On 07 Oct 2013, at 22:58, John Mikes wrote:
Bruno: you wrote:
The US constitution is very good, but is not really followed, and
things like prohibition have put bandits into power, who have broken
the important separation of powers.
Lobbying and the role of money in politics should be revised. But we
are a bit out of topic here, I think.
Out of topic of "everything"? OK, OK, I know. But the US
Constitution (IMO) HAS BEEN very good in a 300+ year old societal
view - drawn by duelling, pipe-smoking, hunting male chauvinist
slave-owner despots to organize the 'colonies' NOT TO PAY taxes to
the King of England. Now, the Supreme Court's "oldies" (probably
younger than me) valuate the 18th c. language for the 21st c. life
in a many times skewed sense.
Lobbying I call "buying votes" for a special interest, money is not
"talk" and corporation is not a 'person' (as e.g. a citizen). And so
on.
OK. especially with "lobbying = buying votes".
Bruno
JM
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 3:39 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 06 Oct 2013, at 18:08, Alberto G. Corona wrote:
Some academies are just prostituted to rotten (sometime) politics,
often just to get enough funding to survive.
Money is not the problem. Black, obscure and grey money is the
problem.
Wait, this is indeed the most fundamental question!
How knowledge interact with money and power in society and convert
itself in beliefs as a system that prevent further knowledge must
be an integral part of research.
For me this meta-knowledge about knowledge faith and power is a
more fundamental question than knowledge itself.
-------
I think that people don' t want knowledge primarily.
Ha Ha ... That reminds me when my father told me that truth is what
humans fear the most and like the less.
What they aim at, is like any living being, and in fact, like any
stable dynamic auto-regulated structure, is to reduce uncertainty.
The humans oscillate between security/certainty/control and freedom/
uncertainty/universality. Basically that is why we vote, to have a
sort of equilibrium in between.
That fit with many considerations at different levels, and embrace
conclussions of evolution, game theory, computability, social
science psychology and entropy.
That explain how knowledge interact with power (and money and you
wish) and faith. As I will explain:
To reduce uncertainty can be achieved adquiring pure knowledge of
the world around in order to predict better the future.
But it can also be achieved by adquiring for themselves money or
power, or love from other people, or commitment from tem, or
respect, or common commintment to something or someone.
The fact is that pure knowledge is not enoug. Money is not enough,
power is not enough, since neither of them work without a committed
society that make use of this knowledge in an organized way, that
respect the money value and other properties, that has fair
mechanism for adquiring power and legitimacy, and more that that, a
society with a clear plan for our sibiling and generations to come.
Thinking materialistically (I´m not but for a matter of argument)
there is no social vehicle for our genes if the society have all
these requirements, and, more important, no people that had not
these requirements ullfilled survived, so we have inherited this
natural seeking for all these kinds of uncertainty reduction
mechanism around us.
Some societies make enphasis in one kind of uncertainty reduction.
Others rely more in other different in this equation. These
different uncertainty reduction alternatives are one against the
other. A strict hiearchi of power and legitimacy based on an
enforced supernatural plan is a excellent uncertainty reduction for
a stable society that does not need to change. In the other side,
adquring knowledge is good, but that may challenge the structure,
questionin legitimacies and creating civil wars, that can be
pacific or violent. When there is no common plans nor loyaltyes,
the pacific disputes become violent almos by defintion.
A lot of philosophy on all their branches can be extracted from
this starting point.
The US constitution is very good, but is not really followed, and
things like prohibition have put bandits into power, who have broken
the important separation of powers.
Lobbying and the role of money in politics should be revised. But we
are a bit out of topic here, I think.
Bruno
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