Revealing speech from (former?) libertarian Thiel last night at the RNC.
"When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union, and we won," Thiel said.
"Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom. This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?"
Thiel said his support for Trump was based on the belief that the candidate could address the country's economic decline. He cited the space program and other government technology achievements as examples of what has been lost.
Thiel drew parallels between himself and Trump each as a "builder."
If you want to understand Thiel and Trump you should focus on each of them self-describing as "builders". They (think they) can achieve socio-economic justice thru competent implementation/operation of material economic systems.
While we indeed need competent material systems people in positions of rule in order to receive robust levels of provision for ourselves, this alone won't achieve what I believe they think it can in the non-material areas of socio-economic justice.
At #RNC, Peter Thiel talks about missing costly gov't programs like Manhattan project & Apollo #contrarian https://t.co/dJlSTlXINS @Reuters
— Heather Somerville (@heathersomervil) July 22, 2016
33 comments:
Koch small govt to stifle regulations vs Thiel's govt for the elite to plunder the Commons. They can agree on some common ground, I'm sure
Ryan they dont even know what "the commons" really is... "out of money!", etc...
They think they have this all figured out... think of them as right side Mazucattos...
finance capital had its turn and failed now it may be industrial capitals turn to fail... to put it in perhaps Marxist terms...
Both have failed but the ownership class (Batra's acquisitors) are still in control of the reins of power. Batra projects that this era is coming to an end and the warrior class will again assert control.
BTRW, Trump's speech was very much a warrior class speech about the leader protecting the people. "I am the law ad order candidate." There was very little there in comparison about making everyone rich (prosperity gospel). The pitch accentuated fear rather than greed. Trump's rhetorical style is much more oriented toward the warrior-leader image than the acquisitor-manager.
I just took a friend to drop off their car at an auto body shop in Houston here. The auto body shop is run by an older conservative Mexican immigrant and his 2nd generation younger kids run the office. The older white people sitting in the lobby were absolutely fawning over the trump speech with unanimity, actual excitement, unlike anything I've seen sice Obama excited Dems a few years ago. And the absolute dead silence and horrified looks from Juan's kids were pretty much how I imagine alot of America is divided right now. The whites folks were clearly a bit bigoted as always and the kids of the Mexican immigrant were hearing even worse in an over-sensitive fear-anger response. The lines of battle are drawn and the election is over, everyone is already divided and set, I think.
For my self, a beak up the two-party system is what I want so we can have a multi party system. I'm not sure we'll get it with either of these candidates nor the libertarian-republican coalition, whether it is Corporate-libs, or Goverment-libs running the show.
A candidate like Hillary or Trump that is so horrific to a good portion of the population, might actually causes Texans to call for a referendum on a Texit from the States, perhaps that would be a nice alternative too, break away from the two-party government. I don't know.
Tom,
Would you please define what you mean by "warrior"? Thanks.
BTW, the real division in America is between left and right. And the MSM is the megaphone of the crazy glued fringe left, which only exacerbates the divide further. Trump is the antithesis of illiberal leftist dogma. He represents the silent majority, and that reality will be fully manifest come November. He's real and expresses himself like the rest of us, which is to the shame of liberals far and wide who proclaim to speak for the little guys.. Will be a slam dunk come November for the NY tycoon.
Mal here is some background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Social_Cycle
It comes from some Eastern teachings that Tom has followed...
I'm under Paul and I see truth in this divisional breakdown also based on what Paul taught...
Paul's "evangelists, pastors and teachers" (Eph) perhaps equivalent to "acquirers, laborers, intelligensia"... Paul handles the warrior class a bit differently....
"Both have failed"
Tom, not post metals....
I would say in this post metals period, 'finance' has dominated (and failed, etc...)
Now 'industrial' is maybe going to give it a try.... (probably fail, but maybe not...)
I'm not exactly looking at these two via Marx... I'm not under Marx at all....
Thanks, Matt.
Haven't read Batra since the early 2000's while very into EF Shumacher. But I like what I've read from Batra if memory serves me right.
Would you please define what you mean by "warrior"? Thanks.
I am using the terms "intelligentsia," warrior," "acquisitor," and "laborer" here in the sense of Ravi Batra, who is a student of P. R. Sarkar, a philosopher and spiritual teacher. Sarkar's economic theory is called Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT). His historical theory is based on a cyclical theory of history in terms of alternation of power among those classifications, which are based on the four major Indian castes, brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya, and shudra, similar to the yuga teaching of the Vedic tradition. However, Sarkar and Batra switched the order somewhat and redefined it a bit.
The basic idea is that the cycles are dominated by personality types that correspond to the psychological aptitudes and dispositions of the major castes, which are not meant to be birth-based in their view. Being dispositional they are empirical.
While Batra presents this by way of explanation, I think this is simply a useful paradigm. All historical, psychological, etc. paradigms are too limited to be anything more that a simple way to look at a lot disparate data in that there is an element of truth to them.
Since the advance of the surplus society, social and political organization has developed on the military mode that is hierarchical and based on a chain of command. Strong leaders that run a tight ship are prototypical warriors. Trump projects himself in this mode. "You're fired."
Feudalism was, of course, based on the military model, since the feudal lords were essentially war lords bound to a higher lord with the obligation to provide equipped troops when called upon. The capitalistic model was based on the feudalist model and the corporate model is an iteration of that. Heads of large corporations function like generals. The Greek term for general is strategos. These are the planners and executors as in CEO.
The warrior disposition is based on imposing order on society. One higher type of its range is the disposition to aid and protect the weaker in society and the lower type to to dominate and control.
The intellectual disposition is idealistic at the higher end (Gandhi) and materialistic at the lower ("the mad scientist). When not in power, the intelligentsia serves those in power, as the economics profession does now, for instance.
The acquisitive type is the great distributor at the high (philanthropist) end and the great accumulator at the low end (dynastic wealth, conspicuous consumption).
The labor is the faithful servant and helper at the high end and the submissive but resentful slave at the lower end. The labors never come to power for long, since they lack organizational skill. The must ally with the acquisitors to do so.
Matt, I would say that industrial capital has failed first by becoming subordinate to finance capital, and secondly, it has failed by becoming transnational and exporting industry, as a result losing power domestically.
Finance capital won the conflict between industrial and financial elites by becoming dominant. Look at the rising contribution of finance to GDP relative to the falling contribution of manufacturing, for example. Finance capital also contributes to government the key leaders of the economy. But finance capital just blew itself up in the financial crisis.
I really doubt that industrial capital can regain the upper hand without imposition of protectionism, which is not on the interest of transnational capitalism, either industrial or financial. While it is alluring to workers to get high paying jobs back to the US, the only way those "jobs" are coming back if is automation and robotics take them. This is the natural outcome of rising wages. At a certain point, it pays to invest in non-human labor.
Even China is doing it on a large scale as it faces a demographic squeeze with more elderly and fewer younger workers in the pipeline.
I see talk, but I don't see a plan, let alone a viable plan that makes sense investment-wise. And we are still under capitalism.
The reason I brought up the warrior bt wrt Trump's speech is that Batra is predicting a rise of the warrior class around now to replace the rule of the acquisitor-laborers (labor leaders are now part of the establishment) due to overreach.
Trump's speech positioned him more as a warrior than as an acquisitor. "I know how to make you safe and will do it immediately," rather than "I know how to get rich and I will make you rich too." Contrast this to Bill Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid."
Trump is hitting hard on crime ("I am the law and order candidate") and immigration, including importation of embedded labor (offshoring, trade agreements).
Think positioning.
"There was very little there in comparison about making everyone rich (prosperity gospel). "
Very interesting observation Tom... We are entering a period of 'conservation' and 'reaction', not one of 'change' and 'progress'.
I'm very against zeitgeist styled thinking (to paraphrase from Dune: "the most persistent principles of the universe were accident and error), but if we are indeed entering an era for warrior classes I see this could happen due to the slow motion disintegration of modern nation-states, the creation of "the wastelands" and the rise of city-states again with all that it entails as states fail to maintain enough output and input to maintain larger cohesive structures and have to 'downshift'.
This period would take a while, but you can probably see London as the first of such arising city-states, with others around the glove following in due time.
"might actually causes Texans to call for a referendum on a Texit from the States"
I see this happening eventually, maybe in the next two decades, but not right now (is "too soon", we always miscalculate timings when comes to historical changes), following the same lines as the post I wrote above. Expect the slow motion disintegration of USA to happen and such divides will be the cause for the fracture. The only thing keeping many nations together is an extensive energy input and population growth which won't continue in the future.
In two centuries whoever is left will be looking back and watching this period as the start of a new era of feudalism. With feudalism a new kind of international order will also come, and the values of the universalist values of the Enlightenment will be dumped, with the return of many flavours of regional organisation, probably with more widespread forms of acknowledged slavery coming back instead of veiled slavery through caste systems and class warfare plus ilegal activity, specially in Asia where overpopulation creates the conditions for those to flourish.
I have come to accept that if humanity has to survive in the future this probably a necessary steep to mature even further.
Why will industrial capitalism fail.
If the state deficit spends in new space programs,infrastructure, research.the world benefits.industrial capitalists actually creating wealth beats financial capitalist leveraging and assert shuffling.
Thiel claims to be a libertarian but now calls gov spending on programs.
These ppl are clueless and inconsistent.
Why will industrial capitalism fail.
If the state deficit spends in new space programs,infrastructure, research.the world benefits.industrial capitalists actually creating wealth beats financial capitalist leveraging and assert shuffling.
Thiel claims to be a libertarian but now calls gov spending on programs.
These ppl are clueless and inconsistent.
Jake it will get them to Nairu levels and no further ... And that is just wrt UE there is more to socio economic justice than getting rid of UE... Agree It would be better than present ... But still not ideal...
Another association with India’s caste system is the idea of ‘translation’. Consciousness is light that illumines the luminaire (persona). Both the light and luminaire vary in quality conditioning the light shone. Translation is the replacement of the atoms of the mental, emotional and physical body with atoms more suited to a truer display of the quality or inherent nature, of the light embodied. The Ageless Wisdom recognised four stages in this translation and subsequent evolutionary alignment produced between the bodies: -
a) The physical and emotional body
b) These two and the mental body
c) These three and the heart (soul)
d) These four and the groups of ‘lamps’ who serve
These four alignments have been prostituted as the caste system (a limited recognition of fairly unilluminated personality types). It is when the third alignment has been accomplished and the light of the fourth illuminates the lower three, that the objective of man’s evolution is reached.
I think the Christian version is ‘in light they shall see more light’?
Matt - I thought you may be pleased to know:
According to our best theories of physics, the universe is a fixed block where time only appears to pass. Yet a number of physicists hope to replace this “block universe” with a physical theory of time. :-)
Isn't time nothing more than the excitement of particles? Motion = time. Lack of motion = absence of time. Strong gravitational force or cold temperatures both slow down motion of particles (hence time passes slower or doesn't pass at all). Absence of sufficient gravitational pull (ie. in case of the universe inflating itself indefinitively) is also the death of motion (even eventually the nuclear forces breakdown). The death of the universe is the death of motion (in case that would be the endgame).
I agree with the assertion that "The future does not exist. It does not! Ontologically, it’s not there." someone says in that article you linked.
It becomes different if you posit consciousness as an additional ‘layer’ to the physical universe, and so-called ‘spirit’ another layer beyond that (spirit-matter being opposite poles of the same absolute principle).
The article is from the material pov – so space~time stretches and shrinks, warps, slows down and speeds up; but for some strange reason does not reach equilibrium. The ‘gravitational pull’ has not been accounted for yet in quantum theory; only in Newtonian physics.
From the pov of consciousness, time is an awareness of form (when in manifestation). A period of construction, utilisation, and dissolution. It is only when consciousness has reached a considerable stage of awareness that time is recognised. Time has also been defined as a succession of states of consciousness, expanding as consciousness expands.
From the pov of spirit, time is universal, forever now (am told)!
I do know, there is a place inside of human consciousness, where time cannot go.
'"When I was a kid, the great debate was about how to defeat the Soviet Union, and we won," Thiel said.'
Should there have been another 'debate'?
“In a few words: there is no such thing as Soviet technology. Almost all — perhaps 90-95 percent — came directly or indirectly from the United States and its allies. In effect the United States and the NATO countries have built the Soviet Union. Its industrial and its military capabilities. This massive construction job has taken 50 years. Since the Revolution in 1917. It has been carried out through trade and the sale of plants, equipment and technical assistance.
. . . Because 50 years of dealings with the Soviets has been an economic success for the USSR and a political failure for the United States. It has not stopped war, it has not given us peace.
The United States is spending $80 billion a year on defense against an enemy built by the United States and West Europe.
Even stranger, the U.S. apparently wants to make sure this enemy remains in the business of being an enemy.“
http://www.reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/appendix_b.htm
“Taken together, these four volumes constitute an extraordinary commentary on a basic weakness in the Soviet system
The Soviets are heavily dependent on Western technology and innovation not only in their civilian industries, but also in their military programs.
An inevitable conclusion from the evidence in this book is that we have totally ignored a policy that would enable us to neutralize Soviet global ambitions while simultaneously reducing the defense budget and the tax load on American citizens.”
http://www.crowhealingnetwork.net/pdf/Antony%20Sutton%20-%20The%20Best%20Enemy%20Money%20Can%20Buy.pdf
jr maybe they are thinking about 'eternity' instead of 'time' as explained here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OvltlOA8XE
Ha ha. The US got its rocket technology from defeated Germany, for example, Recall Werner von Braun? The USSR beat the US to space anyway. Remember the Sputnik debacle in the US. Caught the Americans with their pants down.
The Apollo mission to the moon today would be a commitment to develop nuclear fusion energy within 5 to 10 years.
We didn't defeat the Soviet Union, it is still there. It's just in a different form. Rome "fell" 5 or 6 hundred years ago, but Rome is still there. It's the adventures in Empire Building that eventually fail. Best not to start out on that path and save yourself a lot of trouble.
Thanks Matt. Still, the pov is constrained to an implied unending physical universe: - "universe does not exist in time but time exists in the universe; time is a sequence of events in the material universe; time a concept which cannot be reified".
I think the idea of an 'electric universe' is allied to the mystery, once we get beyond matter and particles, to 'charge' and 'gravity'. There is an unseen world of force that results in attraction and repulsion, spiral periodic motion, light and cohesion, evolution (direction) and what we call intelligent design when we wonder at the beauty and coherence of the material world.
Adding a layer of consciousness to this brings us into the world of energies, utilising form. In other words, evolving consciousness driving force (sweeping matter in its path) to evolve suitable forms.
My inkling is that we are not too far away from the discovery of etheric matter (physical plane four ethers and air, water, earth) as the universal medium of force. Maybe the human eye will, losing its etheric blindfold, begin to see in the ultra-violet range and above, or a machine will help: - then we will be confronted with the vision of the etheric body detaching itself from the physical body at death (imagine the impact of that on 'culture', medicine, and health industry stocks), the breaking of the 'silver cord', and discovery of the lower denizens of the deva evolution. Then,subsequent knowledge of the shedding of the astral and mental bodies, until we are free once again in the 'golden orb' (buddhic body). Atma-buddhi-manas might mean something to people.
So, time as a sequence of successive states of consciousness still holds for me.
There is a little Buddhist contemplation: you get up one morning, make your coffee, sit down, and press the url for the latest market report. At that point the whole universe disappears: - including your body and keyboard. No back button; no pause button. You are left, a consciousness, floating in a void.
What do you want?
What does time mean to you? :-)
Matt – have read deeper into the Thunderbolt website and their electric universe paradigm and found it interesting, as I’ve always thought of creation as universal energy. If true, it’s quite shocking how little astrophysicists are deemed to know of and err in electromagnetism; and their adherence to gravity as a theoretical explanation of everything in their field mirroring their resistance to an electric universe. The history and evolution of the two paradigms is going to be really interesting. Thanks for the introduction!
Re Thunderbolt Project: - The running parallel, depicting Einstein’s mathematical theories of relativity v. experiment based evidence of electrical phenomenon in plasma science, scaled up to a theory of cosmology; and the addition of theoretical black holes, dark matter, and dark energy to astrophysics, in order to maintain the paradigm of gravity; are striking comparisons to ‘making stuff up’ in neoliberal monetary theory. If true, astrophysicists are just as biased and uniformed cross discipline, as their economist wannabes. That shocks me more than Trump or HRC.
Gravity v. electric universe – two very interesting competing paradigms. I think gravity will become to be understood as electromagnetic, as all I can see is a universe of energy. The human drama, playing out in it, akin to the imagination of children – and yet we have to live it through.
Hey, don't forget Robert Goddard.
Goddard was an American. Claims that he was the source of the development of German rocketry are contested. Anyway, at the end of WWII Germany as head of the US in rocketry and the German rocket engineers were drafted by the US to join the fight against the USSR. On their own the Soviets beat the US into space.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-robert-goddard-almost-killed-space-flight-1491135545
He could have accomplished more had he not been so secretive. He was a brilliant individual, but against the work of a team of scientists, that would have been a race he would not win.
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