Hi Craig Weinberg
I would trust what 1,000,000 people in a free market pick
over what one socialist political chosen bureaucrat would pick.
That's not just finding honesty in numbers, it's local vs
remote desires and knowledge. Local wins every time.
Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net
9/17/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
so that everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Craig Weinberg
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-16, 09:58:45
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Needed: A calculus of pleasure and pain.
On Sunday, September 16, 2012 7:48:16 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
Hi Craig Weinberg
Yes, such chicanery goes on, because men are no angels.
But it has to be even worse is a socialist economy,
where market forces (which tend to keep men more honest)
Market forces do whatever the owners of the markets want them to do. Honesty
has nothing to do with it. Socialism (as we have seen to the extent that it
exists in Scandinavia) can be quite nice, and as we see from many places all
over the world, there doesn't seem to be any particular correlation with the
type of economy that a country has with how much of a hellhole it is.
To me, capitalism is the essence of dishonesty. It is about selling something
to others for more than you paid for it, which tends to involve keeping what
you paid a secret from your customers. That doesn't mean it's not the best
system, but I don't see why we should pretend that there is something good
about it. Being a living thing depends on being able to exploit, kill and eat
other living things. Capitalism is an extension of that. So is socialism.
Craig
are replaced by the biased wills of bureaucrats and politicians.
I'd choose the market economy myself.
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
9/16/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
so that everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Craig Weinberg
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-15, 20:32:34
Subject: Re: Re: Needed: A calculus of pleasure and pain.
It's doubtful that there has ever been such a pristine market. The basic
exchange between free agents is in all real cases weighted by those interests
which control and manipulate the market. Look at how Microsoft created their
monopoly. It made crappy imitations of all of their potential competitors
software and gave it away for free to drive them out of business - which they
did. They knew that as long as their deal with IBM to distribute Windows with
PCs, all they had to do was starve everyone else out.
Look at how CEOs sit on the each others board of directors and vote each other
gigantic salary increases despite poor performance and blatant conflicts of
interest.
At best, price always equals cost plus rent plus tax plus interest, so even if
there were free agents who somehow had fair access to the market, their profit
is still influenced by banks, government, and property owners. As soon as a new
market is born however, all real opportunity to compete shakes out rapidly as
business relations are consolidated and become entrenched. Innovators tend to
be ripped off, bought, or shut out of the market.
The assumption of a free market is no less of a fantasy than the assumption of
a communist utopia. They are two sides of the same coin.
Craig
On Saturday, September 15, 2012 9:37:04 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
Hi Alberto G. Corona
At the heart of a market economy (which has existed since the cave man),
there is a fundamental freedom, you can buy or sell if the price is right,
where price = value = what you are willing to pay or sell for. So the market
is basically psychological and free and is as old as man.
Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
9/15/2012
Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
so that everything could function."
----- Receiving the following content -----
From: Alberto G. Corona
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2012-09-15, 07:37:44
Subject: Re: Needed: A calculus of pleasure and pain.
Hi Roger,
But neither Darwin nor Spencer discovered darwinism. a selection
between alternatives is at the heart of every creative process (that
creates order). It is a form of creative destruction. The market and
the war are examples of such process. But it is also running now in
this discussion. It is in our mind, that select and discard ideas
depending on their consequences. It is in the political organization
of the society etc.
One of the first things that a darwinian process develops is a way to
protect the created order from its own destructive nature. Capitalism
in a democracy with the rule of law is a very sophisticated
organization that run above a human nature that is deeply social. And
this human nature is naturally selected. Probably the highest
satisfaction that a man may have, abobe money, is to be helpful to
others.
Probably the natural human instincts of compassion would be enough
without the inefficient artificial state-run welfare systems. A simple
traditional religious commandments would suffice to remember our
personal responsibilities with the others and would make these corrupt
structures innecessary. This has been that way until few centuries
ago. It would be more that enough in a society with so much resources
like this. The problem in the actual situation is that the narrow
selfishness that is being promoted in the "modern society" is not only
dysfunctional at the social level, because it also makes necessary
the externalization of the compassion away from the individual,
because it is incompatible with the narrow selfish concept of freedom
as absence of obligations. Not only that, because it is also
dysfunctional at the individual level, because we as humans need to
help others . We need to feel useful to others to be happy.
2012/9/14 Roger Clough :
> Hi Craig Weinberg
>
> Fortunately or unfortunately, capitalism is Darwinism, pure and simple.
> So it can prepare for a better future, although it can be painful
> at present. My own take on this is that there needs to be
> a calculus of pleasure and pain. Jeremy Bentham suggested
> perhaps an impfect one.
>
> In lieu of that, I am all for food stamps and safety
> nets.
>
>
> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
> 9/14/2012
> Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
> so that everything could function."
>
> ----- Receiving the following content -----
> From: Craig Weinberg
> Receiver: everything-list
> Time: 2012-09-13, 12:28:09
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Racism ? How's that implied ?
>
>
>
> On Thursday, September 13, 2012 8:33:47 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>>
>> Hi Craig Weinberg
>>
>> The fact is that the only incentive businesses look to is profit.
>> So demonizing profit doesn't do any good.
>> And urging them to hire workers doesn't work.
>>
>
> Sounds exactly like cancer. The only incentive cancer looks to is growth.
> As long as any institution partitions itself off from responsibility to the
> full spectrum of human experience I think it is doomed to be a force for
> oppression. You can tell when this happens because the effect of the
> institution is inverted to its cause. Businesses perpetuate financial
> bondage rather than freedom. Hospitals perpetuate sickness and misery rather
> than health. Schools neutralize intellectual curiosity. Religions foment
> intolerance and the abuse of the innocent. It's inevitable since by
> definition the first order of business for an institution is to ensure its
> own growth and survival at all costs...which becomes the sole purpose
> forever.
>
> Craig
>
>>
>> Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
>> 9/13/2012
>> Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
>> so that everything could function."
>> ----- Receiving the following content -----
>> From: Craig Weinberg
>> Receiver: everything-list
>> Time: 2012-09-12, 20:03:27
>> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Racism ? How's that implied ?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, September 11, 2012 8:32:21 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>> Hi Craig Weinberg
>>
>> I am intolerant of stupidity and deception, particularly
>> when the idea of carbon credits pops up. This suggests that
>> "Global warming" is just a method of raising taxes,
>> diminishing coal and oil, and even globally sharing the wealth.
>>
>> Thankfully china won't go along with this stupidity.
>> It all seems to be politics rather than science.
>>
>> I don't know enough about it to say too much about it. I think that the
>> point is to make it political so
>>
>> that the greatest polluters will have an incentive to pollute less.
>> Otherwise, why would they ever reduce
>> emissions? Personally I think that the only issue that matters is
>> overpopulation. As long as we have
>> seven billion people making billions more people, nothing will stop the
>> devaluation of they quality of human life,
>> and of human lives. Whether it's the threat of running out of oil, food,
>> water, or money, it doesn't really matter
>> which comes first. It's like putting more and more fish in an overstocked
>> fish tank, the bigger ones just
>> eat more and more of the smaller ones while the whole thing fills up with
>> crap.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
>> 9/11/2012
>> Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
>> so that everything could function."
>> ----- Receiving the following content -----
>> From: Craig Weinberg
>> Receiver: everything-list
>> Time: 2012-09-11, 00:40:08
>> Subject: Re: Re: Racism ? How's that implied ?
>>
>>
>> Hi Roger,
>>
>> It's ok not to be obsessed with cleaning up the environment, but why be
>> intolerant of people who are? Same with people who spend a lot of time
>> talking in public about issues of racial discrimination. If you are going to
>>
>> speak and act on behalf of millions of people who are not speaking and
>> acting, it is understandable that you might also be the type of person who
>> is strongly motivated.
>>
>> What you don't seem to appreciate is that being able to not have to think
>> about race is a luxury that non-whites do not have. That doesn't mean you
>> have to make the world fair for everyone, but the least that we who have
>> that luxury could do is acknowledge that we have that privilege. Have you
>> ever considered what it would be like for you in a world with an alternate
>> history? Where the Cherokee Nation developed guns and steel before the
>> Europeans and colonized it using Siberian slaves instead? You could listen
>> to descendants of those invaders and slavers discuss how the whining of pink
>>
>> people, their scapegoats and victims for centuries in a hostile land, is
>> really not their cup of tea.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> On Monday, September 10, 2012 7:19:44 AM UTC-4, rclough wrote:
>> Hi Craig Weinberg
>>
>> Not that I am against cleaning up the environment, but I am not
>> obsessed with the idea. Integrating with Nature is also a main principle
>> of the Communist Manifesto.
>>
>>
>> Roger Clough, rcl...@verizon.net
>> 9/10/2012
>> Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him
>> so that everything could function."
>> ----- Receiving the following content -----
>> From: Craig Weinberg
>> Receiver: everything-list
>> Time: 2012-09-09, 16:23:54
>> Subject: Re: Racism ? How's that implied ?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sunday, September 9, 2012 2:58:32 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>> On 9/9/2012 2:21 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>
>> On Sunday, September 9, 2012 1:41:37 PM UTC-4, Stephen Paul King wrote:
>> Hi Craig,
>>
>> Why are we even considering the thoughts of paranoids? Are they in control
>> of our daily lives?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Stephen,
>>
>> I agree, I was responding to what Roger said about liberals:
>>
>> "ironically and paradoxically they see the world in terms of race.
>> Conservatives attempt to live by facts. I never
>> saw racism in what what I wrote until you brought
>> the subject up."
>>
>> which sounded to me like 'conservatives aren't racist, liberals are',
>> which - although conservative thought has some admirable virtues, I can say
>> without hesitation that tolerance for racial and gender diversity is not one
>>
>> of them. That's why I brought up JBS and KKK, to show the absurdity of that
>> claim, since the most racist hate groups are known to be political right
>> wing extremists and not left wing extremists.
>>
>>
>> HI Craig,
>>
>> The contest of recrimination is not winnable, but let's try for the
>> sake of the discussion.
>>
>>
>>
>> Personally I don't know of any left wing extremist groups in this country
>> - not that there aren't any but even self-proclaimed anarchists seem to stay
>>
>> out of trouble.
>>
>> I guess that you have never heard of
>>
>> 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_First!
>>
>> 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front
>>
>>
>> I had heard of Earth First but not much. Yeah, I think it's fair to call
>> them left wing eco-terrorists. Unfortunately the way they are going about
>> it, using arson and destruction will only serve to discredit their cause and
>>
>> provide a ready excuse for stepping up surveillance and security operations
>> around the world. I don't think that mainstream liberals are aware or
>> support groups like this though generally. Contrary to the overwhelming
>> drift to the right by conservatives, groups like these have not seemed to
>> influence the politics of the mainstream (Democrats can't really even be
>> called liberals, more like fiscal conservatives who are socially moderate).
>>
>> 3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace
>>
>>
>> What do they do that is bad? Do they threaten innocent people? Maybe they
>> are over-zealous and unrealistic about ecological priorities but it's a drop
>>
>> in the bucket compared to the global machine they are up against. From what
>> I see it looks like they mainly are concerned with protecting human beings
>> in general: http://yqyq.net/81737-Istoriya_i_dostizheniya_Greenpeace.html
>>
>> Certainly they are not racists or bullies of innocent people.
>>
>>
>>
>> 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_a_Democratic_Society
>>
>>
>> SDS lasted from 1960-1969, so it hasn't been relevant for almost 50 years.
>> I had a professor who was in SDS. Extremely nice and gentle guy. He said he
>> had a metal plate in his skull from the FBI. His class was on revolutionary
>> movements, talked about SDS, the IWW and labor unions. He seemed to have a
>> mature and reasonable perspective on the 60s
>>
>>
>>
>> need more?
>>
>>
>>
>> sure. my point was about racism though. Are there any groups of white
>> racists who are liberal?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> In other parts of the world, there are certainly left-wing violent
>> extremists but I don't guess that they are racially motivated in particular
>> (unless maybe the distribution of wealth and power falls along racial lines
>> in their area). What are the left wing presences in the US? Farmers markets?
>>
>> Small organizations that try to help people get birth control or protect
>> people from being poisoned by industry?
>>
>>
>> It might be helpful if you laid out for us the definition of the terms
>> that you are using. What exactly is left-wing and right-wing?
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
>>
>> Why can't we just get along?
>>
>>
>> The left wing are those who see themselves as being the people who want to
>> just get along or, if politically active, oppose those who prevent us from
>> getting along. Left wing means tolerance, which means a certain degree of
>> intolerance of intolerance. That's where it gets dicey.
>>
>> I'm not sure who the right wing thinks they are. Patriots? Grownups who
>> don't like to see people get anything without paying a price? Not sure.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> To my mind, while I can understand why liberals would be criticized as
>> whiny, weak, and impractical, I think conservatives who do not understand
>> why they are criticized as racist, anti-intellectual bullies are in deep
>> denial or just sheltered from other viewpoints.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>> From my point of view we need objectivity.
>>
>>
>> I'm on board with that.
>>
>> Tell me why didn't trickle down economics work? Why did Bush's 8-year
>> presidency end in such catastrophic failure? Why haven't the corps making
>> record profits behaved as the 'job creators' they are supposed to be?
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>> --
>> Onward!
>>
>> Stephen
>>
>> http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html
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