Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't know if all that can be concluded, or if instead it is a fact that any bureaucrat can be stuck in a narrow view of things and enforce rules in an insensitive way, however useful bureaucrats can often be. And also there is a lack of respect for organic farms in a society dominated by corporate mechanized agriculture. Intelligentsia? I'm not so sure that relates.

Ziggy's post was referring to folks like yourself that think all of us in "flyover country" are idiots and morons.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

The irony is that Reagan pushed an increase in the gas tax to fund transportation infrastructure, and yet the Tea Partiers invoke him as their patron saint of preventing these "socialist," "big government," "tax and spend" initiatives from seeing the light of day.

Also, Reagan actually RAISED taxes for the non-rich. I know because that was a major reason "Reagan" was almost a swear word in my family growing up.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Very possible.

EDIT: I see that Ziggy has noted the State of Jefferson. I remember hearing of that possible state before. I love that double cross / double X ) "state symbol." Of course the one proposed in 1941 omitted eastern WA state but included part of northern CA. But that of course could be altered if everything really did fall apart in a few years.


The Vegas/southern NV area tends to be Democratic. Whereas northern NV is usually pro GOP. However, Reno is slowly becoming a true metro city and has tended Democratic over the last decade or so. The two big cities LV and Reno might join the "Pacific Republic" and leave the "cow counties" as they call them to join whatever type of western red state alliance--Greater Texas?, Republic of the Rockies?-- developed out of the fragmenting process.

Given all the Mormons in the Inter-Mountain region, that would likely become the theocracy of Deseret, LOL

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Would the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys be good agricultural areas without the irrigated water coming from the interior mountain areas?

Here is someone who has been paying attention. The answer is a resounding no. The populations in California (and really the entire southwest) are among the most unsustainable in the country.

The Sacramento valley is very sustainable on its own. In fact flooding is more of a danger right there than drought.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

The Sacramento valley is very sustainable on its own. In fact flooding is more of a danger right there than drought.

Individual valleys perhaps, sure, but what happens when the millions living outside the valley start getting hungry? Hope someone there grows enough to share?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

No, but their water comes largely from Sierra runoff.

Not so fast. Look at the Trinity River sometime. Diverted from the Klamath basin into the central valley via the Sacramento River and nothing to do with the Sierras. Or look at the agriculture dependent on the diversion of the Colorado River. 20% of the electrical energy in California is used to move water. It is incredibly unsustainable and even more incredibly they want to brag about what a bread basket they are. The water issue is a typical California mix of hubris and denial.

James50

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Individual valleys perhaps, sure, but what happens when the millions living outside the valley start getting hungry? Hope someone there grows enough to share?

Well then I guess they'll use their resources to work something out.
When you grow your own your always better off.
My garden has done well this year except for my apples and. tomatoes.
Of course that wasn't really a surprise as both of which were victims of a late frost.

Holy smokes! I just read Sarah Palin's speech in Iowa post Jimmy Hoffa's rant. Do not underestimate this woman. I won't put the whole thing here because it is too long but it is powerful stuff.

"Welcome Union Brothers and Sisters"

Between bailouts for Wall Street cronies and stimulus projects for union bosses’ security and ‘green energy’ giveaways, [Barack Obama] took care of his friends. And now they’re on course to raise a billion dollars for his re-election bid so that they can do it all over again.” This was shamefully on display yesterday at President Obama’s taxpayer-funded campaign rally in Detroit. In introducing the President, Teamsters President James Hoffa represented precisely what I was talking about as he declared war on concerned independent Americans and on the freshman members we sent to Congress last November by saying, “Let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out!”

What I say now, I say as a proud former union member and the wife, daughter, and sister of union members. So, as a former card-carrying IBEW sister married to a proud former Laborers, IBEW, and later USW member, please hear me out. What I have to say is for the hard working, patriotic, selfless union brothers and sisters in Michigan and throughout our country: Please don’t be taken in by union bosses’ thuggery like Jim Hoffa represented yesterday. Union bosses like this do not have your best interests at heart. What they care about is their own power and re-electing their friend Barack Obama so he will take care of them to the detriment of everyone else.

For a country looking for anti-government, anti-corporation, anti-union, this is water in the desert. I am not saying I trust her or believe her, but its powerful rhetoric. In the mouth of someone else, watch out.

James50

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Well then I guess they'll use their resources to work something out.
When you grow your own your always better off.
My garden has done well this year except for my apples and. tomatoes.
Of course that wasn't really a surprise as both of which were victims of a late frost.

Growing your own is great. Keeping you own requires a different skill-set entirely. Keeping your own from an enormous, hungry, thirsty, urban population requires you to be someplace else.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Growing your own is great. Keeping you own requires a different skill-set entirely. Keeping your own from an enormous, hungry, thirsty, urban population requires you to be someplace else.

Well Sacramento is not exactly Mayberry sized.

If your point is that someone is going to try to steal the local produce then the same risk applies to every other good agricultural area as well. I'm sure that they have local armaments. Here in western SC, which is more marginal land, we certainly do.

And I'll leave it at that.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

as does the precedent and premise that future bank bailouts will happen as needed...

I really don't know about that one; there would be quite an outcry from both left and right and folks in between if that is ever tried again!

Originally Posted by James50

I think the discussion of a civil war scenario or mass secession is way off track. Most of this discussion is vast overstatement tinged with what feels to me like paranoia.

First of all the Tea Party only has the support of about 28% of the population at this point. If they get too far out of line,

Woah, I had to react to that one! Putting our economy at total risk is not already far out of line??

there will be more Sharon Angles and Christine O'Donnells. It appears that there is a current slight majority that supports government austerity, but only within certain limits. These limits do not include doing away with Social Security or Medicare. It does include changes to make them financially more secure and sustainable. The most radical proposal is Paul Ryan's voucher proposal for Medicare but even that involves a huge commitment of government funds and a continued large entitlement. Other proposals include raising the retirement age or means testing Social Security. These would be changes, but hardly enough to trigger civil war.

But it would soon be apparent that they want to go the whole way, and in fact the measures like Ryan proposes would ruin these programs anyway. The proposals Perry is making are already so absurd that they could make the divisions beyond repair, whether there's a civil war or not at some point.

Originally Posted by James50

Brian mentioned Wisconsin and Ohio as secession candidates. Nothing is impossible, but, if anything, these states have trended Republican in the last 10 years. The idea of secession is ludicrous.

James50

I have fantasized about the West, northeast and upper midwest joining Canada; that would make a new contiguous "blue state" country.

I also think one possibility is, that if the USA broke up, whatever remains would sooner or later come back together again in some form, or at least become allies or trading partners. It is something of a trend today since the Cold War for some larger countries to break up into smaller ones. It doesn't mean there are total barriers or hostility between these nations.

Originally Posted by Galen

There are plenty of books on these subjects out there. Why don't read them and Mises paper and find out for yourself?

Math has very little to do with economics, except as statistics about people. Economics is a study in human behavior, subject to all the uncertainties and inaccuracies of any such subject.

Originally Posted by Odin

Ziggy's post was referring to folks like yourself that think all of us in "flyover country" are idiots and morons.

Only the ones who vote Republican, which unfortunately are the majority these days.

Maybe, but I think your complaint that brought up the idea was about the actions of bureaucrats. I don't think bureaucrats are the intelligentsia, nor have any conception of who's a hick and who isn't; they are just doing their job as they see it, and that can be a problem if the rules are wrong or applied too rigidly or mechanically.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Individual valleys perhaps, sure, but what happens when the millions living outside the valley start getting hungry? Hope someone there grows enough to share?

This may be a problem in southern CA, dependent on the Colorado River; but on the other hand, what if states like Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada join the blue state nation? Or what if southern CA joined the red state nation, for that matter?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Math has very little to do with economics, except as statistics about people. Economics is a study in human behavior, subject to all the uncertainties and inaccuracies of any such subject.

In the case of the math of computational complexity and evolutionary systems it is very relevant because a market economy is very much an evolutionary system. The economy could be itself considered a computational system with the purpose of maximizing material well-being, often called wealth, of its participants. Change wealth is often referred to by economists as profit or loss depending on if that change is positive or negative. This in effect becomes the fitness functions which determines the success or failure of businesses and individuals. When you call for wealth redistribution you are in effect setting the fitness function of an evolutionary system to either a constant or some arbitrary value. This in effect stops the process of evolution and causes actors in the economy to begin act irrationally because you have taken both the incentive and the means to create wealth and to know if they actually did.

Given enough intervention you will completely destroy the mechanism that allows evolution to function in the economy and so you are reduced to central planning. In computer science terms the problem of optimizing the economy can be said to be undecidable even if complete and accurate information about the state of the economy is available which of course it isn't. In other words it is not possible to construct a Turing machine that can tell if your allocation strategy will achieve the desired results. The math of information theory tells me that perfect and complete knowledge of the state of the economy is not possible. Hayek figured this out about the time Claude Shannon discovered the beginnings of the math for information theory used to this day.

When Mises wrote the Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth in 1920 he touched on all of these subjects and a few more besides. I can look at his work ninety years later with the math of Alonzo Church, Alan Turning and so many others who have advanced the science of computation and see that he was absolutely correct. The mathematics of computational complexity and information flow guarantee that it is impossible to design an algorithm or strategy to run a system of subtle and nearly infinite complexity such as the US economy. Only an evolutionary system can even begin to solve a problem with a state space of nearly infinite size.

The only way to create an economy that grows and makes everyone materially better off is the same way it was done originally in the West. The free-market economic system of the classical liberals of so long ago is the only one that has the features of an evolutionary system needed to make it work since there is no other way to solve a problem of such scale. No other economic system can consistently create wealth over a period of centuries. This is why the more free a society is the more likely it is to be wealthy.

When you demand that economic inequality be reduced or eliminated you are demanding that the possibility of economic calculation be eliminated as well. I don't like the Darwinian aspects of it myself but any attempt to do away with them will make it impossible for the economy to function. The is the consequence of the math involving self-organizing computational systems of which the economy is one. In your own way you are just as guilty of denying the truth of evolution as any fundamentalist Christian ever was because you deny the need for failure to be weeded out of the system.

It would be nice if the usual suspects would take the time to read this paper and learn about these subjects before deciding that the math does not apply. Sadly the chances of that happening are about zero.

It is interesting to note that yet another government inspired attempt to choose winners and losers has fell on its face with the predictable large loss of taxpayer funds.

Originally Posted by Galen

In the case of the math of computational complexity and evolutionary systems it is very relevant because a market economy is very much an evolutionary system. The economy could be itself considered a computational system with the purpose of maximizing material well-being, often called wealth, of its participants. Change wealth is often referred to by economists as profit or loss depending on if that change is positive or negative. This in effect becomes the fitness functions which determines the success or failure of businesses and individuals. When you call for wealth redistribution you are in effect setting the fitness function of an evolutionary system to either a constant or some arbitrary value. This in effect stops the process of evolution and causes actors in the economy to begin act irrationally because you have taken both the incentive and the means to create wealth and to know if they actually did.

The concept of "incentive" is an aspect of human behavior and motivation, and can't be reduced to mathematics. The economy is not a computational system, and computational systems do not create wealth. Wealth is created through meeting real peoples' shifting needs and desires in life. Money and numbers just keep track of who has what.

Given enough intervention you will completely destroy the mechanism that allows evolution to function in the economy and so you are reduced to central planning. In computer science terms the problem of optimizing the economy can be said to be undecidable even if complete and accurate information about the state of the economy is available which of course it isn't. In other words it is not possible to construct a Turing machine that can tell if your allocation strategy will achieve the desired results. The math of information theory tells me that perfect and complete knowledge of the state of the economy is not possible. Hayek figured this out about the time Claude Shannon discovered the beginnings of the math for information theory used to this day.

Given that, it is also not possible to tell through knowledge of the state of the economy whether a laissez faire economy is "evolutionary" or not. Nor is it clear that "enough intervention" is equal to the moderate policies of the Democratic Party as opposed to the laissez faire policies of the Libertarian Party. How much intervention is enough to destroy the economy?

The only way to create an economy that grows and makes everyone materially better off is the same way it was done originally in the West. The free-market economic system of the classical liberals of so long ago is the only one that has the features of an evolutionary system needed to make it work since there is no other way to solve a problem of such scale. No other economic system can consistently create wealth over a period of centuries. This is why the more free a society is the more likely it is to be wealthy.

Except that the wealth created is vastly unequal. The USA already has extreme inequality; your policies will accelerate this already vast inequality even more, reducing America to a banana republic or worse. America already is no longer the land of opportunity, thanks to your policies. We are NOT better off after 30 years of your policies, nor were we better off in 1932 after decades of your policies.

When you demand that economic inequality be reduced or eliminated you are demanding that the possibility of economic calculation be eliminated as well.

There is no such possibility to begin with, since perfect and complete knowledge of the state of the economy is not possible.

I don't like the Darwinian aspects of it myself but any attempt to do away with them will make it impossible for the economy to function. The is the consequence of the math involving self-organizing computational systems of which the economy is one. In your own way you are just as guilty of denying the truth of evolution as any fundamentalist Christian ever was because you deny the need for failure to be weeded out of the system.

If you don't like it, why do you uphold it? I am so "guilty"; I only concede a partial truth to conventional evolution theory. But the alternative is not Christian creationism. You are a fundamentalist free marketeer because you insist there are only two possibilities: a totally free market or central socialist planning. Failure can't be weeded out, but all people deserve to have a basic safety net rather than being left to starve. That may not be the Darwinian law of the jungle, but it is a law of ethical human society.

Since you propose that an economic theory of 3 centuries ago be adopted, then the economic system of 30 years ago is not wrong simply because it existed 30 years ago and not today.

Originally Posted by Galen

In the case of the math of computational complexity and evolutionary systems it is very relevant because a market economy is very much an evolutionary system. The economy could be itself considered a computational system with the purpose of maximizing material well-being, often called wealth, of its participants. Change wealth is often referred to by economists as profit or loss depending on if that change is positive or negative. This in effect becomes the fitness functions which determines the success or failure of businesses and individuals. When you call for wealth redistribution you are in effect setting the fitness function of an evolutionary system to either a constant or some arbitrary value. This in effect stops the process of evolution and causes actors in the economy to begin act irrationally because you have taken both the incentive and the means to create wealth and to know if they actually did.

Given enough intervention you will completely destroy the mechanism that allows evolution to function in the economy and so you are reduced to central planning. In computer science terms the problem of optimizing the economy can be said to be undecidable even if complete and accurate information about the state of the economy is available which of course it isn't. In other words it is not possible to construct a Turing machine that can tell if your allocation strategy will achieve the desired results. The math of information theory tells me that perfect and complete knowledge of the state of the economy is not possible. Hayek figured this out about the time Claude Shannon discovered the beginnings of the math for information theory used to this day.

When Mises wrote the Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth in 1920 he touched on all of these subjects and a few more besides. I can look at his work ninety years later with the math of Alonzo Church, Alan Turning and so many others who have advanced the science of computation and see that he was absolutely correct. The mathematics of computational complexity and information flow guarantee that it is impossible to design an algorithm or strategy to run a system of subtle and nearly infinite complexity such as the US economy. Only an evolutionary system can even begin to solve a problem with a state space of nearly infinite size.

The only way to create an economy that grows and makes everyone materially better off is the same way it was done originally in the West. The free-market economic system of the classical liberals of so long ago is the only one that has the features of an evolutionary system needed to make it work since there is no other way to solve a problem of such scale. No other economic system can consistently create wealth over a period of centuries. This is why the more free a society is the more likely it is to be wealthy.

When you demand that economic inequality be reduced or eliminated you are demanding that the possibility of economic calculation be eliminated as well. I don't like the Darwinian aspects of it myself but any attempt to do away with them will make it impossible for the economy to function. The is the consequence of the math involving self-organizing computational systems of which the economy is one. In your own way you are just as guilty of denying the truth of evolution as any fundamentalist Christian ever was because you deny the need for failure to be weeded out of the system.

It would be nice if the usual suspects would take the time to read this paper and learn about these subjects before deciding that the math does not apply. Sadly the chances of that happening are about zero.

It is interesting to note that yet another government inspired attempt to choose winners and losers has fell on its face with the predictable large loss of taxpayer funds.

Galen,

Please excuse me for injecting some comments.

I found your post and comments very interesting because you are using some of the same Language/Terminology that I do when describing Systems. My understanding and approach to Systems is from a Philosophical/Spiritual slant though, not Math. Although I understand many relatively complex concepts i/r/t Quantum Physics, I've always hit a wall when it came to the Mathematical Analysis, but I guess I've always known/suspected deep-down that Math most likely fit the Model(There are such striking similarities in Systems that, at first glance, appear to be very diverse/un-connected).

Thanks for the post. Going-forward, I'll give Math some more consideration and make some extra attempts at understanding the possible similarities.

I was wondering if I might ask some questions in the future.

Sincerely, Prince

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Growing your own is great. Keeping you own requires a different skill-set entirely. Keeping your own from an enormous, hungry, thirsty, urban population requires you to be someplace else.

Ah, postulating the zombie apocalypse, again?

Actually, I don't really see the hungry, thirsty city hordes etc ... what I see is people slowly getting hungrier and hungrier as the costs of food and energy go up, and hungry people filling in with food grown at home. We did it in World War II; the Russians did it throughout the Communist era and probably still do (Justin? Can you speak to this?) I know - the Apocalypse is a lot more sexy. But a slow racheting downwards is probably what we'll get.

Originally Posted by James50

Holy smokes! I just read Sarah Palin's speech in Iowa post Jimmy Hoffa's rant. Do not underestimate this woman. I won't put the whole thing here because it is too long but it is powerful stuff.

"Welcome Union Brothers and Sisters"




For a country looking for anti-government, anti-corporation, anti-union, this is water in the desert. I am not saying I trust her or believe her, but its powerful rhetoric. In the mouth of someone else, watch out.

James50

Apparently, James, I listen to Limbaugh and Hannity a lot more than you do. (I can see why; you don't want to know who all your friends are. . . .) This kind of rhetoric is standard with them. The word union never appears without the word thug.

Meanwhile, the question is, why aren't we hearing comparable rhetoric from any leading Democrat about Republicans (and many Democrats) taking care of their corporate friends? That at least would have the virtue of truth.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Ah, postulating the zombie apocalypse, again?

Actually, I don't really see the hungry, thirsty city hordes etc ... what I see is people slowly getting hungrier and hungrier as the costs of food and energy go up, and hungry people filling in with food grown at home. We did it in World War II; the Russians did it throughout the Communist era and probably still do (Justin? Can you speak to this?) I know - the Apocalypse is a lot more sexy. But a slow ratcheting downwards is probably what we'll get.

There were (and are) major cultural differences between them and us on that matter. Orlov is one place to look for a fairly good start on that hand.

Prior to, and to large extent during the Communist era (and still today, in large part), Russians have always been quite self-sufficient, food-wise. There are, and have always been, vanishingly few who would be pushed to the point of being able to form a starvation-mob. In fact, the only times when actual destitute hunger was widespread in that place were when it came as the result of a deliberate government policy (see, for ex, the holodomor. As per Solzhenitsyn's Rule, feel free to multiply by as many other regions and as many other nationalities as the Soviets felt needed bringing to heel).
What's more, the climate in Russia, while genuinely harsh in a lot of ways, is in most all places that people live suitable for agriculture. And Russian agriculture is very much about growing what is suited to the climate and the region, as opposed to our American model of massive projects to subsidize or otherwise prop up unsustainable agriculture in whatever arbitrary regions it got centralized.

If anything -- and here again, I can refer you back to Orlov -- the Russian example is one that should give us cause for concern, not comfort. We lack in America the very things that allowed Russians and Russian civil society to survive their hard times.

The news today is that Obama willnot focus on a big jobs program tomorrow night. He will propose. . . .tax cuts!!!!

"When the people have to choose between a Republican and a Republican, they'll take the Republican every time."

Harry S. Truman

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

The news today is that Obama willnot focus on a big jobs program tomorrow night. He will propose. . . .tax cuts!!!!

"When the people have to choose between a Republican and a Republican, they'll take the Republican every time."

Harry S. Truman

It is what is available for now.