In a similar way from a technocratic perspective, we can see many libertarian people (some of the left and some of the right) looking at regulation of system interfaces as the "xenophobia!".
The problem isn't the "left" it is libertarianism whether left or right forms.
Why do lefties tend to hate their own culture / country? Some answers here perhaps. (H/t Eric Allie).https://t.co/Vf6hzBo4JH
— Ralph Musgrave (@RalphMus) June 1, 2016
23 paragraphs of childish gibberish. Par for the National Review course, I guess.
ReplyDeleteLiberalism posits only "negative freedom" in Isaiah Berlin's sense, that is, freedom from constraint, and it views Berlin's "positive freedom" as freedom within the boundaries of values. Thus liberals view normative ethicals like Kant's deontological ethics and Aristotle's virtue ethics as illiberal in that they are disgusted imposition of ideology on those who do not accept dogmatic ideology. Arguably, Martin Luther was the precursor of modern liberalism in the West, which in his day was dogmatically Roman Catholic, and the ideology based on religious dogma was state enforced under the feudal system of the day.
ReplyDeleteAccording to liberalism, the only ethics that qualifies as liberal is consequentialism, in which normative rules are evaluated based on behaviors that follow from them, with "utility" being the criterion. The goal is to maximize utility ("happiness") to yield "the greatest good for the greatest number."
The development of liberalism was a key factor in fashioning "modernity" as a dialectical reaction to the feudal states and dogmatic religion post-Renaissance. It took centuries to flower and now neoliberals are attempting to impose their version of it as the global world order.
Economics liberalism (laissez-faire) was a manifestation of this liberal trend. Political liberalism was understood as popular sovereignty. Social liberalism arose in reaction to the excesses of economic liberalism in producing inequality and dominance of the ownership class. This eventually developed into the concept of rights and the welfare state.
Neoliberalism is a modification of economic liberalism that recognized the institutional basis of markets and that a strong legal system is required to provide the institutional arrangements. The not-so-hidden agenda of neoliberals is to control that institutional structure globally, based on economic liberalism. Hence the popular sovereignty of political liberalism needs to be suppressed since the economic tendency of popular sovereignty is toward a welfare state rather than a market-based global world order controlled and management by those who predominantly own the world's real and financial assets as a result of neoliberal policy. The means of suppression are republics controlled by elites and international institutions also controlled by elites.
"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
— Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (PDF), New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966, Chapter 7, page 324
Tom all of that Quigley stuff is about what was going down in the early 1900s with the formation of the Federal Reserve etc.... under the metals still...
ReplyDeleteSo unless you can produce documentation that once we went off the metals and then these same people/institutions took that into account in all of their "neo-liberal conspiracies!" then we are manifestly just witnessing a moron-fest being conducted by an unqualified tptb... "out of money!" "inflation!", etc....
Tom from the scientific method:
ReplyDelete"Without following the scientific method, an analysis will remain consistently complex and any theories formed will be too general to explain the phenomena accurately. Therefore an understanding of the scientific method is crucial to your understanding of mathematics and development as a scientist. Here are its main steps.
Identify the problem or situation
Narrow down the problem statement while being as specific as possible."
http://www.understandingcalculus.com/chapters/03/3-1.php
We are NOT being specific when we are saying "capitalism!" this or "capitalism!" that... and thinking in terms that do not address the SPECIFIC details of our now numismatic system (vs using the metals when Quigley made all of his observations)
What we are doing in that former case is trying to establish a GENERAL theory that is explanatory across the time that that important systemic DETAIL was changed...
This VIOLATES everything that is known about science...
eg Keynes "General Theory" is manifestly an unscientific moron-fest you dont even have to read past the title for the tip-off... science is NOT "general"...
Yet, Matt, you constantly deal in generalities. The article this thread is based on, for instance.
ReplyDeleteTom all of that Quigley stuff is about what was going down in the early 1900s with the formation of the Federal Reserve etc.... under the metals still...
ReplyDeleteAccording to Greenspan, central banks act as if still under the gold standard, so we are still on the metals as far as they are concerned, other than using the extra policy space only in cases where the elite is benefitted through the financial system.
It's true that this has been the plan for a long time, and gained momentum post-WWI, well before "neoliberalism" was invented as concept post-WWII.
But the financial "masters of the Universe" were already at work adapting to the transition to the modern banking system and central banking and figuring how to get a lock on it, since whoever controls the munnie controls the world.
They have come a long way in realizing that plan Quigley reports as an insider.
These were not "evil" or even scheming people, just conservatives that were strongly convinced that rulers should be competent and that competence should proven by status, power and wealth in contrast to the hereditary feudal aristocracies that were being replaced. They regarded themselves as the apex of the liberal meritocracy that replaced Church ad State as rulers in the ancien régime.
A key goal was to establish central bank political independence as a norm, and they have succeeded in doing that. Everything that Quigley outlines as an objective has come to pass.
The elite is proceeding further with extended control post-WWII with the establishment of international institutions like the IMF and World Bank that would guarantee Western financial dominance.
The plan was further "neoliberalized" by the Washington Consensus, with markets unregulated other than by institutions created by elites and limited the activity and reach of nation states through privatization.
Now the elite are aiming at surmounting national sovereignty with international trade agreements like TPP and TiSA.
This is not taking place because the working of the invisible hand of market forces but rather by conscious design and intentional action to extend economically liberal institutional control into the previous domain of Church and State. In the ancien régime, the Church was the "first estate," and the feudal aristocracy was the "second estate," with the "commoners" being the "third estate."
The objective to the neoliberal elite has been to replace the former first and second estate with the haute bourgeoisie, with the rest of the people being the petite bourgeoisie and the workers. The haute bourgeoisie would get the petite bourgeoisie to align with it politically rather than with the workers with whom they had more economic affinity through the promise of upward socio-economic mobility. That objective has largely been met, judging from the way things have turned out historically.
science is NOT "general"
ReplyDeleteScientists do strive for greater generality in their theorizing. Generality is an attractor that drives theoretical development. The goal of science is to arrive at a "theory of everything." that is, a finite set of laws capable of explaining all change and testable ay predicting future occurrences. For may scientists, it's not a matter of if but of when, even if it takes millions of years. Einstein was convinced that the universe is deterministic and that scientists would over time discover more and more laws that would replace what had previously been treated stochastically.
I'm saying that often people who are termed "left" and "right" as a problem are actually rather just stupid/unqualified in the area they are opining in....
ReplyDeleteand what we might term 'libertarians' are actually just stupid people not qualified to opine on material economic matters...
and I'm saying that the NRO people are missing the mark and making inappropriately general statements about "the left" which is a completely unscientific approach...
We are often told "dont stereotype" or "dont discriminate" well there is a reason we shouldnt do this and that is because it is #1 bad science...
Here is Prager's bio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Prager
"He went on to attend Brooklyn College and graduated with a double major in anthropology and history. Between 1970 and 1972, he attended the Middle East and Russian Institutes (now Harriman Institute) at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Prager also studied international history, comparative religion, and Arabic "
He's some sort of religious guy who probably studied the behaviour of bonobos thrown in for good measure.... ie NOT QUALIFIED to opine on economic matters... which is the basis for those he terms of "the left" who are constantly getting f-ed over economically and of course will act out who then he asserts "hate the country!" or wtf....
Youre going to have a lot of people who "hate the country!" when untrained/unqualified/morons are administering the material systems part of it .... this should not be surprising...
These people should only be termed 'dis-satisfied' and qualified people should be put on it to figure out what their problem is...
Maybe what I am saying is that who I might term 'libertarians' for the sake of discussion here are in reality just stupid/moron/unqualified people in economic matters...
ReplyDeletePrager is trying to group people into some sort of too broad a cohort to be considered scientific... which is not surprising he has never been trained in it and has no true qualifications...
Why do righties tend to hate their own culture/country?
ReplyDeleteE. g., in the USA:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-- "The New Colossus", by Emma Lazarus
Rightie: Immigrants, go home" And screw the homeless while you're at it.
Identity politics is associated with the Left, that much is true.
ReplyDeleteWell Bill, the "righties" you are descirbing philosophy is "throw people under the bus to stay on top", ie. basically darwinism.
ReplyDeleteIt's a form of sociopathy.
Matt who is "qualified", considering the whole academic edifice built around economics is rotten...
ReplyDeleteArguments have to stand on their own or not, down with all the argument from authority bullshit, that's what got us in this mess in the first place with all the idiotic "pundits", "experts", "technocrats" economists thinking their opinion is worth something because they have a title on whatever Ivy League university.
Ignacio,
ReplyDeleteWell they are not following the basic scientific procedures... so imo we should not be surprised that chaos results...
I also think everybody should be required to take the introductory calculus at some point as part of a well balanced education...
I also do not think that it (calculus) is taught correctly somehow... it could be taught better... (dont ask me how though ;) (I have only a few ideas at this point...)
I,
ReplyDeletefor instance if you look here where they guy is explaining the PID control/regulatory theory, he makes the case that to make ANY predictive conclusion, you have to be examining Derivative Action ONLY....
http://www.csimn.com/CSI_pages/PIDforDummies.html
iow if you are looking at ex post data, you cant make a prediction based on that .... all you can to is use it to examine Integral Action and see how far off you WERE from target value over the same period... but it implies that if you use that ex post data to make predictions you are making a mistake period... iow you cant do that...
Do you see this?
further here:
ReplyDelete"The language of science is mathematics and it is through the mathematical function that a situation can be expressed in terms of the conditions that define it. The function is thus a fundamental concept in mathematics and Calculus is the branch of mathematics dealing with functions whose dimensions change. What then is a function and how is it expressed mathematically?"
So we have to have a Function identified and then take the derivative of that function in order to make predictive statements period.
If we dont have a function then we should just call it 'trial and error' which is what it is...
and if that is all we have then so be it but we should not be making predictive statements then, just admitting that we are doing 'trial and error'.... which is still better than nothing but far from ideal...
For me, at the centre of the debate above, is a human being.
ReplyDeleteAnd what is being discussed is human desire (a motivating energy) – as it manifests itself in the physical, emotional, mental, and existential life. The question we should be asking ourselves is: - ‘what is it that will fulfil human desire’?’
Because one look at the world today, reveals it is full of mushrooming frustration and conflict. Our intelligence (if we use it) knows that can only end in fire. Hatred, greed, and separation, breed their own children; as do respect and a genuine love for humanity and the self. Our formulas do not work (Einstein had something to say about that). Everything balances precariously on the knife-edge of selfishness – inclusiveness on the horizontal axis and self-knowledge – ignorance on the vertical (a human compass). And even if the whole of humanity were 100% inclusive, still human desire would seek fulfilment (self-knowledge).
A human being is free, only when they ‘feel’ free – irrespective of their life of desire.
Only your heart can tell you when you are truly free. Even on the battlefield. Mind is a slave to its own nature, but the heart contains within it something that is completely free; and by association ......! It also contains within it all of human potential. When the heart is free, the human controls the life of desire, rather than the other way around. The wheel is reversed; its energy free to be used creatively. People try to define freedom away - lock it down or cage and manacle, limit and condition, freedom - but they too are slaves to human desire. Freedom in the end is human desire, once it has found what it is looking for. Trying to control human desire through the apparatus of a State is a fool’s game. Far better to restore human dignity and peace, prosperity, so that people are free to pursue their potential.
Humanity can wander around in the world of the mind for so long, and we need mind if we want to build airports, but eventually we get hungry and thirsty and tired, the heart calls, and we want to go home. The relatives and mentors Arjuna had to kill were his concepts to make himself ready. The field must be prepared.
At the centre of the debate is the human being, but everyone thinks everything else is more important? There is no Cause nobler or greater on this earth, than a human being. Out of Africa we wandered, looking for ourselves.
jr we cant get to any of that if we dont have our economic systems functioning correctly...
ReplyDeleteAs base as it may sound to some, we do have purely materialist needs; food, clothing, shelter, meds, etc... and these systems have to be administered by qualified people first before we can get to any of those non-materialist/more glorious revelations...
Tom posted this the other day from the Lord to Israel:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? " Mat 6
Which imo was easy for Him to say as He never knew what it was like to be created as one among all of these libertarian/morons and then have to deal with them throughout all the duration of our flesh lives like we do...
We have to get these material systems running a lot better imo BEFORE we can get to the more glorious things this is just the way it is for us in this era we have to deal with it... imo we have to get the qualified non-moron people in the positions of policy/administration to get there...