, you side with fascism by blindly worshiping free market capitalism as the “natural order”. Which is not only thinly veiled social Darwinism, but self-rationalizing bullshit.
W=^..^,
Feel free.
One lives to be of service.
“Freedom to make as much money as dictated by your personal desire without restraint and without consequence.”
Pardon, I am literally juggling cats at the moment.
Buddha:
I could the same thing about most anyone on the left side of the aisle as well. You think you have a corner on truth? You don’t, and neither does Alan Watts nor Ayn Rand.
You believe socialism works to the degree I believe capitalism works, I don’t call you a cultist or a self deceiver.
Byron,
I proved there is a problem with your logic. What I believe is irrelevant. But please, resort to troll tactics when you can’t address the logic. I called you a cultist because you are acting like one. But please . . . “A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea- he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility… Do get up from your knees and sit down, I beg you, these posturings are false, too…”
Feel free to be offended some more. You only prove my point when you run from the logic of the analysis.
Karl Friedrich:
did you even read your own link?
“In an April 2009 poll conducted by Rasmussen, respondents were asked “which is a better system-capitalism or socialism?” Just 53% of adult Americans prefer capitalism, 20% of respondents favor socialism and 27% responded not sure.”
53 > 20 2.5 times to be exact. Yep you sure are on fire, it must be a brain fever.
cultist\ˈkəlt-ist\, n.,
1: a follower of a cult
cult\ˈkəlt\, n., att. n.,
1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator (health cults)
5 a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b : the object of such devotion c : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
Address your false dilemma problem, Byron. It’s a fatal logical flaw to your arguments, such as they are.
Until you do, you are doing nothing by floundering in your unsubstantiated belief in the superiority of a demonstrably unstable (and indeed socially destabilizing) system, free market capitalism.
Buddha:
your video expressed why I like free markets. In fact we had those in Jefferson’s time or at least much more free than they are today. We also had a good deal more personal freedom than we do today.
I would like to know why you think I am a fascist? I don’t like the bank bailout, I don’t like car companies being owned by the government, I don’t like government regulation of industry, I don’t like the Federal Reserve, I don’t like lobbying. All fascist policies. So I would like to know how I am a fascist? Because I don’t care if someone makes 50 million a year or I think that the court system ought to be used to right wrongs? Or I think people should be responsible for themselves and not rely on others for their survival unless they just aren’t able to produce for themselves?
What is it?
You posted the videos, I didn’t. Seems to me they support my position of doing nothing laissez faire, he even says what I have said all along-men aren’t smart enough to control nature. By your own admission men are part of nature so any system they devise is “natural”. Modern men don’t gravitate toward socialism naturally they have to be forced. But they do gravitate toward free trade. So how is my logic flawed?
“Thomas Jefferson most notably made reference to man’s social side, observing in correspondence to John Adams that man is ‘an animal destined to live in society.’ For this reason, Jefferson would deliberately criticize the anti‐social, atomistic conceptions of Hobbes as a ‘humiliation to human nature.’ Thomas Pangle records that Jefferson had derived from the Enlightenment philosopher Helvetius that we experience pleasure ‘when we aid or even when we seem to sacrifice for others.’ Jefferson was not fully satisfied that Helvetius had explained the origin of the pleasure derived from the service to others and was unprepared to ascribe the origin of man’s moral sense solely to God since that would leave unaccounted for the moral sense or like sensation in a disbeliever. Therefore, on a philosophical level, Jefferson would conclude that, like other aspects of the moral sense in man, nature simply reveals the pleasure of service. As he grew older, Jefferson would come to value tranquility over continued public service, but he would continue to lean upon the theorem that the pursuit of happiness was dependent upon the virtue of knowing oneself and being useful to others. The “moral instinct” that inclines us to do good out of a love of others is, Jefferson would conclude, ‘the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of bodily deformities.’” [emphasis added] from The Human Nature of Freedom and Identiy — We Hold More Than Random Thoughts by Douglas W. Kmiec, Harvard Law Review, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 38-39.
Now perhaps you’ll see why I am so fond of saying “One lives to be of service”.
Buddha:
Your logic is incorrect, you may have proved it to yourself and others here on this blog but you have proved nothing. But I did like that video quite a bit. I am going to share it with my friends so they can use it as a defense of capitalism.
Thank you for posting them.
Byron,
Your assumption, from the start, is that free markets are the natural state, without offering proof other than your opinion. Your mischaracterization of Watts, or more directly, your lack of understanding, does not negate your logic is flawed for being a bifurcation fallacy as described now multiple times.
First you claim man is separate from nature. Then you claim natural order as your rationale for free market capitalism. When proven wrong, you then you claim that proving man is not separate from nature proves that men are naturally free market capitalists.
What part of self-rationalizing assumption don’t you understand?
Okay, they can try that all they like but a capitalism is an artificial construct as much as any economic system is. To try and tie to your failed attempts to claim the only natural economic system is free market capitalism?
Denial, rationalization and self-deception are wonderful things to see in action.
You claim not to be greedy, yet your premise only works if all people are greedy – another absolutist and incorrect perception I am sure you’ll turn into another false dilemma.
Buddha:
We all serve others in some manner or fashion. Sometimes for gain sometimes for nothing other than wanting to help a person out. I help people all the time, sending referrals or cutting my fees to a person who obviously needs engineering help but cant pay. We all do, it is part of our responsibility for being a member of a society. But I do it voluntarily, I am not forced to. Mr. Jefferson did it voluntarily, he would not agree to being forced to be generous or to serving his neighbor at the behest of the state.
“Modern men don’t gravitate toward socialism naturally they have to be forced. But they do gravitate toward free trade.”
Also logically flawed. You are committing the composition fallacy by assuming all me gravitate one way or another, the “from each to all” verbal fallacy, and you are begging the question, the material informal fallacy of Petitio Principii or Circulus in Probando, arguing in a circle by assuming the answer.
You may be a trained engineer, but I am a trained logician.
You are in a box you cannot escape without acknowledging your basis for argument may be wrong in part or in toto.
Byron,
Your choice to act without compassion to society most certainly can be compelled by the state. Anti-social behaviors of all sort are stopped by state coercion all the time. Or do I need to point out again that murder is an anti-social behavior again?
“certainly be compelled to the contrary”
Pardon, my brain and my fingers operate at different throughput speeds.
Way off topic…so forgive me.
“GROUND ZERO TERROR MOSQUE”: The B Movie Poster
http://www.theawl.com/2010/08/911-terror-mosque-the-b-movie-poster
Buddha:
If capitalism is unnatural then why do countries that have relatively free markets thrive and those that don’t have serious problems?
You can have both free market capitalism and a social safety net. But you cannot have socialism alone, it is not as productive as capitalism. As much as it goes against my Objectivist buddies thinking capitalism can produce enough wealth to help the truly needy but you cannot regulate the piss out of it and expect it to provide a high standard of living.
Byron: Yes of course I read the link but you apparently didn’t get the implications. It shows that in a capitalist society, long steeped in relentless and often disgusting free market propaganda, only just over half of the people favor capitalism!
Pretty amazing numbers in a society wherein 33% consider themselves “born again” Christians, meaning they believe every word of the bible is literally true. I mean to get religiosity stats comparable to the USA you’d have to poll old women in Sicily.
My point all along was that a socialist consciousness is brewing in America, and it has nothing to do with the so-called socialism that Fixed News blowhards accuse Obama of. Obama is a creature of the banks, and bankers don’t have a socialist bone in their bodies.
No, I’m talking about the fact that amongst young people 18-25 socialist ideals are about double the general population’s stats, and why not, since they have no foreseeable capitalist future to look forward to except as service economy low wage slaves.
Let’s face it, with no housing equity or real manufacturing base left Americans soon won’t even be able to buy the plastic crap made in China that they don’t really need anymore from Wal-Mart.
Buddha,
I loved the Jefferson quote – your service honors the rest of us. Be careful not to drop the cats, though…
Byron said:
“Human beings are not smart enough to control markets and can only do so through force.”
A couple of things. First, you think we’re not smart enough to control markets, but you have no problem with the assessment that the Gulf oil spill wont do much damage to a vastly more complex system about which we have much less precise information. Pick one or the other. (Neither is a perfectly fine choice, too
) Secondly, markets can be controlled by many means, some more efficient and forceful than others. Personally, I think that the way we operate now (massive subsides via pollution, tax breaks, or direct funds) is just about the most inefficient method for controlling the free market. Control is an interesting word here – I know some control theory and the point of controlling a system is to prevent its behavior from undergoing a bifurcation or operating in a region where it displays chaotic behavior. The free market is just another system that we want to prevent from behaving chaotically or throwing us into a depression. In my opinion, taxes and fees are the best way to control the market because the entire point of the market is to put a price on everything. Until there is a cost associated with pollution the free market must necessarily ignore it and will never have an incentive to reduce it. What’s wrong with taking an Engineer’s approach to the economy and saying that we’d like to avoid the whole bubble and bust cycle and, say, operate the economy in a region where there is slower but steady growth?
“If capitalism is unnatural then why do countries that have relatively free markets thrive and those that don’t have serious problems?”
Also begging the question. Compared to us, Europe is weathering the economic crisis far better than we are. Shall we look to which countries in Europe are using some form of socialism?
Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and Great Britain. And I’ll raise you a Canada.
Hmmm. All of them our allies.
What do those countries have in common aside from that?
They by in large enjoy higher standards of living and less social strife than the U.S. in addition to better educational systems. And Germany, the world’s sixth largest economy on its own, has managed to stay stable and maintain a reasonable GDP despite having some contraction forced by the global downturn.
France is currently experiencing social problems but they have less to do with economics than they do with attempting to integrate large populations of Muslims, many of whom have little or no desire to integrate into France’s standing culture – a primarily social rather than economic problem.
As to this:
“You can have both free market capitalism and a social safety net. But you cannot have socialism alone, it is not as productive as capitalism.” That simply fails to realize what socialism is along it’s spectrum. At the liberal democratic end of the socialism spectrum, it is precisely free markets for everything not directly related to national security and social stability. You demonize the word without understanding the subtle variations of meaning it conveys. Socialism isn’t one monolithic economic model and your continued mischaraterization of it just plays to your brainwashing that somehow equates it to communism. It’s a variety of models that incorporate safety mechanisms.
Like universal health care, not propping up private insurance company parasites like Congress opted for here.
Like adequate public transportation, unlike here.
Like real substantial public education, not the substandard moron producing underfunded hodge-podge mess America has.
Now let’s hear how private enterprise and free market capitalism is going to provide social stability better than our allies and competitors, all of whom have more socialized systems than we do.
It can’t. Because it’s as broken as pure communism was. Where communism failed for disregarding human nature, free market capitalism plays to the worst and most sociopathic parts of human nature – personal greed above social stability.
Elaine,
Before you chew on me about the education comment, note that I said “hodge-podge”.
Slarti:
“A couple of things. First, you think we’re not smart enough to control markets, but you have no problem with the assessment that the Gulf oil spill wont do much damage to a vastly more complex system about which we have much less precise information. Pick one or the other.”
how is that incompatible? That assessment is based on the 1979 Ixtoc 1 oil spill and newer information about a natural leak off the California Coast.
That is what the Fed has tried to do for almost 100 years, it hasn’t worked. Those busts need to happen to re-allocate resources properly. If you operated knowing that there is the very real possibility of a bust once in awhile your behaviour is going to be different than if you think everything is going to be stable. We have 100 years of experience to show your idea of slow growth doesn’t prevent busts and that those busts are longer than when we did not have the FED and other regulatory controls.
The market is a system but it is more than just a few feedback loops that need to be accounted for. How hard would it be to control the flow of urine into and out of a kidney?
Buddha:
I might point out that public transportation doesn’t work very well because no one really uses it, most drive cars to work.
Public schools are well public. The average per pupil expenditure is $10,000. In England it is around 5,000 lbs and in Germany it is about 5,000 euros. Approximately the same cost.
“WIESBADEN – The public sector spent an average of Euro 5,000 per pupil at public schools in 2007. These data have currently become available at the Federal Statistical Office. While the total of Euro 5,400 was spent per pupil at schools of general education, the expenditure at vocational schools per pupil amounted to Euro 3,600. The expenditure per pupil included personnel costs, current expenditure on material and equipment and investment expenditure at public schools.”
“I might point out that public transportation doesn’t work very well because no one really uses it, most drive cars to work.”
And why would this be? It couldn’t be 60 years of the oil industry bribing their way into getting transportation infrastructure to be designed to maximize the use of their product, could it? We once had a viable rail system and many cities had viable light rail systems, but those didn’t sell enough gasoline being more efficient on a pound per mile transported basis and using the cheaper diesel or electric drive systems.
On education, the proper metric isn’t just cost per student, but cost per student indexed against final skill set and performance. The problem with American public education is primarily inequity in spending, not average spending. There’s a huge difference in quality of education between suburban Connecticut and inner-city Chicago. But one need not dumb down the entire labor base to enslave them, only most of it.
Byron I think it depends on where you live how much you use public transportation.
You still haven’t addressed you multiple logical errors either, Byron. You can try distraction all you like, but your logics are still broken.
Buddha:
the real reason is Mr. Ford and Mr. Goodyear made a deal with the government to be able to sell more cars and tires. I would imagine a market left alone would have kept trains and used trucks for short hauls and cars would have been unnecessary in urban areas.
“There’s a huge difference in quality of education between suburban Connecticut and inner-city Chicago.”
And why is that?
Byron,
I’d prefer to travel by train than plane–unfortunately, our country hasn’t invested in a high-speed rail system. China certainly has.
The per pupil expenditure varies greatly from community to community.
**********
Byron & Buddha,
There are plenty of quality public schools in this country–and plenty of qualified and committed teachers. Unfortunately, the new focus on standardized testing/prepping kids for tests in recent years has been destructive to our educational system. It’s the reason I decided to retire early.
Buddha:
I disagree that my logic is broken. And anyway you can use “logic” to prove just about anything. It doesn’t mean you are right.
The video you posted had Alan Watts talking about people not being smart enough to control nature. Seems to me you can use nature as an analogy to markets. Both highly sophisticated systems with multiple variables and inputs.
Elaine:
“Unfortunately, the new focus on standardized testing/prepping kids for tests in recent years has been destructive to our educational system.”
My wife says the same thing.
Byron,
In my own little town there is no public transportation and one has to drive several miles to the first public transportation stop and parking is limited.
When I visit D.C, New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia (four places I visit at least twice a year each), I always use Public Transportation.
Elaine:
“Unfortunately, the new focus on standardized testing/prepping kids for tests in recent years has been destructive to our educational system.”
Oh boy … if I got started on that one, I’d never stop. My mother-in-law was voted state teacher of the year several times. She was superb and the experiences she gave her 4th graders stayed with them all their lives. (one of many examples … They spent two weeks every fall at a “living history” site dressed in bonnets and suspenders, writing on slate boards, pumping water and carrying fire wood to their one room schoolhouse. They got to the school early and boarded buses for the 1 hour ride to the site and then 1 hour home again arriving at dinner time for 2 weeks. The kids and their parents loved it year after year. There was always a fight at the end of the third grade year by the parents wanting their child placed in her class.) Standardized testing put an end to all that. There was simply not enough time in the day to do both.
Byron,
You can disagree about your logic being broken all you like.
It’s still broken, I’ve proven it and you’ve done nothing to disprove it more substantial than “nanny nanny boo boo”.
This lesson isn’t primarily for you but rather to show other readers what is wrong with your way of thinking. I think you’ve proven a fine example though of what’s wrong with free market capitalism. It caters to ego, greed and their interaction with delusions of superiority some have to nature and other people.
As to Watts, man, you really missed the point if you think that what he was saying is about economics. He was talking about man’s relation to nature and how it’s ego (personality) that creates the illusion that we are separate from nature (one of your assertions – that man is separate from environment) – period. To think he was talking about economics is a truly epic mental failure and a supreme attempt at rationalization without comprehension. Fine projection in the psychological sense too.
As to the tire deal? Who said keeping rail down was due to just one cause? Not me. Multiple bad actors can want the same thing. To whit, Hearst and his lumber interests and DuPont and their nylon interests and their roll in criminalizing marijuana. That had multiple causes, none of which were the medicinal or entertainment value of the plant (except racial motivations for at the time it was used for entertainment mostly by minorities), and multiple bad actors angling for a profit motive behind it.
Be as wrong as you like. Teaching can utilize negative examples. That you missed the lesson is your loss. But you have demonstrable logical errors in your thought process. Simply saying you don’t doesn’t make them go away.
Elaine,
Correction … it began as a two week stint but was cut back to one week due to insurance costs.
The woman also spent time in jail when the teachers went on strike, were ordered back to work and refused to go. The School Board and republican political administration sent a bunch of them to jail for disobeying the court order. (Rhodes, the guy also responsible for the Kent State Massacre, was governor at the time)
She was quite a woman.
Byron,
There’s a very important distinction between nature and the markets. We get to make up the rules about how markets function.
The only true free market is a chimp not beating a smaller chimp in exchange for something the smaller chimp has. You seem to define free markets as “markets free from government interference that I don’t like.”
FFN,
Good video, er, audio.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask you, is that Edward Elric in your icon? He certainly looks like the Full Metal Alchemist but so many manga and anime characters look similar . . .
BIL,
I have no idea. I don’t leave my email address on the site, but it is required to comment so I put in a dummy email address, usually different every time. One day, I put in the address nothing@nothing.com and this icon showed up. So there must be some kind of email => icon mapping in WordPress that determines what icon to show for a particular comment (and furthermore WordPress, must not not validate whether this email is used by others, or if a person is logged in in order to use the icon).
FFN,
They do. It’s http://www.gravatar.com. Even if you set up a proper WordPress account, these are the people who manage the icons. To my knowledge, they don’t track usage other than display linked to e-mail.
Byron posted:
Did either of those occur a mile deep in the ocean, near a large commercial fishing area, involve the use of over a million gallons of dispersant, occur within a couple hundred miles of 40% of the country’s wetlands or occur near a densely populated coastline? The point is that it is a very complex system and just because it has similarities to another event in some ways doesn’t mean that the differences won’t result in a greater impact. Also, the implication of your support of both of these is that we have enough information and understanding of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill on the environment and the economy of the gulf in order to make judgements about it, but we don’t have the information and understanding of the market (which I believe is a simpler system and certainly is a system we have more information about) that we need in order to intelligently intervene. This seems like a contradiction to me.
The fact that a certain type of intervention doesn’t work is not an argument against a different kind of intervention. Nor was I saying that slowing growth prevents boom and bust cycles, rather I was saying that there are trade-offs inherent in policy – preventing the boom and bust cycle would probably slow growth somewhat in a tradeoff that I think most people would gladly make (mostly, I want to make those kind of choices knowing what the tradeoffs are ahead of time – I have faith that if we knew we were about to shoot ourselves in the foot, we wouldn’t do it). Meanwhile the implicit subsidy of ‘too big to fail’ which allows people to make huge gambles without paying for it when they lose doesn’t just encourage the boom and bust cycle, it guarantees it. What evidence do you have that busts are necessary to re-allocate resources properly – busts seem to me to be a large inefficiency in the system (in addition to being undesirable) and I’m not going to accept that they are necessary unless you have good evidence that they are.
No, the market is a complex system of feedback loops, feedforward pathways, and other interactions, but to imply that it is too complex to understand flies in the face of the spirt of scientific inquiry and is just plain wrong – just look at any automated trading program to see that a model can produce a useful understanding of the market.
You kind of stepped in it here – true, if I couldn’t give a good answer here it would be a devastating argument but on the other hand, if I can answer a reasonable question about the system I wrote my thesis on, you’ve handed me a strong argument in my favor… Which do you think will happen next?
First I need to note that urine never flows into the kidney (sorry about the nitpick, but I’ve been trained to treat this subject very meticulously). To begin with, most of us are controlling the urine output of our kidneys on a regular basis with diuretics like caffeine or alcohol (you could even say that we can decrease urine output by reducing our intake of liquids or vice versa). There are several ways to control urine output in the kidney (this gets rapidly technical when you start talking about the concentrations of various solutes, so I’ll just stick with liquid volume in this discussion). As filtration rate (the rate at which fluid is passes from the blood into the nephron in the glomerulus) depends on blood pressure, the crudest way to effect changes in urine output would be to raise or lower blood pressure – not exactly fine control, but it would get the job done. The filtration rate can also be controlled by dilating or contracting the afferent arteriole (the blood supply of the glomerulus) – the body secretes a vasoconstrictor to do this as a part of the tubuloglomerular feedback mechanism, so this could be done via the direct application of vasoconstrictors or vasodilators, or by effecting changes in the natural regulatory mechanism (diabetics frequently take drugs which disable this mechanism entirely). Caffeine acts (in part) by increasing the filtration rate. At the other end of things, the collecting duct can be made water permeable (allow water to be reabsorbed into the body) by the secretion of antidiuretic hormone so the output can be increased by blocking secretion of ADH (you can try it at home with a bottle of wine
). Besides alcohol and caffeine there are 8 other classes of diuretics each of which affects urine output through a different mechanism.
Now, I didn’t go through all of that just to bore everyone (and I apologize for that) but instead to give an example of the kind of understanding that comes from modeling complex systems. I am confident that, given a reasonable amount of time, I could come up with an extension of my model to investigate any of those classes of diuretics.
There are many people smarter than me that are studying the market (and the economy in general) and the scientific method is just as good of an approach to modeling the economy as it is to modeling the kidney. Models can be developed which capture various aspects of the economy’s behavior and can be validated against the enormous amount of data we have from the past – if it doesn’t show, for instance, why the interventions of the FED had the effects that they did (assuming that the model was trying to predict such things), then it’s back to the drawing board… There is nothing that makes me suspect that the understanding of economics via mathematics is any less accessible than I know the understanding of biology via mathematics to be. The really neat thing (yeah, I’m letting my nerd flag fly) is that if the same mathematics describes two systems, then they exhibit similar behavior. If a system is composed of certain types of feedbacks and feedforwards then it will behave in a certain way regardless of whether the system is biological, an electronic device, or the US economy.
Slarti,
Nice flag you got there.
Byron,
How’s that (il)logic working out for you?
Slart:
I read your dissertation. In any event it would be complicated but not impossible but that is only one small function, how do you account for the changes that occur in other areas of the body due to increased or decreased fluid volume? It starts getting complicated.
Buddha:
it is working out really well, I have been reading Thomas Sowell’s book “Applied Economics, Thinking Beyond Stage One”, he and I aeem to have similar logical thinking. So I would say my logic is in pretty good shape.
Good, Byron.
Then you and Sowell can enjoy being wrong about the damaging nature of free market capitalism together.
Byron,
I know that you’ve read my dissertation (and you have no idea how cool a thing I think that is
) which is why I chose that way to make my point. The fact that a system is complicated is what (to me, at least) makes it interesting to study. Additionally, we’ve made enormous strides in the last several decades in understanding the mathematics behind chaos and complexity. I believe that I have the ability to make useful models of the market or the effects of public policy (harder, but still possible, in my opinion) if I chose to – hell, give me enough time and resources and I’ll invent psychohistory for you… 
You’re taking a very defeatist attitude towards understanding complex systems that just doesn’t have any basis in modern mathematics (quite the opposite, actually). While there are still things beyond our grasp, they are getting closer and closer every day and our reach is already very impressive…
As far as the issue of the effects of fluid output on the body being complex, I would just remind you that that complex doesn’t mean incomprehensible. Getting back to your analogy – ask yourself why we would want to control water output. Presumably, one reason would be to control hydration level (say to normalize it in a person who’s system had become disregulated). In that case you would be trying to achieve a system-wide effect and if you were doing that then modeling would certainly be of assistance in predicting what other effects your intervention might have – for instance on electrolyte levels in your body (VERY important). I guess my point is that none of these problems are intrinsically beyond our ken and denying the efficacy of analysis a priori is foolish and incorrect.
Buddha,
Thanks. And I agree with you about Byron providing a good pedagogical example – although I have faith that the water of our logic will eventually erode the rock of his erroneous notions. We can turn him into a tree hugging, bleeding-heart liberal socialist if we try hard enough… Okay, maybe not, but you never know = the horse may learn how to sing.
mmmmmmmmmmmm, the experiment in waking up feeling like a nano-bot bee has gone sorely awry….. !!!!!!! abort abort abort!!!!!!!!
Monsanto is no friend to butterflies …..
dead Birds, Bees and Butterflys….what is the corporate machine REALLY trading for their profits???
I suppose in the future the stories that parents tell their children to explain ‘the birds and the bees’ will be much easier and quicker to tell……..albeit a lot less colorful…:(
BUDDHA:
have you read the book?
and here is another book you might find interesting:
http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1334
you can down load it from the web. I have read Marx so maybe you can read this. You probably wont like it but then I found Marx interesting but thought there were some flaws, logical and otherwise.
Slarti:
I think people can do most anything, we went to the moon after all and we drill for oil in 5000 feet of water, but I still think a market is to complex to model and be controlled by humans. we may be able to model the market, heck I even try, but does that mean those models are adequate to allow for efficient human control?
as far as being a socialist? maybe if God told me to be one directly. but I am and will continue to be a moral and ethical capitalist and decry the fascists who give us a bad name.
I’ve read Marx. I’ve also read Milton Freidman, Thomas Malthus, and Adam Smith.
But there you go trying to make a false equivalence again albeit by implication rather than overtly. Marxism is not socialism nor is communism socialism.
Democratic socialism allows free markets but not at the expense of social stability. The laissez-faire model of economics has and is proving to be as unstable and damaging to social stability as communism.
Drip, splat, drip, splat.
Really, the degree to which you try to distort terms to suit your needs – either directly or by implication – is starting to just sound like sad rationalization to cover your zealous free market fetishism.
“A Pew poll last year found that 77% of Americans say that “there is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies.” A clear majority — 62% — says businesses make too much profit, while fewer than four-in-ten (37%) say businesses “generally strike a fair balance between profits and the public interest.”
The obvious question confronting America is what role, if any, government should play in setting standards and rules for those corporations and their stockholders, taming their abuses; stimulating the economy to boost and sustain private economic growth; and providing or helping people afford education (both K-12 and college), health care, child care, and retirement savings.
If this debate sounds like Republicans vs. Democrats, it’s not that simple. Almost all Republicans in Congress subscribe to the free market fundamentalist view of “no rules” capitalism. And most Democrats in Congress, as well as President Obama, favor “responsible” capitalism. But there are enough Democrats who aren’t sure which brand of capitalism they prefer to make it difficult for Obama to advance his agenda. We saw that in the debate over health care (many Democrats in Congress opposed a single payer system and a handful opposed a public option), Wall Street reform, climate change, and even the extensions of jobless benefits. This may have more to do with campaign contributions than beliefs, but it is a division with serious political consequences. Obama prevailed in each case, but not without making compromises that some of his key supporters found frustrating.
The public, however, is not as divided over these matters as the politicians. Even some Tea Party activists scream “Get your government’s hands off my Medicare.” In fact, according to polls, the majority of those who sympathize with the Tea Party want the federal government to help create jobs, rein in Wall Street and even do something about excessive executive bonuses. Yes, they want “responsible” capitalism, too.
Most Americans are frustrated with the government but not angry with it, according to polls. While a majority lack confidence in government’s ability to get things done, they also recognize that effective government is needed to help address serious problems, like creating jobs, protecting consumers, limiting pollution, fostering affordable health care, developing new energy sources, making college education affordable, improving public schools, and even reducing poverty. A Pew survey last year found that 63% of Americans think that it is government’s responsibility to “take care of people who can’t take care of themselves”. They want, according to pollsters Guy Molyneux and Ruy Teixeira, ‘better, not smaller’ government.”
What Kind of Capitalism? by Peter Dreier (E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College)
Sounds a lot like people want democratic socialism instead of laissez-faire “steal all you can and screw everyone else” free market capitalism.
Buddha:
then they will have it, and my protestations are moot. we are after all a democratic republic.
I hope it works out like you and they think it will. I have my doubts and so do many others. But apparently we are in the minority.
By the way your buddy Watts is rather interesting, I read some of his essays and watched a couple of his videos this weekend.
Byron,
I wish Alan Watts had been my buddy. Alas I only read from afar.
Byron,
As you said we are a democratic republic – so shouldn’t your first loyalty be to the republic rather than to an amoral economic system? Capitalism is a tool to be used, not a religion to be venerated…
Slartibartfast
1, September 6, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Byron,
As you said we are a democratic republic – so shouldn’t your first loyalty be to the republic rather than to an amoral economic system? Capitalism is a tool to be used, not a religion to be venerated… (emphasis by Blouise)
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Bingo … Wow, Slarti … that was damn profound!
Slart, Buddha, Byron,
Byron can correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember him stating something along the lines of, the most perfect expression of freedom a man has is controlling his property. By this philosophy ANY taxation is a limit on freedom; the upper limit of taxation is “the smallest amount that will let the government protect my property.”
I think we can all agree that that theory is inherently selfish. Surprisingly that’s not really the problem. What is is the assumption that it assumes humanity is selfish by nature. People are selfish, but they’re also giving. One of the few constants throughout human history is that we are social animals. We’re hardwired to look out for the tribe as well as ourselves. Trying to ignore this so that your philosophy stays pure works as well as trying to ignore the human sex drive so your religion stays pure.
Actually humans are not selfish by nature or else evolution wouldn’t have favored their socially organized structure akin to the self-sacrificing success of ants & bee colonies.
The singular evolutionary advantage of a social structure is cooperation, not individualism.
It’s only in the last 500 years of human evolution that individualism and its parasitic corollary “private property” became a credo, a mantra that served a useful function in fighting feudalism but that function has clearly outlived its usefulness.
Like Eugene V. Debs said in his famous book: “Wall & Bars” — “If one person can produce bread for a thousand why should anybody go hungry?”
Debs wrote that in the Atlanta Federal Pennitentary where he was incarcerated for 10 years during WWI for a single sentence he uttered in a speech to workers gathered in Canton, OH wherein he pointed out that (I’m paraphrasing from memory here) “historically wars are fought by poor people for the benefit of rich people.”
He ran for President while he was locked up on the Socialist Party USA ticket and got about a million votes in an age not that long ago in this alleged mecca of democracy when only white males could vote. His campaign literature, buttons & posters read: “Vote for President – Convict #9653″
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2008/06/eugene-debs–co.html
Debs also pointed out the fact that (agsin I’m paraphrasing from memory) “Prisons are built for the poor. The rich person found in prison is the rare exception that proves the rule that prisons are built for the poor. When a poor man steals a loaf of bread to feed his family he’s incarcerated. When a rich man steals a loaf of bread he’s considered a kleptomaniac and released for a psychiatric evaluation.”
The fact that such a kind & gentle man from America’s heartland, Terre Haute, Indiana, a railroad worker, a union man, got almost million votes in prison whilst women & Blacks couldn’t vote — yet that historical fact isn’t mentioned in a single grade or high school textbook in this entire nation just goes to show what a pathetic fraud of a democracy this country really is.
Such censorship is the product of a 2 party kleptocracy. The sooner we all realize this the sooner we can properly orient ourselves for action, and that action won’t be to give a vote of confidence to ANY of the candidates bandied about on this thread.
Like Joe Hill famously said: “Don’t mourn. Organize!”
I should add that Warren Harding eventually pardoned Debs after 3 years as “time served.”
What happenned as Debs was being lead away from the Atlanta Federal Penn will bring tears to the eyes of any reader of “Walls & Bars”. I won’t spoil the scene for those interested.
Only 2 books have managed to actually make me cry. The first was “Walls & Bars” and the second was “Skylark Sing Your Lonely Song” by Bobby Sands, the IRA Hunger Striker who died in Long Kesh prison in 1981. His poetry is incredible, moving, brilliant. One of his famous activist quotes, akin to Joe Hill’s, was: “Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small; no one is too old or too young to do something.”
Karl,
Evolution doesn’t favor a thing. You basically just said “Evolution doesn’t favor walking on the land, because whales, fish, and other things all swim.”
Certain conditions might favor that as a survival mechanism for the species, but that doesn’t mean it works in all cases and that no other solution exists.
Just like any philosophy that pretends man isn’t giving is flawed, so is any that pretends man isn’t selfish.
Gyges is correct that evolution doesn’t favor a thing but rather the environment will “select” adaptations by the process of elimination, i.e. the adaptation that works best creates a creature more favored to survive to breed.
I also agree with his statement about flawed philosophies. Absolutism has come up several time recently, in topics ranging from how engineers think to economics to forms of governance. Moral, ethical and philosophical absolutism is really just another form of extremism in most instances. Extremism that usually rejects context and relies upon a theoretical construct or assumption that may look good on paper but fails in real world application. It’s an idealized version of reality and “perfect paradigms” don’t exist in a universe where relativity is so key to both operation and understanding.
This is an inherent limitation on modeling the universe. As Watts said, “Nature is wiggly. Everything wiggles and all this wiggliness is too complicated.” As Slarti and I have discussed on several occasions, perfect modeling is not possible. Very good modeling, yes, even models with segments of perfect knowledge, but what Kurt Gödel said in 1931 still applies. In any given system there is something assumed to be true although it cannot be proven by the system itself.
This is also part in parcel why absolutist thinking is impaired thinking.
Gyges: OK, then let’s call it “convergence theory” rather than evolution that favors cooperation over selfishness.
Convergence theory explains why birds, insects and airplanes not coincidentally all developed wing structures in order to fly through the air.
Humans survived & thrived while some other species didn’t primarily through the power of cooperation. The majority of humans evolved making a living by the sea shore, rather than in caves as popular culture depicts it, although there are many nice caves along sea shores that were certainly utilized.
When a hurricane or typhoon threatened their encampment they survived not by the credo of “everyone for themselves” but by banding together as a team to overcome whatever challenges faced them. The same principles of cooperation & teamwork assisted such communities if & when another belligerent tribe may have attempted to maraud them.
There was a distinctly socialist aspect to most early societies. This is among just one of the reasons it’s argued that capitalism, a peculiarly iniquitous social arrangement, is alienating. Along the Latin American coastlines for example it’s beem established that folks in fishing villages would bring the day’s catch in to be distributed equally, by weight, although the the tribal leader would tend to claim the biggest fish. So if the leader’s fish was one big one at say 10 lbs., at least all the others got 2 or 3 fish weighing 10 lbs.
There’s also evidence that these societies were matriarchal, and that private property corresponded with the development of patriarchy, but that debate exceeds this discussion.
of course a selfish gene contributed to human evolution but by and large it was the communal aspect of homo sapiens, not to mention their relatively large brains, that gave them the edge over nature and their non-hominid rivals.
The point is there’s nothing alien about socialism, contrary to tea party & other absurd right wing rhetoric. In fact, I would argue that humans, if their planet is not thoroughly despoiled in the persuit of private profits, will come to face a life or death choice — either socialism or barbarism.
Karl Friedrich
“There’s also evidence that these societies were matriarchal, and that private property corresponded with the development of patriarchy, but that debate exceeds this discussion.”
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More please … that debate interests me very much and I’d like to know your opinion … when you have the time.
Karl Friedrich,
Slarti and I are night owls and like to debate in the wee hours …
Karl Friedrich,
The way I look at it, cooperation is a survival trait for societies. I think that our evolution recently (since sometime after the appearance of Homo Sapiens Sapiens) has been societal rather than physical. We’ve got pretty much the same physical equipment as we did 100,000 years ago, but our society today is unimaginably more powerful. I think your statements make more sense if you broaden the concept of evolution to act on groups of organisms rather than just individual organisms. Think of it this way: sacrificing yourself for anyone other than blood kin can never be a survival trait in individual evolution while members sacrificing for the good of the group is definitely a survival trait for societies.
So if the leader’s fish was one big one at say 10 lbs., at least all the others got 2 or 3 fish weighing 10 lbs.
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sort of like the behavioral expose’ proved by NYC subway experiments and the rats in an overcrowded cage?
Have we evolved yet?
Karl,
Yes, yes… human’s cooperated. I got that, and in fact you’ll notice I was the one who pointed it out first. That has nothing to do with saying we “aren’t selfish by nature.”
There’s a difference between saying “The majority of a Horseradish plant is underground” and saying “Horseradish plants by nature don’t exist above ground.”