http://www.edge.org/responses/what-scientific-idea-is-ready-for-retirementWHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT
(mix of modern and postmodern) (worthy of repost)
I’m glad that we see postmodernism slowly dissipating from the domain of science. But there are still a few holdouts.
Otherwise this series of opinions is some of the most thought provoking. Not in terms of the future. But in terms of the illusions that we have had in the past.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 11:55:00 UTC
MASTERCARD AND BITCOIN
Hierarchy of business is Amex->Visa->MC->Check-Cashing businesses. With MC having all the ‘low rent’ customers, and check cashing services having the … lowest.
Now, why not build a MC ‘wallet’ and charge simple transaction costs for BTC’s – just for the convenience of processing the transactions?
Because they assume that it would eat into their business. But if you thought like a check cashing company you’d understand that people evolve through the credit cycle. And that today’s payday loan and check cashing customer is tomorrow’s credit customer. in fact, this is the optimum business model for them.
BTC transactions are zero risk for the vendor. It’s merely a transaction processing cost. That transaction processing can still be a profitable ADDITION to the existing business (i’d carry a MC product if it handled BTC). And by and large, people will buy btc with credit.
I’d like to see people paid in BTC at the low wage end, so that the burden of the financial system is lessened for them. At present it’s an absurd burden – and it’s a trap for them as well, that they cannot easily get out of.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 11:32:00 UTC
http://buchanan.org/blog/putin-irrational-one-6292Pat,
I think you understand the Putin strategy, although you do not seem to have added the obvious problem that Russia has enormous borders and a thin population – which has historically been accosted from all sides. Their only defense is a strong offense.
Second, if Putin is in fact, an ethno-nationalist, (I agree that he is) then he should just say so. Because a lot of the west would support him in that position for, as you mentioned, the same reasons we support the jews. Conservative support would be overwhelming.
Third, but the problem he has in convincingly making that argument, is that his government is profoundly corrupt, extractive and predatory on its own people. By contrast, it’s very obvious that membership in the EU is life-alteringly superior for eastern Europe – at high cost to western europeans.
Fourth, Russia has nothing to offer the world or its orbit other than oil and gas. Russian occupation is a net negative for any economy that it influences. (See the Economists’ report.)
Fifth, all he had to do was offer all Russian-Crimeans dual citizenship, and then ask for a referendum – one which everyone would support. It was completely unnecessary to use military occupation with a foregone conclusion.
Russia must reform it’s systemic and pervasive corruption. It is too heavy a burden on the people for the people to compete on the world market. Without reforming corruption, Russia is just a rogue and predatory militaristic state with nothing to offer the world.
An ethno-nationalist Russia that suppresses corruption offers something wonderful to the world. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 11:24:00 UTC
“PROPERTARIANISM: HETEROGENEOUS SOVEREIGNTY WITHOUT MORAL HOMOGENEITY”
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 09:35:00 UTC
HOW MUCH LONGER WILL YOU TRUST YOUR LIBERTY TO YOUR FELLOW MAN?
Your fellow men and women do not desire liberty. They desires consumption, status, and ease.
Liberty requires great expense, revolt against the masses, and constant diligence.
The source of liberty is the organize application of violence to deny access to others, that which you have labored to obtain by voluntary means.
The left’s irrational utopian vision is no worse than the rothbardian irrational libertarian utopia.
Aristocratic egalitarians invented liberty.
And the manufactured it with organized violence.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-19 09:33:00 UTC
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/66a08912-aeba-11e3-a088-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz2wL9vU3VMSTATE KLEPTOCRACY AT ITS BEST
Russians move to steal all private industry.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 20:12:00 UTC
(draft)(more work tomorrow)
THE CONSTRAINTS CREATED BY MORALITY IN CONSTRUCTING THE INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY
(undone)
THE FAMLY STRUCTURE AS A CONSTRAINT ON PROPERTY AND MORALITY
(undone)
CAUSES OF PROPERTY
I’ve articulated the cause of Property, Manners, Ethics and Morals as the necessity of cooperation and the consequential prevention of free riding. This is a ‘pre-property’ argument illustrating the cause of moral behavior, and the limits upon property because of it.
PROPOSITION 0.0 : Time
PROPOSITION 1 : Survival is the first universal good.
…COROLLARY 1.1 : Action
…COROLLARY 1.2 : Searching
…COROLLARY 1.3 : Acquisition (identity)
…COROLLARY 1.4 ; Storing (memory)
…COROLLARY 1.5 : Planning (calculation)
{PROPOSITION 2 : The second universal “good” is prosperity. Upon which all other ‘goods’ depend.}
PROPOSITION 3 : The utility of cooperation in producing prosperity
…COROLLARY 3.1 : the division of labor
…COROLLARY 3.2 : the utility of voluntary organization
…COROLLARY 3.3 : the necessity of property (monopoly of control)
…COROLLARY 3.4 : the necessity of extending our perception (instrumentalism)
……COROLLARY 3.4.1 : (logic of cooperation – ethics)
……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of money, prices, accounting etc)
……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of identity – necessary properties)
……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of naming – numbering)
……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of relations – mathematics )
……COROLLARY 3.4.x : (logic of causality – physics)
PROPOSITION 4 : The Prohibition on involuntary transfer
…COROLLARY 4.1 : requirement for contribution to consumption
(more later, but you get the idea.)
IS PROPERTY THE CONSEQUENCE OF SCARCITY OR COOPERATION OR THE PROHIBITION ON FREE RIDING – OR ALL THREE?
(undone)
THE IMPACT OF FRAMING UNDER POWER AND WEAKNESS
“I have this right or that” is an appeal by the weak against the strong. “I will not tolerate this or that” is demand, or threat, by the strong. And aristocracy cannot by definition act from a position of weakness.
(undone)
RIGHTS ARE POSITIVE ASSERTIONS IN FAVOR OF ONE’S SELF RATHER THAN MORE AGGRESSIVE LANGUAGE THAT PROHIBITS THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS.
The problem is, that when we assert rights, and construct our ethics from rights, we lose the cause of those rights, and the broader scope of their cause. This causes us to defend rights, instead of consistently evolve positive assertions that reflect the underlying negative cause: the prohibition on free riding.
THE PROTOCOL OF ARGUMENTATION AS “FRAMING”.
(undone)
THE DIALECTICAL PROBLEM OF POSITIVE CLAIMS AND NEGATIVE PROHIBITIONS
The sayings “do unto others as you wold have done unto you” and “do noting to others that you would not have done to you” are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the assumption of homogeneity of interests in the golden rule vs heterogeneity of interests in the silver rule.
The terms “incentives” and “calculation” are mutually dependent. on cannot have incentives without the ability to calculate and there is no reason to calculate if one has no incentive to. So, these terms are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the difference between the people who can depend upon incentives to act in the participation of production, and the people who rely on calculation in order to discover complex means of organizing production.
The terms “prohibition on free riding” and “property rights” are likewise, mutually deponent concepts. They are nearly synonymous – but not entirely. Because of the scope of prohibitions under the rule of the prohibition on involuntary transfer, vs the scope of prohibitions under the rule of private property.
REPAIRING LIBERTARIAN ETHICS
This repairs libertarian ethics, sufficient for the common law, as the prohibition on involuntary transfer by any means other than competition (the negative version). And conversely (the positive version)
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 19:04:00 UTC
http://propertarianism.com/ideas/THE CENTRAL OBJECT OF THE ANARCHIC RESEARCH PROGRAM
The central objective of the anarcho capitalist research program has been how to eliminate the monopoly bureaucracy and its institutionalize parasitism on the population, yet still produce a prosperous social order.
In libertarian circles we often refer to this simply as “the problem of social order.”
THE CENTRAL THEORY
Like marxism, libertarian philosophy is pretty rigorously thought out. By the time we get to Hoppe, it’s a well articulated theory of politics. So the logical errors in libertarianism tend to be complex, not trivial.
Most criticisms of libertarianism are naive or irrelevant because libertarian claims are technical, articulated in a formal and technical language, and they are not intuitive or normative claims at all. So without knowledge of the libertarian terminology and it’s arguments, is pretty hard to make a legitimate criticism – and that’s why so many criticisms are not legitimate.
DEFINITIONS
“NAP: the non-aggression principle. That one will not aggress against the life and property of others.”
“Property: (n) Your life, your mind, your body, things you have obtained in trade, and things you have converted to first-use (homesteading).”
“Violence: (n) Physical aggression against property.”
“Aggression: (n) hostile or violent behavior or attitudes toward another; readiness to attack or confront.”
So it’s okay to use violence against aggression. ie: any time you and your property are threatened. And to obtain restitution for your lost property.
So, no, the NAP is not a prohibition on violence. It’s a prohibition on the violation of property in which you, yourself, are also your property (that which you must have monopoly of control). Or more accurately, private property functions as an extension of your body and life. (true) and as such violations against your ‘things’ are violations against your body.
WHY PROPERTY THIS SO IMPORTANT
The general theory upon which anarcho capitalism rests, is that a rigid definition of property, and the common law, are sufficient for the formation of a polity. And that monopoly government and its systematic predation due to lack of competition is not necessary. Because the common law is sufficient ‘government’ for an anarchic polity. (This is the legal framework of a migratory herding people, or disasporic traders.)
This differs from a high trust agrarian society where the people must organize to prevent others from displacing them from the land. In a landed society, it is necessary for organizations to have leaders, to prevent free riding by those not willing to fight for that land.
PROSPERITY AS ‘THE COMMON GOOD”
But since trust is an index of productivity, because lack of trust acts as a friction on seizure of opportunity – and particularly on the concentration of capital by future-oriented people – (a form of transaction cost) then high trust is the the greatest social asset a polity can possess in the production of wealth.
Property will evolve from trust. Trust evolves from the prevention of free riding. The prevention of free riding evolves from the need to cooperate.
THE PROBLEM WITH NAP AND PRIVATE PROPERTY: “TRUST”
Private property and a weak state only evolve in high trust societies. But high trust societies are not dependent upon the NAP. They are dependent upon the suppression of free riding. The absolute nuclear family for example, even prohibits free riding by your children.
The NAP doesn’t prohibit unethical and immoral actions, so you can’t initiate violence against, say, a blackmailer, or scam artist, or other person who engages in conspiracy. Its a license for predation. Given the high cost of violence and the low cost of unethical and immoral behavior, it’s non-logical to essentially prohibit violence but not prohibit every kind of cheating possible.
The NAP operates on the assumption that a high trust society already exists, but actually fosters the destruction of the high trust society.
Because high trust societies do not limit ‘property’ wither private or common to the physical.
High trust societies prevent free riding, of which private property crime is merely one component.
That is why it’s non-rational.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 14:52:00 UTC
PUTIN ON EXCEPTIONALISM
—“They have come to believe in their exceptionalism and their sense of being the chosen ones. That they can decide the destinies of the world, that it is only them who can be right.”—
Not really. It’s pretty hard to argue against self-determination. Certainly the Tibetans, Mongolians, Ukrainians, South Vietnamese, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, Georgians… (well you get the idea)… all prefer self determination.
And the west supports self determination. Because ‘Sovereignty’ is the central value of the western heroic vision of man. Because it leads to the division of labor and prosperity for all.
It’s pretty hard to argue in favor of military expansion of territory. But its pretty easy to argue for the containment of military expansion of territory.
Its pretty hard to argue that a government that will exterminate millions of its own people is ‘a good way’.
But then, I want to collapse the USA because our government has become like theirs. Not because of it’s puruit of self determination. Instead, the west has turned against self determination.
European and American as well.
Cheers.
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 11:25:00 UTC
RENT SEEKING AND JAPAN
(now, I’m all in favor of rent seeking in an extended family – that’s a choice. but I”m not in favor of rents on my family by competing families.)
Source date (UTC): 2014-03-18 08:45:00 UTC