Re: Global warming silliness
On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? No one is going to clean up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval times are myths or gross simplifications The tragedy of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants something done that no one will do off their own bat - but they are prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or organising somone else to do it. If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige. You don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is that you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more altruism. Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable. This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this system and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too great. Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations that I deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would end up in jail for chipping in. In fact government robs me of my freedom to chip in, because they take all of my chip in money and then some, and then give it to banks. Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive to be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under coercion and market distortion. And if no one does it, we all end up worse off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although game theory has something to say about it. Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply. Telmo. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Everything you wanted to know about physics...
On 18 Nov 2013, at 00:53, LizR wrote: If the universe exists for long enough It has to be virtually infinite, have special homogeneity conditions, and even in that case, I don't see how a Boltzman brain can exist a sufficiently long time to get the deep and linear comp state capable of explaining our observation. Even if by chance a BB emulate a Universal Dovetailer, you will need infinite constraints and large period of time, to get states influencing the FPI. they appear to be inevitable. No doubt that leads to some sort of Bayesian argument about the universe not being able to last too long, or we'd all be BBs (too long would be an awfully long time, to misquote Peter Pan). However, can we be sure we aren't? Maybe comp has something to say about this... :) But people invoking the BBs are not aware of the FPI. If BB exists (and run long enough), we are emulated by them, and the physical laws are given by the statistics on the computations run by them, and run in arithmetic. Now, in arithmetic, there is an infinty of BBs, and an infinity of emulation of ourselves, and the BB does not play any special role. BBs are just a a variant of brain in a vat. With comp, they don't make sense other than the trivial sense that arithmetic contains all BBs, all brains in a vat, but eventually the matter of those emulators is themselves an hallucination stable by the global FPI (the FPi on the whole arithmetic). This makes BBs sorts of physicalist ill defined notion: their presence of absence does not change anything more than the existence of brains, aliens, etc. Primitive material physical emulators , be them brain or Boltzman brain, simply don't exist. They emerge from *all* computations which exists in arithmetic. Bruno On 18 November 2013 03:23, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: I think K. Susskind, is, or was a supporter of Boltzmann Brains, which is a wild, subject, if true. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:46 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 18 November 2013 22:41, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? It isn't part of the market because no one wants it to be, not because no one allows it to be. Sure, and I don't blame people. We all spend about 12 years in the government's education system. The manufactured consent relies on several devices, namely political parties exploring human tribal tendencies. This is why you see people defending Obama while he does many things that they find repugnant. Another powerful weapon is fear. No one is going to clean up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval times are myths or gross simplifications Not the tragedy of the commons, however. But even if it was the logic would hold. The tragedy of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants something done that no one will do off their own bat - but they are prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or organising somone else to do it. If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige. You don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is that you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more altruism. Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable. This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this system and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too great. Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations that I deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would end up in jail for chipping in. In fact government robs me of my freedom to chip in, because they take all of my chip in money and then some, and then give it to banks. Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive to be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under coercion and market distortion. And if no one does it, we all end up worse off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although game theory has something to say about it. Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply. You seem to be arguing against a straw man here. I explained why the free market can't fix the tragedy of the commons. You haven't answered my point. Well I tried to point out several examples on how it does. Trade reduces violence, for example. In a free market, reputation is very important. This is why careers can be destroyed in a free market, but this never seems to happen to people who control means of coercion. Reputation is a natural mechanism that our species evolved precisely to deal with tragedy of the commons like situations. With more freedom, people don't become suddenly irrational. Our civilisation improves because we know more and our analytical skills keep improving. Also because we taste better lives. I have a window that faces a private courtyard. If I started throwing my trash out of the window, my neighbours wouldn't be too happy about it. I wouldn't want to do it either, I like my surroundings to be clean. None of this would change with more freedom. Me and my neighbours have to cooperate to hire someone to clean the common areas. Agreeing to do my part is a contractual obligation for me to rent
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 11:41 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Telmo, oil wells went down deeper than previously estimated as feasible. Techniques are evolving. If 2, 0r 5 pipes are inadequate in transport capacity, use more. Ask the engineers - I also claim ignorance. the geological temperature vertical map is varying according to a lot of factors. Ignorance is not a good argument for not considering (and asking). I agree. But sometimes we're lazy. My worry is always the same: the energy budget necessary to drill the holes and maintain the infrastructure compared to the yield. I'm not saying this isn't a good idea, just that this analysis in necessary to make it convincing. I would be glad to be convinced and then I would like to have enough money to invest in your company :) Best, Telmo. John On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 3:45 PM, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: Hi John, On Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 9:33 PM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Telmo: unfortunately I reflected to the NZ solution on another list... - it is a convoluted - I could say: inadeqyate - technology, just as the Au version of the surface utilization. SOME PARTS OF THE WORLD??? let us say: the surface? Solar woulrd cover immense surfaces just for supplying the energy as needed TODAY and we will need a multiple of that soon... See my remark to Russell. So far NOBODY was interested in my suggestions: ewverybody blows his OWN pipe. Geotherm is under our feet - dry lamd or oceans. Pipes are stuck down for OIL, similar - if a bit longer for geothermic energy extraction with 2 pipes inserted: ONE for pumping DOWN the ultrapure (Si-free) water into a heat-exchanger at ~140+C environment, the OTHER to ascend the high pressure steam straight into the turbine. No deposit, as in NZ. Sorry, I didn't comment out of ignorance. The idea sounds very attractive. What about depth? Is the necessary depth similar to oil extraction? And what about yield? How many of these pipes would we need to replace the energy output of a typical oil rig? Is it scalable? Cheers, Telmo. JOhn Mikes On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:39 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: On 15 November 2013 11:39, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: Telmo and other 'experts': why does nobody even mention the geothermic energy app - available in huge Q-s and so far tapped only in (literalily) 'superficial' usage. The high pressure ultra-clean steam from a deepened modification of the exhausted oil wells may provide much much more energy than today's needs, so it could serve as driving force for more than we think by ongoing technology. (E.g. potable water, agri-irrigation, when fresh-water becomes scarce - like now - pollution-free transportation, keeping politicians in asylum, etc.) . I assume you mean geothermal energy. It is used in New Zealand but doesn't provide as much energy as wind and hydro as far as I know. It's an option in some parts of the world, certainly, but I would say solar is more readily available overall. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the
Re: Global warming silliness
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/17/2013 4:25 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 8:41 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/16/2013 11:36 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: But I certainly take your point that there is a reason the government is not trusted. However, it is not the government that is warning us about global warming. It is in the scientific research literature. You didn't find lies about drones or drugs or the Patriout act in Physical Review or even in arXiv. No, but then they come up with this plan What plan? Where is it? As far as I know there is no plan whatsoever. Here with they I mean the people with the most political clout, access to the media an so on who campaign for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Their demand seems to be for the signing of a global treaty. This is a demand for empowering governments to further regulate economic activity, now at a global scale, and one of the main suggestions is some global tax based on carbon emissions. Is this not correct? That's the market based approach to reducing CO2 emissions by charging for the externalities. But there is no treaty even on the table to require any particular solution or even to enforce any degree of reduction. that the way to solve the problem is to give more power to the above-mentioned government. So even the proposals don't give any new power to governments - they always had the power to tax. This is too simplistic. Taxes have a long and complicated history, and several types of taxes that are accepted today were very controversial not so long ago. For example, the income tax in the US came into existence in 1913, with ratification of the 16th amendment. My father lived a good part of his life under the fascist regime in Portugal. We had a thriving match industry, so there was a tax on lighters. I have the license he had to carry in his pocket to use his lighter. This tax would now be illegal because of a UE treaty that forbids this type of protectionism. It was made redundant before that by the post-revolutionary nationalisation and consequent destruction of the match industry. Then, also in the UE, we saw the social security system turn into a tax: first, people were convinced that they should put some money aside and let the government take care of it, so that it is later able to provide you with a pension. Now that this system is collapsing, existing pensions are being cut, future pensions are uncertain and the age of retirement is rising. Yet, people don't pay less to social security. The pattern seems to always be the same: an initial reasonable plan, then a slow slide down a long sequence of small corrections and mistakes that eventually lead to pure obligation with nothing in return. Now, most UE citizens are resigned to the idea that they have to pay taxes to make up for past mistakes and expect nothing in return. This was attained by a process of slow cooking. You're protesting against a plan that you imagine. Any proposed solution that does not involve further government intrusion in our lives is rejected. What solution is that? More nuclear power and geo-engineering. Both these proposals exists and there is interest on the part of investors. They are always met with a lot of resistance from environmentalists. I'm not saying that all of this resistance is unjustified, caution is a good thing in these matters, but I definitely see a lot of resistance that comes from some moral framework that sees these ideas as fundamentally immoral, even more so if someone can profit from them. Sure, there's a lot of luddite resistance fed by scares like Fukushima. The important role I see for government is driving the RD to LFTRs. It's too big and too politically risky to expect private investment to take it on. It needs government funded and government protected development - just like the internet, spaceflight, uranium reactors, vaccination, intercontinental railroads, and just about any other really big technological development. I'll comment on two: the internet and railroads. The internet is the synergistic outcome of a number of technologies. I am fairly certain that no government desired the internet as it exists today. I can be fairly certain because they're using large chunks of our money to try to make it go away in its current format. Many different protocols were dreamt of. Creating a working internet protocol does not take a genius. It just so happened that TCP/IP gained popularity faster than other alternatives. A very great part of what makes the internet what it is today is open-source software. Sure, many companies and government organisations got in that action too for a number of reasons. But we saw an entire unix kernel being developed in front of our eyes by a Finnish kid and his followers. I remembered when this was laughed at, something that only a gigantic
Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes on the mind-body problem
Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes are completely different on the relationship between mind and matter See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/#DesSpiLei Spinoza was a monist, who believed that mind and matter were one. Descartes believed that mind and matter are totally different Leibniz beleived that mind was a monad or mental aspect of matter. Bertrand Ruseell said that there are two forms of knowing: a) Knowing scientifically or objectively (knowing by description) Example: you know who Obama is from the newspapers. b) Knowing by acquaintance or experience (knowing subjectively) Example: you know who Obama is because you have met him. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes on the mind-body problem
On 18 Nov 2013, at 14:41, Roger Clough wrote: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes are completely different on the relationship between mind and matter See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/#DesSpiLei Spinoza was a monist, who believed that mind and matter were one. Are you sure? It seems to me that Spinoza defended what is called today neutral monism: the idea that both matter and mind (which are taken as obviously very different) are coming from one different thing. Computationalism is neutral monist in that sense, where the different thing is the arithmetical reality. Descartes believed that mind and matter are totally different OK. But Descartes, imo, became aware of the depth of the rabbit hole this entails. It is hard to say, because Descartes was limited in his prose by the authoritarianism of his epoch. I read him in between the lines. Leibniz beleived that mind was a monad or mental aspect of matter. And this makes him still a materialist, by which I mean a believer in some ontologically independent substance. Bertrand Ruseell said that there are two forms of knowing: a) Knowing scientifically or objectively (knowing by description) Example: you know who Obama is from the newspapers. b) Knowing by acquaintance or experience (knowing subjectively) Example: you know who Obama is because you have met him. Yes, and such a difference is made very clear in the 1p/3p distinction that we have to take into account to understand that materialism is eventually not compatible with mechanism. It can be translated in arithmetic, and Bertrand Russell's distinction is well captured by the difference between Bp p and Bp. Note that this would not work without the incompleteness result. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes on the mind-body problem
On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Nov 2013, at 14:41, Roger Clough wrote: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes are completely different on the relationship between mind and matter See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/#DesSpiLei Spinoza was a monist, who believed that mind and matter were one. Are you sure? It seems to me that Spinoza defended what is called today neutral monism: the idea that both matter and mind (which are taken as obviously very different) are coming from one different thing. Computationalism is neutral monist in that sense, where the different thing is the arithmetical reality. Descartes believed that mind and matter are totally different OK. But Descartes, imo, became aware of the depth of the rabbit hole this entails. It is hard to say, because Descartes was limited in his prose by the authoritarianism of his epoch. I read him in between the lines. Interesting. I always assumed that Descartes was oblivious to the problems with dualism. But I really like his idea of starting with the cogito. Leibniz beleived that mind was a monad or mental aspect of matter. And this makes him still a materialist, by which I mean a believer in some ontologically independent substance. Bertrand Ruseell said that there are two forms of knowing: a) Knowing scientifically or objectively (knowing by description) Example: you know who Obama is from the newspapers. b) Knowing by acquaintance or experience (knowing subjectively) Example: you know who Obama is because you have met him. Yes, and such a difference is made very clear in the 1p/3p distinction that we have to take into account to understand that materialism is eventually not compatible with mechanism. It can be translated in arithmetic, and Bertrand Russell's distinction is well captured by the difference between Bp p and Bp. Note that this would not work without the incompleteness result. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes on the mind-body problem
On 18 Nov 2013, at 15:36, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 18 Nov 2013, at 14:41, Roger Clough wrote: Spinoza, Leibniz and Descartes are completely different on the relationship between mind and matter See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/substance/#DesSpiLei Spinoza was a monist, who believed that mind and matter were one. Are you sure? It seems to me that Spinoza defended what is called today neutral monism: the idea that both matter and mind (which are taken as obviously very different) are coming from one different thing. Computationalism is neutral monist in that sense, where the different thing is the arithmetical reality. Descartes believed that mind and matter are totally different OK. But Descartes, imo, became aware of the depth of the rabbit hole this entails. It is hard to say, because Descartes was limited in his prose by the authoritarianism of his epoch. I read him in between the lines. Interesting. I always assumed that Descartes was oblivious to the problems with dualism. But I really like his idea of starting with the cogito. I appreciate very much Descartes, mainly for his meditations (with the dream argument, and the cogito), and his unfinished text in the search of truth. His dualism is coherent with his mechanism, except that he refers to God (but then it is close to Plotinus' theory of matter), instead of arithmetical truth (but of course he lacks Gödel's discovery). I don't think Descartes ever took the idea of a substance-dualism seriously. He might not be a dulaist in that sense. Of course the Aristotelians jumps on that cartesian dualist wagon, but when you read Descartes, you don't see evidence for such a dualism. With Plotinus (that Descartes seems to ignore), Descartes is close to computationalism both on mind and matter. He could have studied more his predecessors, if only to better argue. It is normal. Those who have genuine personal deep question always try to answer them by themselves (and they reinvent the wheel, here and there). Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 11/18/2013 1:46 AM, LizR wrote: On 18 November 2013 22:41, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com mailto:te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com mailto:lizj...@gmail.com wrote: This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? It isn't part of the market because no one wants it to be, not because no one allows it to be. No one is going to clean up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval times are myths or gross simplifications Not the tragedy of the commons, however. But even if it was the logic would hold. The tragedy of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants something done that no one will do off their own bat - but they are prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or organising somone else to do it. If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige. You don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is that you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more altruism. Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable. This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this system and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too great. Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations that I deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would end up in jail for chipping in. In fact government robs me of my freedom to chip in, because they take all of my chip in money and then some, and then give it to banks. Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive to be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under coercion and market distortion. And if no one does it, we all end up worse off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although game theory has something to say about it. Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply. You seem to be arguing against a straw man here. I explained why the free market can't fix the tragedy of the commons. You haven't answered my point. And he's so concerned with anti-government straw men that he hasn't noticed that a market requires government (including coercion) to define ownership and punish fraud. Without government you couldn't own any more stuff than you could carry and defend by force of arms. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Nuclear power
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:13 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I can think of one thing that could dramatically not just slow but reverse the growth of photovoltaics, removing the tax incentives and subsidies. In effect government has been lying to the free market about the true cost to the economy of solar cells. Or the free market has been lying about the cost of CO2 emissions - essentially saying it's zero. Everybody has an opinion but nobody knows the true cost of CO2 emissions, and nobody will know for decades and perhaps centuries. I don't know what History's verdict will be but if it's your opinion that the cost of CO2 emissions is very high then logically you should be a big fan of nuclear power. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 11/18/2013 4:31 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: In fact, in the 90s Microsoft wasn't too happy with how the web was suddenly exploding and out of their control. Using their monopolistic position, they created a browser and gave it away for free, then stalled its development. This created a tragedy of the commons situation for the rest of us: we would all benefit from a better web but this was too costly of a problem for any of us to face individually, and there was quick profit to be made by just cooperating with the status quo. They also used their deep pockets to buy up small innovative companies that produced software that outcompeted parts of their office suite. If the owners didn't want to sell at MS's price, the MS would announce that the *next* release of Windoze was going to include whatever made the competing software better - for free. This of course would immediately kill the market for the competing software and the owners would be forced to sell. MS also used their position to get computer makers, like Dell, to deliver computers only with MS operating systems. But hey, it's just the free market. MS was prosecuted for restraint of trade and might even have been split into an OS company and an application company, except that the Bush administration came into office and essentially dropped the prosecution with a slap on the wrist. The prosecutions in Europe proceeded with a little more severe penalties. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 18 Nov 2013, at 18:13, meekerdb wrote: On 11/18/2013 1:46 AM, LizR wrote: On 18 November 2013 22:41, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? It isn't part of the market because no one wants it to be, not because no one allows it to be. No one is going to clean up the commons, just as they didn't in medieval villages, because there is no incentive for an individual, or a specific group, to do so. The medieval times were not exactly a period of free market, so this would be an example on how government can solve things... or not. In reality, many of the things we learned in high school about medieval times are myths or gross simplifications Not the tragedy of the commons, however. But even if it was the logic would hold. The tragedy of the commons is one reason to have governments, because everyone wants something done that no one will do off their own bat - but they are prepared to chip in a donation towards the government doing it, or organising somone else to do it. If they are prepared to chip in a donation there is no problem. If there is money to be made, the free market will be glad to oblige. You don't seem prepared to call things by its names: the idea of government is that, when people are not prepared to chip in, they are forced to do so, ultimately by violent means. The paradox here is that you are trusting a small group of people with this coercive power and then expecting this small group and power asymmetry to result in more altruism. Again, reality is complex. Current forms of democracy would not work if implemented in previous cultures, because people would not accept the social norms that come with them. You cannot police everything or even 1% of what's going on. Systems work because they become stable. This stability does not come from consent (I was born into this system and never consented to it, neither did you). It comes from the emergence of sets of incentives. I disagree with many laws that I'm not going to break because the personal cost to me would be too great. Suppose I decide I don't trust the government with my tax money, so I decide to take it instead and give it directly to organisations that I deem worthy: hospitals, schools, research centres and so on. I would end up in jail for chipping in. In fact government robs me of my freedom to chip in, because they take all of my chip in money and then some, and then give it to banks. Incentives also emerge from free markets, importantly the incentive to be nice to the people you trade with. Where there are more trade routes there are less wars. If you are polluting the air I breath you are being hostile towards me, and I am less likely to want to enter a transaction with you. But these delicate balances can't arise under coercion and market distortion. And if no one does it, we all end up worse off (perhaps fatally so in this case). It ain't rocket science, although game theory has something to say about it. Prisoner dilemma scenarios don't magically disappear once you introduce coercion. In fact, I argue that they multiply. You seem to be arguing against a straw man here. I explained why the free market can't fix the tragedy of the commons. You haven't answered my point. And he's so concerned with anti-government straw men that he hasn't noticed that a market requires government (including coercion) to define ownership and punish fraud. Without government you couldn't own any more stuff than you could carry and defend by force of arms. I agree with Brent. Government can be the best thing a democracy can have, ... until bandits get power and perverts the elections and the state power separations (and get important control on the media, etc.). But we should make clear that a government has nothing to say about your food, medications, sports, religious or sexual practices, etc. As long as there are no well-motivated complains, the state can't intervene. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 11/18/2013 4:31 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: If I tried to buy some land and start an independent city, stormtroopers would show up at some point. Even if I'm not harming anyone. Even if I'm totally self-reliant. Depends on what you mean by independent city. If you just mean a place with homes and businesses - no problem. But if you want to own a city with tax and police powers, then you need a charter from the state. This guarantees that you follow certain transparency, accounting, and democratic procedures in the governing of your city. And there are town (very small ones) that have been created in exactly that way. By using stormtroopers you imply that not being able to create a city with your own stormtroopers is unreasonable. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 11/18/2013 4:43 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/17/2013 4:25 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 8:41 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/16/2013 11:36 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: But I certainly take your point that there is a reason the government is not trusted. However, it is not the government that is warning us about global warming. It is in the scientific research literature. You didn't find lies about drones or drugs or the Patriout act in Physical Review or even in arXiv. No, but then they come up with this plan What plan? Where is it? As far as I know there is no plan whatsoever. Here with they I mean the people with the most political clout, access to the media an so on who campaign for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Their demand seems to be for the signing of a global treaty. This is a demand for empowering governments to further regulate economic activity, now at a global scale, and one of the main suggestions is some global tax based on carbon emissions. Is this not correct? That's the market based approach to reducing CO2 emissions by charging for the externalities. But there is no treaty even on the table to require any particular solution or even to enforce any degree of reduction. that the way to solve the problem is to give more power to the above-mentioned government. So even the proposals don't give any new power to governments - they always had the power to tax. This is too simplistic. Taxes have a long and complicated history, and several types of taxes that are accepted today were very controversial not so long ago. For example, the income tax in the US came into existence in 1913, with ratification of the 16th amendment. My father lived a good part of his life under the fascist regime in Portugal. We had a thriving match industry, so there was a tax on lighters. I have the license he had to carry in his pocket to use his lighter. This tax would now be illegal because of a UE treaty that forbids this type of protectionism. It was made redundant before that by the post-revolutionary nationalisation and consequent destruction of the match industry. Then, also in the UE, we saw the social security system turn into a tax: first, people were convinced that they should put some money aside and let the government take care of it, so that it is later able to provide you with a pension. Now that this system is collapsing, existing pensions are being cut, future pensions are uncertain and the age of retirement is rising. Yet, people don't pay less to social security. The pattern seems to always be the same: an initial reasonable plan, then a slow slide down a long sequence of small corrections and mistakes that eventually lead to pure obligation with nothing in return. Now, most UE citizens are resigned to the idea that they have to pay taxes to make up for past mistakes and expect nothing in return. This was attained by a process of slow cooking. You're protesting against a plan that you imagine. Any proposed solution that does not involve further government intrusion in our lives is rejected. What solution is that? More nuclear power and geo-engineering. Both these proposals exists and there is interest on the part of investors. They are always met with a lot of resistance from environmentalists. I'm not saying that all of this resistance is unjustified, caution is a good thing in these matters, but I definitely see a lot of resistance that comes from some moral framework that sees these ideas as fundamentally immoral, even more so if someone can profit from them. Sure, there's a lot of luddite resistance fed by scares like Fukushima. The important role I see for government is driving the RD to LFTRs. It's too big and too politically risky to expect private investment to take it on. It needs government funded and government protected development - just like the internet, spaceflight, uranium reactors, vaccination, intercontinental railroads, and just about any other really big technological development. I'll comment on two: the internet and railroads. The internet is the synergistic outcome of a number of technologies. I am fairly certain that no government desired the internet as it exists today. First, that's your supposition. If you named anything in the world as it exists today there would be some government, maybe even all people, who would want it to be different, not as it exists today, in some respect. But it was created and developed by government funded organizations. By DARPA, by CERN. I can be fairly certain because they're using large chunks of our money to try to make it go away in its current format. Many different protocols were dreamt of. Creating a working internet protocol does not take a genius. It just so happened that TCP/IP gained popularity faster than other alternatives. A very great part of what makes the internet what
Re: Global warming silliness
2013/11/18 meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net On 11/18/2013 4:43 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:23 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/17/2013 4:25 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 8:41 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/16/2013 11:36 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: But I certainly take your point that there is a reason the government is not trusted. However, it is not the government that is warning us about global warming. It is in the scientific research literature. You didn't find lies about drones or drugs or the Patriout act in Physical Review or even in arXiv. No, but then they come up with this plan What plan? Where is it? As far as I know there is no plan whatsoever. Here with they I mean the people with the most political clout, access to the media an so on who campaign for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Their demand seems to be for the signing of a global treaty. This is a demand for empowering governments to further regulate economic activity, now at a global scale, and one of the main suggestions is some global tax based on carbon emissions. Is this not correct? That's the market based approach to reducing CO2 emissions by charging for the externalities. But there is no treaty even on the table to require any particular solution or even to enforce any degree of reduction. that the way to solve the problem is to give more power to the above-mentioned government. So even the proposals don't give any new power to governments - they always had the power to tax. This is too simplistic. Taxes have a long and complicated history, and several types of taxes that are accepted today were very controversial not so long ago. For example, the income tax in the US came into existence in 1913, with ratification of the 16th amendment. My father lived a good part of his life under the fascist regime in Portugal. We had a thriving match industry, so there was a tax on lighters. I have the license he had to carry in his pocket to use his lighter. This tax would now be illegal because of a UE treaty that forbids this type of protectionism. It was made redundant before that by the post-revolutionary nationalisation and consequent destruction of the match industry. Then, also in the UE, we saw the social security system turn into a tax: first, people were convinced that they should put some money aside and let the government take care of it, so that it is later able to provide you with a pension. Now that this system is collapsing, existing pensions are being cut, future pensions are uncertain and the age of retirement is rising. Yet, people don't pay less to social security. The pattern seems to always be the same: an initial reasonable plan, then a slow slide down a long sequence of small corrections and mistakes that eventually lead to pure obligation with nothing in return. Now, most UE citizens are resigned to the idea that they have to pay taxes to make up for past mistakes and expect nothing in return. This was attained by a process of slow cooking. You're protesting against a plan that you imagine. Any proposed solution that does not involve further government intrusion in our lives is rejected. What solution is that? More nuclear power and geo-engineering. Both these proposals exists and there is interest on the part of investors. They are always met with a lot of resistance from environmentalists. I'm not saying that all of this resistance is unjustified, caution is a good thing in these matters, but I definitely see a lot of resistance that comes from some moral framework that sees these ideas as fundamentally immoral, even more so if someone can profit from them. Sure, there's a lot of luddite resistance fed by scares like Fukushima. The important role I see for government is driving the RD to LFTRs. It's too big and too politically risky to expect private investment to take it on. It needs government funded and government protected development - just like the internet, spaceflight, uranium reactors, vaccination, intercontinental railroads, and just about any other really big technological development. I'll comment on two: the internet and railroads. The internet is the synergistic outcome of a number of technologies. I am fairly certain that no government desired the internet as it exists today. First, that's your supposition. If you named anything in the world as it exists today there would be some government, maybe even all people, who would want it to be different, not as it exists today, in some respect. But it was created and developed by government funded organizations. By DARPA, by CERN. I can be fairly certain because they're using large chunks of our money to try to make it go away in its current format. Many different protocols were dreamt of. Creating a working internet protocol does not take a genius.
Re: Nuclear power
On 11/18/2013 9:33 AM, John Clark wrote: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:13 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net mailto:meeke...@verizon.net wrote: I can think of one thing that could dramatically not just slow but reverse the growth of photovoltaics, removing the tax incentives and subsidies. In effect government has been lying to the free market about the true cost to the economy of solar cells. Or the free market has been lying about the cost of CO2 emissions - essentially saying it's zero. Everybody has an opinion but nobody knows the true cost of CO2 emissions, and nobody will know for decades and perhaps centuries. That's ignoring the science that says it's going to be pretty high if we continue to increase it. A small increase, such as we've produced now, wouldn't be a problem except for it's abruptness which will cause a lot of disruption and displacement as weather patterns change. In the long run it might even be advantageous for some places like Canada, Russia, Scandanvia, Greenland. But we're increasing CO2 production, not stopping it. I don't know what History's verdict will be but if it's your opinion that the cost of CO2 emissions is very high then logically you should be a big fan of nuclear power. I am a fan of nuclear power, although I'm a bigger fan of solar and wind where they are workable. In fact I'm the one who first posted about LFTRs on this list. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 11/18/2013 9:44 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: You seem to be arguing against a straw man here. I explained why the free market can't fix the tragedy of the commons. You haven't answered my point. And he's so concerned with anti-government straw men that he hasn't noticed that a market requires government (including coercion) to define ownership and punish fraud. Without government you couldn't own any more stuff than you could carry and defend by force of arms. I agree with Brent. Government can be the best thing a democracy can have, ... until bandits get power and perverts the elections and the state power separations (and get important control on the media, etc.). But we should make clear that a government has nothing to say about your food, medications, sports, religious or sexual practices, etc. As long as there are no well-motivated complains, the state can't intervene. So you think it's a bad idea for the government to require testing medications for safety. You liked the old patent medicine system better? You don't like the government requiring food labels with contents? How about airline safety requlations; why not just let the customers decide based on reputation (that's what libertarians want)? Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
Please look at this (and tweet / resend it if you agree). http://act.350.org/sign/haiyan Thanks! :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Global warming silliness
On 18 November 2013 22:41, Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com wrote: On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:02 AM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: This is quite simple. Markets ignore the commons, hence a free market solution can't - or is highly unlikely - to work. Yes, but this is circular. You're saying that the market cannot work for things that you do not allow to be part of the market. The government has to exist, otherwise how is the government to exist? It isn't a question of not allowing the commons to be part of the market. YOU try convincing a private organisation to put lots of resources into fixing the commons. Try and persuade, say, Dell or Oracle or McDonalds that they should spend a substantial part of their revenue building motorways or fixing the climate, and see how far you get. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
