My question is whether the criticism of faith are purely political: whether faith is a means of limiting political influence – coercion. As much as it WAS an instrument of coercion in the past. It’s content has changed since the darwinian revolution. Other than one remaining dogmatic super-cult, most are a personal religion now that defines a natural law that limits the state, by defining a communal preference over the demands of the state. If economic secularism is wrong. Faith is ‘right’. In other words, reason is insufficient to test the the content of faith or secular statism. The only scientific answer is which religion: the democratic secular economic religion of the state, or the christian/buddhist/hindu religion of the community is ‘true’, rather than a tautology. Reason is the language of the state, of commerce and of science. All of which dissolve community, family, and tribe. From which we gain our comfort. Our ‘gravity’. A force of nature which is present in our genes. To the broader question that separates religion from ‘faith’. To the argument as to whether faith is rational, the only reason to have this discussion is to persuade someone for some material reason. Otherwise we are arguing taste. And taste is not material. It is purely subjective. So the only reason to argue about faith is either political or commercial gain. Faith is an insulation against the political trevails of the overactive, and self interested. Political claims via reason, are claims on the actions and property of others. They must be. That is all it is possible for them to be. Reason by definition cannot a ‘subjective taste’. An honest discourse would not be conducted over a person’s faith, but over the property of individuals, and what must be exchanged for it. Rather, than over how individuals believe something, so that they will transfer their time, effort, or property at no cost, or lower cost. Political pundits are most often beggars in fine robes of reason. Faith then, is a means of saying “I’m not interested”. I am not sure that given the durability of the religions and the temporal nature of states, and the current understanding that we have of the limits of collective decision making, that ‘faith’ isn’t demonstrably ‘right’ and much of our political and economic theory ‘wrong’. Even if secularism is constructed of rational argument, and faith is constructed of myth and analogy, those constructs are not material — only the result of their application is. This has been said simply two millennia: the state is responsible for temporal affairs (commerce and war) and the church (faith) is responsible for limiting the state from expanding beyond commerce and war into the preferred state of man. And the preferred state of man is demonstrably that state of community that is found in the commonality of values, and the rituals that insulate us from the alienation of commerce and violence, and connect us to the security of our family and tribe. Faith has no place in State, commerce and science and vice versa. I mean, I don’t know really, why gravity works either. I don’t have to. But I would be uncomfortable in a world without gravity — genetic evolution has guaranteed I depend upon it. Likewise, I don’t know really why the different faiths ‘work’. I just know that I do not want to live in a world where there is no equivalent. I might prefer the Germans had succeeded in abandoning christianity in favor of return to their pagan roots. I might prefer my bible was of history, and gods, our heroes. But that is a question of taste. Whether the outcome of a more mystical christianity, or a more heroic history is superior, I am not sure I can forecast.
Form: Mini Essay
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WORD BUDGETS: Writing vs Speaking, and the Male vs Female myth.
I can’t quite tell if there is any data to support the commonly quoted difference between men and women’s speaking budgets. It’s one of those things that’s so commonly bandied about that you’d think you could easily find data on it. But you can’t. And what you can, is pretty specious. In fact, it looks pretty much ‘just plain wrong’ when I read it. But there is another explanation; it certainly does appear that men and women speak more in different **contexts**. One thing we know that helps us understand those contexts, is that men have more friends than women, but women have closer relationships than do men. Men tolerate greater diversity of value judgements in their friends. Women tolerate less diversity of value judgments in their friends. Or perhaps better stated, men and women view the source of loyalty that defines friendship as coming from different behaviors: cooperation in pursuit of opportunities for shared gain, versus care-taking which requires bearing costs on behalf of the other. For this reason fear of ostracization is lower in men, and higher in women. Add onto that the men not only feel more comfortable taking risks, but enjoy and seek taking them — albiet the level of risk varies substantially. But conversational risk is very low among men. We think it’s better to hear a bad idea than fail to hear all the ideas. Women are more cautious because they are more sensitive to variation in opinion. In my anecdotal experience, in business meetings and debates, men speak far more words than women. In social settings, and in personal conversations, women speak more words than men. Men seem to enjoy participating in competitive conversations. They even artificially create nonsense-conflicts just to have something to debate: they talk about sports teams, companies, politics, technologies, cars and tools etc. Each as a vehicle for debate. They prefer the abstract to the experiential, and a limited number of contextual changes. Women seem to prefer gradual subtle conversations across multiple contexts where they can build consensus and thoroughly understand one another’s viewpoints in the process. The result of these different preferences is more of a difference in velocity than anything else. Women tend to ‘get there’ using their conversational style just like men do, but more slowly. Like everything else, men are built for speed. The extraneous is removed by evolution. It certainly seems like most woman I’ve been in a relationship with has greater capacity for speech than I do — and I’m pretty talkative. But I suspect that it’s a difference in the content and circumstance not the number of words. I”m not the only man who thinks it’s odd that his mate must revisit her dreams in the morning, and her daily conversations at night. It’s common knowledge among men that we must learn that skill. But it’s good for a relationship when men learn how to feign interest in these things that we lack the emotional bandwidth to appreciate and comprehend. Listening is an exercise in providing what the other person needs, and what she needs is not comprehension and problem solving – it’s to ensure we’re committed to one another, and for her to organize her emotions by way of speaking them in the same way that men organize our ideas by visualizing them. Chatter after all, is negatively correlated with successful hunting. Communication during hunts and war is visual, not verbal. Besides, that female revisitation of emotions is why women help us with our emotional problems when we have them: they’re more experienced at dealing with them. Our compensation for lacking those tools, is that mechanical devices, consumer electronics, and politics are not opaque to our comprehension. But I’m not sure which gender gets the better deal. We forget that we all start out female, and that the template for human beings is female, and that males are highly specialized versions of females. Testosterone shuts all that ‘unnecessary’ emotional processing off for males in the womb so that we can worry about doing dangerous things and making tools, and inventing pretty much everything, without worrying about the needs of children or the danger that other women might ostracize us in a time of weakness, when we and our children need communal support to survive. Applying that word budget to writing: I”m writing about 8K words a day on average now, with an average low of 5K, an average high of 10K, and a max of 25K on rare occasions. I’m not sure what that means. I know that if I dont talk to people all day, I write more, and vice versa. I also know that if I am writing for a competitive argument I write more than if I write in the explanatory neutral voice. But I also need to chat more than does my spouse. We are the product of our genes. The universe is fascinating. Life is a miraculous luxury. And every breath of it is worth savoring.
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WORD BUDGETS: Writing vs Speaking, and the Male vs Female myth. I can’t quite te
WORD BUDGETS: Writing vs Speaking, and the Male vs Female myth.
I can’t quite tell if there is any data to support the commonly quoted difference between men and women’s speaking budgets. It’s one of those things that’s so commonly bandied about that you’d think you could easily find data on it. But you can’t. And what you can, is pretty specious. In fact, it looks pretty much ‘just plain wrong’ when I read it.
But there is another explanation; it certainly does appear that men and women speak more in different **contexts**.
One thing we know that helps us understand those contexts, is that men have more friends than women, but women have closer relationships than do men. Men tolerate greater diversity of value judgements in their friends. Women tolerate less diversity of value judgments in their friends. Or perhaps better stated, men and women view the source of loyalty that defines friendship as coming from different behaviors: cooperation in pursuit of opportunities for shared gain, versus care-taking which requires bearing costs on behalf of the other.
For this reason fear of ostracization is lower in men, and higher in women. Add onto that the men not only feel more comfortable taking risks, but enjoy and seek taking them — albiet the level of risk varies substantially. But conversational risk is very low among men. We think it’s better to hear a bad idea than fail to hear all the ideas. Women are more cautious because they are more sensitive to variation in opinion.
In my anecdotal experience, in business meetings and debates, men speak far more words than women. In social settings, and in personal conversations, women speak more words than men. Men seem to enjoy participating in competitive conversations. They even artificially create nonsense-conflicts just to have something to debate. (sports teams etc). Women seem to prefer gradual subtle conversations where they can build consensus.
The result of these different preferences is more of a difference in velocity than anything else. Women tend to ‘get there’ using their conversational style just like men do, but more slowly. Like everything else, men are built for speed. The extraneous is removed by evolution.
It certainly seems like most woman I’ve been in a relationship with has greater capacity for speech than I do — and I’m pretty talkative. But I suspect that it’s a difference in the content and circumstance not the number of words. I”m not the only man who thinks it’s odd that his mate must revisit her dreams in the morning, and her daily conversations at night.
But it’s good for a relationship when men learn how to feign interest in these things that we lack the emotional bandwidth to appreciate and comprehend. Listening is an exercise in providing what the other person needs, and what she needs is not comprehension and problem solving – it’s to ensure we’re committed to one another, and for her to organize her emotions by way of speaking them the way men organize our ideas by visualizing them. Chatter after all, is negatively correlated with successful hunting. Communication during hunts and war is visual, not verbal. Besides, that female revisitation of emotions is why women help us with our emotional problems when we have them. They’re more experienced at dealing with them. Our compensation is that mechanical devices and politics are not opaque to our comprehension. But I”m not sure which gender gets the better deal.
We forget that we all start out female, and that the template for human beings is female, and that males are highly specialized versions of females. Testosterone shuts all that ‘unnecessary’ emotional processing off for males in the womb so that we can worry about doing dangerous things and making tools, and inventing pretty much everything, without about the needs of children or the danger that other women might ostracize us in a time of weakness, when we and our children need communal support to survive.
Applying that word budget to writing: I”m writing about 8K words a day on average now, with an average low of 5K, an average high of 10K, and a max of 25K on rare occasions.
I’m not sure what that means. I know that if I dont talk to people all day, I write more, and vice versa. I also know that if I am writing for a competitive argument I write more than if I write in the explanatory neutral voice.
We are the product of our genes. The universe is fascinating. Life is a miraculous luxury. And every breath of it is worth savoring.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-16 09:44:00 UTC
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Stratfor On Iran’s Strategy
Depending upon your concept of the world: universalist democratic socialist, or hierarchical tribalist, or utilitarian economist, you might see US policy toward Iran in a different light. One thing is for sure: we are accomplishing for militant islam, on behalf of Iran, precisely what the Persians and the radicals have always desired — a restoration of the empire from the mediterranean to the Sino-Hindu border, and a vehicle for concentrating wealth via oil revenues that will surpass both the classical era’s means of concentrating wealth via agriculture, the renaissance era’s means of concentrating wealth through shipping, or the industrial era’s means of concentrating wealth through institutional capitalism and industrial production. We will have an expansionist, anti-rational, totalitarian civilization, operating on non-market principles, with which much of the developed world cannot compete. We will lose the dollar as a reserve currency, and as a Petro-currency, and finish the cycle of credit expansion, finish the Keyenesian economic era, and eradicate the ability of the west to pursue debt-dependent social programs. We will see europe need to remilitarize just when it cannot afford to. We will see the USA split between a hostile and patient china and a hostile and impatient islam, just when the USA is itself split by political, regional and racial discord. You cannot ‘spread democracy’. You can only spread capitalism and consumerism. Democracy is a unique property of the west, because the west is the only civilization to have broken familial and tribal bonds — having forbidden intermarriage for centuries. Democracy will never succeed except among families, tribes, villages and small cities. It is antithetical to human nature. Even capitalism is ‘democratic’. Nations adopt democratic republicanism when the middle class requires access to politics, and when the antiquarian political systems can no longer accomodate the increased number of people with economic interests. Republican democracy is not ideological, it is simply a necessity born of increases in the numbers of economic interests. For these reasons I did, and do, favor war in the middle east on an entirely humanistic, as well as economic, as well as cultural basis: We have spent five hundred years raising humanity out of agrarian ignorance and poverty, through the spread of rationalism, science, technology and the capitalist institutions that make industrial production possible. We must treat Islam as we did the Soviets and the Chinese communists: a militaristic, expansionist form of anti-market regressiveism. A threat to our existing way of life, by a mystical, tribal and familial empire, its culture and religion. Until the last, most primitive civilization has joined the movement, they are a regressive threat to all of humanity. They are the latest luddite movement — yet another variation on Marxism, and nothing more. An attempt by existing power structures, and existing cultural investments, to hold onto antiquity despite the obvious failure of their culture in the contrast to others. And while my libertarian friends do not like battle drums, they too often ignore the fact, that one must defend one’s market from non-market forces. Markets of the peculiar composition in the west, were made by man, by intent, not by accident. The institution of property itself requires defense of not only the property itself, but the institutions of property, and the market itself. Our libertarianism evolved within that set of institutions. And within that set of Institutions it is viable. That does not mean the same principles apply without. Those broader threats pose to high a risk. Ideology is for children living under the convenience of those institutions. Although I would argue that the attempt to contain Germany actually caused the suicide of the west, our attempts to contain the Russians, Chinese and now islam has not been so.
www.stratfor.comFor centuries, the dilemma facing Iran (and before it, Persia) has been guaranteeing national survival and autonomy in the face of stronger regional powers like Ottoman Turkey and the Russian Empire. Though always weaker than these larger empires, Iran survived for three reasons: geography, resource… -
Libertarian Strategy
We can solve for freedom by attempting to gain sufficient converts in order to create a religion – a means of rebellion against institutions. Or we can solve for freedom by attempting to create formal institutions as a means of preventing others from taking our freedom. The first assumes that freedom and its corollary, responsibility, are a majority preference. The second assumes that freedom and responsibility are a minority preference. Freedom as we understand it, is a uniquely western value, and is antithetical to traditional paternalistic and tribal social orders. So pick a religion, or pick a government, or pick both. If you pick a religion the state will defend itself against you. If you pick a government religions will rebel against you. If both, then you lose the balance of powers that places limits on either. So the choice comes down to whether you believe a majority of humans desire freedom and responsibility as individuals, or whether you believe the majority simply desires the benefits of the market economy as members of families, extended families and tribes. It becomes difficult to demonstrate evidence that the majority of people prefer freedom and responsibility. In fact, they seek it for themselves at the expense of others, almost universally.
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Libertarian Strategy
We can solve for freedom by attempting to gain sufficient converts in order to create a religion – a means of rebellion against institutions. Or we can solve for freedom by attempting to create formal institutions as a means of preventing others from taking our freedom. The first assumes that freedom and its corollary, responsibility, are a majority preference. The second assumes that freedom and responsibility are a minority preference. Freedom as we understand it, is a uniquely western value, and is antithetical to traditional paternalistic and tribal social orders. So pick a religion, or pick a government, or pick both. If you pick a religion the state will defend itself against you. If you pick a government religions will rebel against you. If both, then you lose the balance of powers that places limits on either. So the choice comes down to whether you believe a majority of humans desire freedom and responsibility as individuals, or whether you believe the majority simply desires the benefits of the market economy as members of families, extended families and tribes. It becomes difficult to demonstrate evidence that the majority of people prefer freedom and responsibility. In fact, they seek it for themselves at the expense of others, almost universally.
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LIBERTARIAN STRATEGY We can solve for freedom by attempting to gain sufficient c
LIBERTARIAN STRATEGY
We can solve for freedom by attempting to gain sufficient converts in order to create a religion – a means of rebellion against institutions. Or we can solve for freedom by attempting to create formal institutions as a means of preventing others from taking our freedom. The first assumes that freedom and its corollary, responsibility, are a majority preference. The second assumes that freedom and responsibility are a minority preference.
Freedom as we understand it, is a uniquely western value, and is antithetical to traditional paternalistic and tribal social orders.
So pick a religion, or pick a government, or pick both. If you pick a religion the state will defend itself against you. If you pick a government religions will rebel against you. If both, then you lose the balance of powers that places limits on either.
So the choice comes down to whether you believe a majority of humans desire freedom and responsibility as individuals, or whether you believe the majority simply desires the benefits of the market economy as members of families, extended families and tribes.
It becomes difficult to demonstrate evidence that the majority of people prefer freedom and responsibility. In fact, they seek it for themselves at the expense of others, almost universally.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-14 07:44:00 UTC
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MOTIVATIONS We make arguments to test our ideas. We don’t know if they will succ
MOTIVATIONS
We make arguments to test our ideas. We don’t know if they will succeed or not until we make them. And even then, until they’re refuted. The only way to know if you’re argument stands is if you can’t, and others can’t, refute it. All arguments are hypotheses open to refutation. If not, then they are simply tautologies. That’s the only scientific proposition to hold.
In the sciences we make hypothesis and subject them to scrutiny. That is not true in politics. Where we establish our wants, and then simply argue for them.
This creates a problem in political discourse, because it is very difficult to tell the difference between hypotheses as requests for criticism, and propaganda as a means of building consensus. The first seeks the truth. The second is purely utilitarian.
My hypothesis is that prosperity is what we desire. And prosperity is a rarity that is produced by complex circumstances. It can be produced by accident (finding oil). It can be produced by conquest (theft). It can be produced organically (the evolution of certain norms – property, reason and hard work). It can be produced by intention (setting up property rights, investing in education, developing good industrial policy, and creating sound money).
And prosperity is fragile because of its rarity and complexity. This is the essential principle of conservatism. The only persistent form of prosperity comes from technical innovation. Conquest and resources are not something we can be proud of — they tell us nothing about our actions. The first is a harm, the second is an accident. Neither are virtues. And of the two, only conquest is reproducible. — hence the fall of the islamic empire, and the exhaustion of the roman. And unlike commercial productivity wich is mutually beneficial, in conquest, each gain is someone else’s loss.
Source date (UTC): 2012-04-13 17:05:00 UTC
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Analogies are the core of cognition: Hofstadter
(Thanks to Skye for pointer) RE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7lFQ3njk&feature=related The attempt to better understand the physical structure of our brains doesn’t seem to have produced anything more useful than the philosophical insight that precise definitions, deduction in its three forms, and the syllogism as a means of comparing those definitions, and the use of analogies in their multitude of forms, are the minimum reducible objects of cognition and calculation by that process we call reason. (Note: here are notes on deduction etc: Section III: Types of Analogical Argument) The major improvement to human cognition have been: First the development of writing and accounting that allow us to communicate an idea consistently, and to perceive and compare what we cannot with our senses alone. And second, the use of statistics to create categories we could not perceive with our senses, and calculus to allow us compare multiple axis of causal properties, both of which draw upon our accumulated record of financial information — information that makes economic assessment, and therefore tests of our moral narratives, finally possible by other than purely philosophical means. But in the end, empirical observation must be reduced to some categorical type which is in itself an analogy — and must be. Because we cannot perceive it by our senses alone.
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NASA Complains, and So Do I: My experience with the AGW movement.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/washington-secrets/2012/04/astronauts-condemn-nasa%E2%80%99s-global-warming-endorsement/469366 There is very little that is the product of the human mind that is incomprehensible to an individual who is determined to understand it. I’ve gone through the climate arguments for years now, and the data as presented is tentative if not counterfactual and contradictory. Especially troubling is the fact that the increase in temperatures does not seem to continue. I’ve even invested (and lost money) in the AGW movement. As a participant I’ve been witness to the opportunism of political bureaucracies in finding a new means of taxation and regulation that mean more jobs, more budget and more political power — all justified by popular sentiment, and none motivated by the matter under question. I’m personally acquainted with some of AGW’s leadership early proponents, and the leadership of the supposedly neutral agencies. I’ve witnessed self interest trump public good on the part of nearly every one of these people I’ve come into contact with. It was nothing but a cash grab: a gold rush by everyone I encountered. The demonstrated abuse of the scientific process, and the energetic politicization of the material throws what is potentially informative into question. Especially in light of the more serious environmental concerns, particularly overfishing, developing-world pollution, and human overbreeding — concerns whose solutions would requires states engage in the difficult task of competing with one another rather than against a weaker private sector that cannot refuse their authoritarian violence. Therefore the objective mind is left to choose between a possible risk that cannot be proved, or yet another abuse of institution of science for self serving and political purposes. And the simpler solution prevails: human self interest, hubris and error. However, given that we all want a cleaner world to live in, and that a world that continues to industrialize will only exacerbate the problem. Then the objective mind argues that we should attempt to produce power and create the fewest emissions. That’s a smart policy. Tax games that just reward the academic and political bureaucracies for shoddy science and immoral political behavior are not smart policy. The AGW peak has passed. But we must keep up the struggle against the bureaucracy until we learn how to privatize, and that we must privatize, in order to prevent the abuses that naturally arise from any bureaucracy that is not subject to market pressures.