On 21 Nov 2013, at 11:05, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
wrote:
On 20 Nov 2013, at 21:35, John Mikes wrote:
Telmo wrote:
"I admire the US constitution too. In fact, my political position is
essentially to follow it (although I like to imagine possibilities
for
peaceful world with further increases in freedom)."
Which Constitution? the one epoch-opening chef-d'oeuvre based on
modernized
medieval ideas of those well educated smoking-duelling slave-owner
male
chauvinist Forefathers,
who just did not want to pay taxes to the King of England, or the
later
"amended" versions of the same obsolete construct making it into a
gun-toting killer - corrupt, faith-ruled money-monger (with SOME
exceptions,
thank you).
I join you in admiring the original one - as a relic, an innovation
historical masterpiece FOR THE 18th CENTURY. Not for the 21st.
My admiration stopped short when I realized the outcome:
a 'special-interest money'-ruled anti-democratic conglomerate,
governing a
so called government into committing crimes (international and
domestic)
originally excluded
from it's 'modus (regulatio) vivendi'.
How can you imagine a 'peaceful' world with capitalistic (I call it:
econo-feudalistic) principles, imperialistic (oil?) wars and
forcing own
interest on other countries? (Not to
mention the availability of all level governance for enough money).
Gödel pretended that the US constitution was inconsistent and
refused to
sign it.
You mean "pretended" in the French sense right? As in Gödel claimed
that...
Oops! Yes. Thanks for noticing. "To pretend" is a false friend. I knew
it, but forget it all the time!
Einstein intervened and succeeded in changing Gödel's mind (about
not signing it to get the "green card" or the nationality).
Einstein asked Gödel if the US constitution could prevent something
like a
Nazy party to take power, like in Germany, and Gödel said that it
could!
Provided it is followed, of course. I don't think the Weimar
constitution was ever repealed during the third reich. It was simply
ignored...
OK.
I don't think capitalism is the problem, but financial lobbying and
corporatism; + lies, can pervert completely a democracy.
I completely agree. We might only differ in that you are more
optimistic on the possibility of preventing financial lobbying using
rules, while I suspect that the only solution is to decentralise power
so completely that there is not target to lobby.
I am not sure decentralizing would work better. It would augment the
number of local powers, and such local powers might even been worse,
as being more local and less public or less transparent.
I think we might need some reasonable mix of centralized and
decentralized power.
If nobody complains on his local decentralized power, the central
power should have nothing to say, but if the locals complain about
their local powers, the central power can be used as an arbiter.
The deeper problem relies in the fact that most humans are
unwilling to
think by themselves, and they confuse "p -> q" and "q -> p" all the
times.
The (human, but not only) sciences are still driven by the appeal to
authority. We have never been "modern".
I'm happy to read this. I thought this confusion was a central problem
in society for a long time, without being an expert in logic.
The problem is that "p <-> q" is far better than nothing, in the short
run, so our brains are hardwired to "reason" by association, instead,
of logical validity. Logic is by essence counter-intuitive (which
explains the logician's sense of humor).
The short term/long term conflict is unavoidable. Humans face it all
the time, like when hesitating to stop smoking, or to stop producing
CO2, etc.
It is even more complex today due to globalization. With the 20th
century, earth has become a finite space, and this has to be taken
into account, and it is not a simple task, as we have to change habits
that we have since a very long time. In the long run, we will have to
escape the planet and continue to run forward. But meanwhile, we have
to accommodate with the finite resourcing, with or without global
warming. That's a reason more to fight against corporatism, special
private interests, international white collar criminality, etc.
Bruno
Telmo.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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