Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

  • What Is Post-modernism?

    POSTMODERNISM IS AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT TOTALITARIANISM DESPITE THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY PROMOTING A NEW SECULAR RELIGION THROUGH REPETITION OF DESIRABLE BUT FALSE AND IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS AND REJECTING REALISM, SCIENCE AND HISTORY – THE PROMISE OF EQUALITY AS THE EQUIVALENT TO THE PROMISE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

    Postmodernism is a sophisticated set of ideas constructed to account for the failure of Socialism, both ideological and ‘scientific’ in theory and in practice, by changing the  values associated with the language and symbolism of realism (truth is objectively knowable by scientific means) and the nature of man (equality, diversity), and morality ( moral relativism).

    The same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, optimism and equality for all – has now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism  But why? Because with the failure of socialism it has adopted the strategy of abrahamic and zoroastrian religions which involves reciting blatant falsehoods in by repetition, peer pressure and indoctrination: that multiculturalism and diversity are ‘good’, and that equality of outcome rather than opportunity is desirable and possible, despite the contrary theory and evidence. That norms – morals, ethics, and manners – have no meaning or value. That all cultures are relative except european, which is bad.  That men and women are equal, but men are bad.

    This ideology, like Marxism, is present largely in liberal arts departments, despite being rejected by STEM and Economics departments where science retains it’s superiority over anti-realism (and where IQ’s are significantly higher.)

    Thorough attempts have been made by Heidegger and Rorty in particular, to attempt to create a non-rational language for discussing experience in subjective terms, rather than objective.

    However, despite the failure of these intellectual endeavors, ideological Postmodernism has in fact been adopted as the religion of the state, left intellectuals, and liberal arts graduates at all levels.

    However, genetic science, neurobiology, anthropology, and economics continue to counter ideological postmodernism with scientific realism with scholars in each field continuing to undermine these attempts to construct a secular religion of anti-scientific irrationality without the burden of mysticism.

    The best way to explain postmodernism today, is the philosophical equivalent of christianity as was used against Roman pragmatism: the promise of magic to motivate the masses.




    From Stephen Hicks – Explaining Postmodernism.
    Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition): Stephen R. C. Hicks: 9780983258407: Amazon.com: Books

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-modernism

  • What Is Post-modernism?

    POSTMODERNISM IS AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT TOTALITARIANISM DESPITE THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY PROMOTING A NEW SECULAR RELIGION THROUGH REPETITION OF DESIRABLE BUT FALSE AND IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS AND REJECTING REALISM, SCIENCE AND HISTORY – THE PROMISE OF EQUALITY AS THE EQUIVALENT TO THE PROMISE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

    Postmodernism is a sophisticated set of ideas constructed to account for the failure of Socialism, both ideological and ‘scientific’ in theory and in practice, by changing the  values associated with the language and symbolism of realism (truth is objectively knowable by scientific means) and the nature of man (equality, diversity), and morality ( moral relativism).

    The same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, optimism and equality for all – has now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism  But why? Because with the failure of socialism it has adopted the strategy of abrahamic and zoroastrian religions which involves reciting blatant falsehoods in by repetition, peer pressure and indoctrination: that multiculturalism and diversity are ‘good’, and that equality of outcome rather than opportunity is desirable and possible, despite the contrary theory and evidence. That norms – morals, ethics, and manners – have no meaning or value. That all cultures are relative except european, which is bad.  That men and women are equal, but men are bad.

    This ideology, like Marxism, is present largely in liberal arts departments, despite being rejected by STEM and Economics departments where science retains it’s superiority over anti-realism (and where IQ’s are significantly higher.)

    Thorough attempts have been made by Heidegger and Rorty in particular, to attempt to create a non-rational language for discussing experience in subjective terms, rather than objective.

    However, despite the failure of these intellectual endeavors, ideological Postmodernism has in fact been adopted as the religion of the state, left intellectuals, and liberal arts graduates at all levels.

    However, genetic science, neurobiology, anthropology, and economics continue to counter ideological postmodernism with scientific realism with scholars in each field continuing to undermine these attempts to construct a secular religion of anti-scientific irrationality without the burden of mysticism.

    The best way to explain postmodernism today, is the philosophical equivalent of christianity as was used against Roman pragmatism: the promise of magic to motivate the masses.




    From Stephen Hicks – Explaining Postmodernism.
    Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Expanded Edition): Stephen R. C. Hicks: 9780983258407: Amazon.com: Books

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-post-modernism

  • WE DON”T NEED IMMIGRANTS Why should we add immigrants so that we can pay the eld

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10185342/Britain-needs-millions-more-immigrants-to-reduce-strain-of-ageing-population.htmlNO WE DON”T NEED IMMIGRANTS

    Why should we add immigrants so that we can pay the elderly below-subsistence wages, instead of keeping the lot of them in the work force, as well as the young in the work force, and driving up wages?

    Compete for rare intellectual talent. But labor is little value unless its scarce.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 16:35:00 UTC

  • ARE WRONG ON IMMIGRATION. AND IF THEY”RE RIGHT, PROGRESSIVES ARE RIGHT ON DEBT.

    http://cafehayek.com/2013/07/thomas-sowell-and-immigration.htmlLIBERTARIANS ARE WRONG ON IMMIGRATION. AND IF THEY”RE RIGHT, PROGRESSIVES ARE RIGHT ON DEBT.

    (How do you like that one?)

    Reposted from Comments on Cafe Hayek.

    —————

    ACK. POSITIVISM.

    How do we measure the cost to current political friction?

    How do we measure the cost of the decline in property rights?

    How do we measure the cost of the decline in the rule of law?

    How do we measure the cost of the decrease in the civic society?

    How do we measure the opportunity cost of what might have been?

    How do we measure the cost of the decline of the nuclear family?

    How do we measure the cost of declining trust due to diversity?

    I can generate constant economic growth by conducting two centuries of constant warfare, while increasing credit loads predicated on the ongoing success of that warfare. So what?

    How many unmeasured costs of normative, social, and institutional capital are absorbed by immigration?

    I can’t take the time address this problem other than to just make a very long list. To which the ONLY response by libertarians would be correlative empirical nonsense. There is no reason if these intangibles PRODUCE the high trust society and the rule of law, that their sacrifice isn’t a COST that undermines the high trust society and the rule of law.

    After all, the production cycle of high trust norms it looks like, is from 200-700 years, and the production cycle of an economy is months or years. I mean, just how IRRATIONAL is it to measure the NOISE generated by profit, loss and GROWTH, instead of the SIGNAL of social and human capital? I mean, how absolutely ridiculous… it’s essentially numerology – attributing magical properties to numbers, and falling into the vapid positive error of INDUCTION.

    IMMIGRATION IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE GOOD and ECONOMIC MEASURES are contrary indicators of the growth of normative, social and human capital.

    If positivism on this scale is right, then the progressives are also right. All you do is confirm the idiocy of the Krugman-Stigliz-Delong left. And their goal is not economic -it’s political. It’s to undermine the aristocratic high trust society and replace it with the totalitarian equalitarian state.

    Sigh. It’s no wonder that we lose the ideological battle with even the conservatives. At least they understand it even if they speak in allegorical terms.

    Exasperating.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 12:16:00 UTC

  • TO THE STATUS OF FARM ANIMAL: THE STORY OF YOUR ENSLAVEMENT – IT”S WORSE THAN OR

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58AWELCOME TO THE STATUS OF FARM ANIMAL: THE STORY OF YOUR ENSLAVEMENT – IT”S WORSE THAN ORWELL’S ANIMAL FARM

    I am not a libertarian that requires every one of our factions to put forward rigid analytical arguments in pursuit of some absolutely persuasive scripture.

    Like Roderick Tracy Long, proposes, I think any advocate of liberty must be accommodated if at all possible, as long as they expand interest in and passion for liberty. We scribblers largely debate other scribblers, but political movements are won or lost by numbers, and ideology aims not to produce either internally consistent argument or empirical evidence for purposes of persuasion. The purpose of ideology is to motivate the passions of the many to act. If religion required articulated reason, and empirical support, the world would be populated by atheists.

    Now, Molyneux’s attempts at analytical philosophy are pretty weak. But his sentiments, his analogies, his narratives, and his advocacy advance ideological and sentimental liberty, even if they don’t really contribute to analytical rigor in our field.

    Stefan’s recent video “The Story Of Your Enslavement” is exceptionally well done. It promotes a very simple meme by analogy to farming, that unites the sentiments and aggravates the passions.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A

    It’s great work. And please share it. Even those of who dismiss ideology and seek the certainty of the ratio-scientific can appreciate the craftsmanship – the ARTISTRY, in this kind of message.

    It’s brilliant.

    Curt

    (PS: If you don’t think so, then you’ve never seen the effect of Schoolhouse Rock. 🙂


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-20 10:31:00 UTC

  • Necessity vs Preference In Political and Ethical Theory

    [I]t is all well and good to attempt to construct political and ethical philosophy as the family becomes the village, the tribe becomes the city with a division of labor, and the people become the nation with an anonymous market. It is necessary to do so. But preferences must compete with necessities. We may prefer something but it must in practice be possible. We can temporarily distort necessity, as we with fiat money – because we can. We can permanently distort morality by sanctioning competition as virtuous – because we can. But in human history there are many preferences and few necessities. Those tools that compensate for our limited intellectual abilities: our senses, perception, memory, reason, calculation, and planning are the necessities of human existence. We adapt our norms and institutions to those necessities. Not the other way around. We are not wealthier than our cave dwelling ancestors. The only human currency is time. But through the division of knowledge and labor we have increased the purchasing power of our time to levels unimaginable to those who came before us. [R]omantic, egoistic, anthropocentric vanities encourage us to believe we make directional choices in our evolution but we do not. We seize opportunities good and bad. We forgo opportunities good and bad. And we pay or gain the consequences – by trial and error. Then we congratulate ourselves on our wisdom, and justify to ourselves our errors. The future is opaque and kaleidic. At best, we can attempt to improve our suite of tools, and choose those norms and institutions that increase our sense, perception, memory, calculation, planning, and information sharing. So that we constantly narrow the scope of our trial and error, and in doing so, increase the purchasing power of our time in this earth.

  • NECESSITY VS PREFERENCE It is all well and good to attempt to construct politica

    NECESSITY VS PREFERENCE

    It is all well and good to attempt to construct political and ethical philosophy as the family becomes the village, the tribe becomes the city with a division of labor, and the people become the nation with an anonymous market.

    It is necessary to do so.

    But preferences must compete with necessities. We may prefer something but it must in practice be possible.

    We can temporarily distort necessity, as we with fiat money – because we can. We can permanently distort morality by sanctioning competition as virtuous – because we can.

    But in human history there are many preferences and few necessities.

    Those tools that compensate for our limited intellectual abilities: our senses, perception, memory, reason, calculation, and planning are the necessities of human existence.

    We adapt our norms and institutions to those necessities. Not the other way around.

    We are not wealthier than our cave dwelling ancestors. The only human currency is time.

    But through the division of knowledge and labor we have increased the purchasing power of our time to levels unimaginable to those who came before us.

    Romantic, egoistic, anthropocentric vanities encourage us to believe we make directional choices in our evolution but we do not. We seize opportunities good and bad. We forgo opportunities good and bad. And we pay or gain the consequences – by trial and error.

    Then we congratulate ourselves on our wisdom, and justify to ourselves our errors.

    The future is opaque and kaleidic.

    At best, we can attempt to improve our suite of tools, and choose those norms and institutions that increase our sense, perception, memory, calculation, planning, and information sharing.

    So that we constantly narrow the scope of our trial and error, and in doing so, increase the purchasing power of out time in this earth.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-19 06:01:00 UTC

  • DIVERSITY WORKS FOR THE SMALL Small is how ‘diversity’ can work: diverse inter-s

    DIVERSITY WORKS FOR THE SMALL

    Small is how ‘diversity’ can work: diverse inter-state trade, rather than diverse intra-state politics.

    Switzerland has 27 ‘states’ each with it’s own constitution, direct democracy, only one of which is over 1M people (Zurich), and the majority of which are in the tens of thousands. This is consistent with democratic theory as we understand it: small works. Largely because government cannot be used to accumulate power, and because each small area is homogenous, and has its own signals.

    Denmark consists of 5.7M, in 5 Regions, from .5M – 1.7M, and 89% of whom are ethnic danes, and less than 8% who are immigrants.

    Sweden consists of 9M people 86% of whom are native Swedes and only ~4.1% are immigrants from non western countries. (turkey, iran, iraq, somalia)

    Norway consists of 5M people, 89% of whom are native Norwegian and only ~6% are non western immigrants.

    Small homogenous nation states, and lots of them, are better solutions to free and happy and prosperous people. Big states can accumulate debt, engage in war, and must manage inter-group competition by political and apolitical means, instead of by trade.


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-17 09:28:00 UTC

  • HOW DO WE SOLVE GLOBAL PROBLEMS? (edited and re-posted from elsewhere) How do we

    HOW DO WE SOLVE GLOBAL PROBLEMS?

    (edited and re-posted from elsewhere)

    How do we solve global problems of pollution, conflict, corruption, and dispute over resources?

    a) a division of knowledge and labor using private property, money prices, accounting, contracts and rule of the common law: the science of cooperation;

    b) a division of knowledge and labor using empirical tests against the natural world: the physical sciences;

    c) a division of labor using rational tests of empirical results – logic and rational philosophy bounded by philosophical realism: the science of reason;

    d) education of the willing in all of the above – cooperative, physical and rational sciences – and the economic, political and social ostracization of the unwilling.

    In other words, the prohibition of authority and the elimination of the need for homogeneity of opinion, through the use of organized and self organizing trial and error by ratio-scientific man – accompanied by the ostracization and impoverishment of the magian and totalitarian man.

    Currently we have insufficiently privatized the capital of the natural commons so that prices limit overconsumption, and we are engaging in redistribution without matching restraint on reproduction largely because of it.

    That is how we solve global problems of pollution, conflict, corruption, and dispute over resources: science and reason bounded by rules of calculation and the elimination of authority, commons and consensus.

    (oh, my, god. I think I made a funny…. Profound, but funny.)


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-14 17:40:00 UTC

  • BIG SORT – AMERICAN REGIONAL NATIONALISM – AND THE NECESSITY FOR SECESSION “Our

    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0077FAYES/ref=tsm_1_fb_lkTHE BIG SORT – AMERICAN REGIONAL NATIONALISM – AND THE NECESSITY FOR SECESSION

    “Our continent’s famed mobility — and the transportation and communications technology that foster it — has been reinforcing, not dissolving, the differences between the nations. As journalist Bill Bishop and sociologist Robert Cushing demonstrated in The Big Sort (2008), since 1976 Americans have been relocating to communities where people share their values and worldview …. As Americans sort themselves into like-minded communities, they’re also sorting themselves into like-minded nations.“

    THE BIG SORT

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Sort-Like-Minded-ebook/dp/B0077FAYES

    OUR PATCHWORK NATION

    http://www.amazon.com/Our-Patchwork-Nation-Surprising-ebook/dp/B0052RDI78/

    AMERICAN NATIONS: ELEVEN RIVAL CULTURES

    http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-Regional-Cultures-ebook/dp/B0052RDIZA/

    THE NINE NATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Nine-Nations-North-America/dp/0380578859

    BETTER OFF WITHOUT THEM MANIFESTO

    http://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Without-Manifesto-ebook/dp/B0061QB16Y/

    THOMAS WOODS: NULLIFICATION

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596981490?


    Source date (UTC): 2013-07-13 03:34:00 UTC