Why GREECE, GREXIT, and “EUROPE” are an unnatural proto-Nazi “Aryan” construction — or why putting Teutons and Greeks together isn’t the smartest (and most stable) idea.
Nor is it natural.
The least *unnatural* union for Greece is some sort of *loose* Mediterranean League of City States (and another minor Balkan connection). But again, it would need to stay fuzzy –i.e., should you want to use history/culture, use them properly (“annales” style).
+ There are two natural cultural (eventually leading by mixing to ethnic) demarcations: butter vs olive oil (and eventually a third, the palm tree). The demarcation is robust: if people have the same food, they are the same (or eventually through mixing) become the same. Now if a nonblind but deaf Martian visited Turkey and Greece, he would think they are the same people (same with Lebanon and Western Syria). If words are different, body language in the Levant, Greece, Turkey and Southern Italy is similar. “Una faccia, una razza”. But a bureaucrat blinded by constructions would put the Greek in the same unit as the German, and bundle the Turk with the Huns in the Altai mountains near China.
+ But Mediterraneans are integrated as a socio-cultural unit. This is not just recent; the integration is 5000 years old in the East and 3000 in the West. The trend to “Europeanize” came with German scholarship which starting in 1820s (one Müller) tried to kill any Levantine/Babylonian connection to Greece, trying to give Germany some nobility in its historical roots, while French scholarship was until then considering Greece as deeply rooted in the Levant and Asia Minor, as a continuum from Babylon to the Phoenicians to classical Greece (mythology says that Europa herself was Phoenician). The rise of antisemitism played a part: the Teutonic cultural separation from the Levantine Canaanite race (the Jews and Phoenicians had near-identical language and ethnicity).
+ The Levant and what is now Greece spent at least 1000 years in the same political unit Rome-Byzantium and another few hunded in the Ottoman Empire; the Greeks and the Germans have now about 40 years together.
+ The nation-state started integrating the Mediterranean people. During the 19th Century only a few coastal cities such as Marseille and Toulon in Southern France spoke French, the rest spoke Provencal or Catalan.
+ The idea of a Mediterranean unit is not popular. Partly because it has been linked to Mussolini.
+ The Mycenians did not use a Semitic language (linear B). But the word Knossos (the capital) means “settlement” in Phoenician.
+ If a French person looks like a Mediterranean and speaks French, it is by colonization. The same applies to the “Aryanization” of Greece, to the “Turkification” of Asia Minor, and the “Arabization” of Syria or the “Aryanization” of India. Arian/Semitic/Hun is not a distinction beyond the language spoken.
Author: Curt Doolittle
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Taleb is On Board with Tribalism
Why GREECE, GREXIT, and “EUROPE” are an unnatural proto-Nazi “Aryan” construction — or why putting Teutons and Greeks together isn’t the smartest (and most stable) idea. Nor is it natural. The least *unnatural* union for Greece is some sort of *loose* Mediterranean League of City States (and another minor Balkan connection). But again, it would need to stay fuzzy –i.e., should you want to use history/culture, use them properly (“annales” style). + There are two natural cultural (eventually leading by mixing to ethnic) demarcations: butter vs olive oil (and eventually a third, the palm tree). The demarcation is robust: if people have the same food, they are the same (or eventually through mixing) become the same. Now if a nonblind but deaf Martian visited Turkey and Greece, he would think they are the same people (same with Lebanon and Western Syria). If words are different, body language in the Levant, Greece, Turkey and Southern Italy is similar. “Una faccia, una razza”. But a bureaucrat blinded by constructions would put the Greek in the same unit as the German, and bundle the Turk with the Huns in the Altai mountains near China. + But Mediterraneans are integrated as a socio-cultural unit. This is not just recent; the integration is 5000 years old in the East and 3000 in the West. The trend to “Europeanize” came with German scholarship which starting in 1820s (one Müller) tried to kill any Levantine/Babylonian connection to Greece, trying to give Germany some nobility in its historical roots, while French scholarship was until then considering Greece as deeply rooted in the Levant and Asia Minor, as a continuum from Babylon to the Phoenicians to classical Greece (mythology says that Europa herself was Phoenician). The rise of antisemitism played a part: the Teutonic cultural separation from the Levantine Canaanite race (the Jews and Phoenicians had near-identical language and ethnicity). + The Levant and what is now Greece spent at least 1000 years in the same political unit Rome-Byzantium and another few hunded in the Ottoman Empire; the Greeks and the Germans have now about 40 years together. + The nation-state started integrating the Mediterranean people. During the 19th Century only a few coastal cities such as Marseille and Toulon in Southern France spoke French, the rest spoke Provencal or Catalan. + The idea of a Mediterranean unit is not popular. Partly because it has been linked to Mussolini. + The Mycenians did not use a Semitic language (linear B). But the word Knossos (the capital) means “settlement” in Phoenician. + If a French person looks like a Mediterranean and speaks French, it is by colonization. The same applies to the “Aryanization” of Greece, to the “Turkification” of Asia Minor, and the “Arabization” of Syria or the “Aryanization” of India. Arian/Semitic/Hun is not a distinction beyond the language spoken. -
Religions Come In Many Forms
[T]o act in concert with, or at least not in conflict with, others, we require a narrative (scope) and a means of decidability (choice). Religion provides both. Philosophy (reason), Scientism (evidence), Politics(utility), and Magianism(mythology) all are forms of religion: means by which we compose useful narratives and construct useful rules of decidability so that we can succeed in cooperating with others in a densely populated world where we share a division of perceptive and cognitive labor.
Progressivism (Democratic Socialist Secular Humanism) is just as much a religion predicated upon falsehoods as is supernatural scriptural monotheism. We are unequal. Diversity is bad. Redistribution to the point where it affects reproduction is bad. To some degree scientism is just as much a religion as any of them when paired with correlative mathematics (statistics). I am not quite sure that mathematical modeling of the physical universe doesn’t equally qualify as a form of Buddhism (any set of axiomatic rules in which everything is possible and therefore the rules cannot be possibly true). Western conservatism (aristocratic egalitarianism) is certainly a religion, even if its content was accumulated empirically over thousands of years. At present it is a mythology. I hope someday to debate the standing atheists – not in defense of religion, and not against atheism, but that they are not atheists, but statists, innumerate and pseudo-scientific. -
Religions Come In Many Forms
[T]o act in concert with, or at least not in conflict with, others, we require a narrative (scope) and a means of decidability (choice). Religion provides both. Philosophy (reason), Scientism (evidence), Politics(utility), and Magianism(mythology) all are forms of religion: means by which we compose useful narratives and construct useful rules of decidability so that we can succeed in cooperating with others in a densely populated world where we share a division of perceptive and cognitive labor.
Progressivism (Democratic Socialist Secular Humanism) is just as much a religion predicated upon falsehoods as is supernatural scriptural monotheism. We are unequal. Diversity is bad. Redistribution to the point where it affects reproduction is bad. To some degree scientism is just as much a religion as any of them when paired with correlative mathematics (statistics). I am not quite sure that mathematical modeling of the physical universe doesn’t equally qualify as a form of Buddhism (any set of axiomatic rules in which everything is possible and therefore the rules cannot be possibly true). Western conservatism (aristocratic egalitarianism) is certainly a religion, even if its content was accumulated empirically over thousands of years. At present it is a mythology. I hope someday to debate the standing atheists – not in defense of religion, and not against atheism, but that they are not atheists, but statists, innumerate and pseudo-scientific. -
Names (truth) vs Analogies (deceits)
[A] sequence of operations consists of names. I can name that sequence of operations. An experience or an observation or an imagination of cause and effect is an analogy. Names may or may not convey meaning. THey may or may not convey loadings which we, as moral creatures, feel are terribly important. But operations are names and experiences are analogies. I have a pretty low opinion of meaning. It’s a vehicle for comprehension yes.
But that comprehension is by definition loaded. And loading and framing are means of deceit.Source: (1) Curt Doolittle
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Names (truth) vs Analogies (deceits)
[A] sequence of operations consists of names. I can name that sequence of operations. An experience or an observation or an imagination of cause and effect is an analogy. Names may or may not convey meaning. THey may or may not convey loadings which we, as moral creatures, feel are terribly important. But operations are names and experiences are analogies. I have a pretty low opinion of meaning. It’s a vehicle for comprehension yes.
But that comprehension is by definition loaded. And loading and framing are means of deceit.Source: (1) Curt Doolittle
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No More Slavery, Conquest, and Colonization
[S]o if we cannot parasite upon others, and control their reproduction (slavery) then why can others parasite upon us and limit our reproduction (through redistribution and taxation)? If we cannot colonise others, then why can others colonise us? Forcible Redistribution Is Slavery. Forced immigration is colonisation. Statism is Slavery. Nationalism. Meritocratic immigration. Source: Curt Doolittle
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No More Slavery, Conquest, and Colonization
[S]o if we cannot parasite upon others, and control their reproduction (slavery) then why can others parasite upon us and limit our reproduction (through redistribution and taxation)? If we cannot colonise others, then why can others colonise us? Forcible Redistribution Is Slavery. Forced immigration is colonisation. Statism is Slavery. Nationalism. Meritocratic immigration. Source: Curt Doolittle
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HOW CAN I REFORM CRITICAL RATIONALISTS? (important question) Or is it hopeless?
HOW CAN I REFORM CRITICAL RATIONALISTS?
(important question)
Or is it hopeless? In other words, I think I understand the (libertarian) cognitive bias that draws people to critical rationalism. But that bias is in favor of stimulation junkies – novelty and the signaling value of superior intellect.
1) Now, first, how do I show that it’s one thing to acknowledge the necessity of critical rationalism (conceptual darwinism), and another thing to PREFER critical rationalism because it suits a cognitive bias. It’s one thing to prefer invention and another thing to say that if critical rationalism is true, then why can’t we place the same constraints on public speech in economics and politics that we place upon publishing of scientific papers? If we can punish people for fraudulent publication in the physical sciences (we do) then why can’t we punish people for fraudulent publication in the social sciences? If we can punish liars in court then why can’t we punish liars in in politics, when politics is a vehicle for theft? There isn’t any difference. When we use justificationism then we argue that something is true. When we use criticism – testimonialism – we argue only that we have done due diligence against falsehoods. When we place goods and services in the market we require implied warranty and due diligence from harm, and often we require bonding and insurance. So why can we not require the same for political speech? We don’t allow physical hazards, we don’t allow verbal hazards (fire in a theatre), so why do we allow political and economic hazards?
2) Second, that the critical process of truth telling (laundering imaginary content, error, bias, wishful thinking, deception and lying) is universal, not specific to science? That the scientific method as used in the physical sciences is merely incomplete? That it is also usually mis-stated(falsification, limits, parsimony, existence proof.) That there is no difference between production of a good, the invention of a process, or the development of a theory, other than the value one places on the output? So that science, testimony and philosophy are synonyms if not tautologies?
3) Third, that it appears that critical preference is a logical but not empirical constraint. In practice it appears that in both human cooperation (social science) and physical science, that the least cost means of investigation does appear to provide the shortest path to discovery, because physical processes, evolutionary processes, and rational incentives operate by the shortest path. While greater empirical content may be found by other means, the least cost appears to be the most predictably productive for both falsification and for discovery.
I don’t tolerate the invectives of some of the ideologues, but it would be interesting if someone who was capable could help me understand if this is possible or not.
Thanks
Curt
Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 06:43:00 UTC
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COOPERATION IS EITHER MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL OR VIOLENCE IS PREFERABLE COOPERATION
COOPERATION IS EITHER MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL OR VIOLENCE IS PREFERABLE
COOPERATION MATTERS. Not just between members of the PRODUCTIVE economy, but between members of the REPRODUCTIVE economy. We have to cooperate. Not parasite. OTHERWISE COOPERATION IS NOT PREFERABLE TO PREDATION.
Source date (UTC): 2015-07-19 06:16:00 UTC