Originally Posted by playwrite

Oh, you didn't realize that I'm a few chapters ahead in Galen's book when he tells us where the "losers" in his Darwinian fantasy are suppose to go. Perhaps he doesn't have the cajones to bring up the ovens, but many of his losers that look through the garbage to feed their kids might just prefer that ultimate solution.

Playwrite has a good point IMO, and I make it as well. It's not that Galen or Social Darwinists are Nazis; that's confusing labels. But it fits in with Brian's ideas about individuals and groups. The Nazis definitely were based ideologically on Darwin and Social Darwinism, among other things, and not in a cogent way to be sure. But the idea was that the Germans were the fittest race in a struggle for survival among races, and further more that society should be bio-engineered eugenically so that the fittest would prevail as the leading race. That is a different version of Social Darwinism from the capitalist variety that Galen supports, but it was such nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I am going to add something here that you won't like: I see a marked similarity between yourself and Eric. Both of you are rationalists in the classic epistemological sense: you believe that truth can be derived from self-evident first principles by valid reasoning, without a need for verification of those assumptions against observed reality. Outside of pure mathematics, I don't believe that rationalism works very well, and am a committed empiricist myself. The strongest arguments against your position are empirical: you are wrong, because the world observably does not work the way you say; predictions can be made on the basis of what you say and observed clearly not to be true. That would be the final argument, end of story, with any empiricist. With you, it might not be.

Not quite true about me, of course; although I know you like to say what I really think, or what you think is really implied by my comments. But it's not my professed position, anyway. There are first principles, IMO, since I am a neo-platonist in that respect. But these principles alone do not serve to explain reality; there is always a mix or a fusion among principles with the living, changing and manifest world as we experience it. The first principles appear within our experience of the world. Of course, my critique of mathematics and rationalism as Galen advocates it is more in line with your view than with Galen's, but I am also a spiritualist, which is where I differ from you; and the spirit is something we experience more than it is a first principle, though it is not alien from the idea of principle. My spiritualism makes me less empirical in the traditional materialist way, of course; but it does not necessarily imply that I must be a rationalist, as if empiricism and rationalism are the only two valid options (which perhaps you maintain, I dunno; but I certainly don't fit into that model).

But if Galen doesn't like to be compared to Eric the Obtuse, then perhaps your comparison serves a useful purpose anyway.

Ok, back to the election.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Playwrite has a good point IMO, and I make it as well. It's not that Galen or Social Darwinists are Nazis; that's confusing labels. But it fits in with Brian's ideas about individuals and groups. The Nazis definitely were based ideologically on Darwin and Social Darwinism, among other things, and not in a cogent way to be sure. But the idea was that the Germans were the fittest race in a struggle for survival among races, and further more that society should be bio-engineered eugenically so that the fittest would prevail as the leading race. That is a different version of Social Darwinism from the capitalist variety that Galen supports, but it was such nonetheless.

Actually, it's completely different, precisely along the lines I was talking about. Galen is referring to individual natural selection. The Nazis were into natural selection by group. Also, the Nazis weren't into simply letting natural selection take place among races, they meant to help it along artificially by such tools as war and genocide.

Natural selection per se is an idea with nothing wrong with it. There is indeed natural selection among nations, but we were even then approaching the point where the selection would be done by non-military means. Also, there is to an extent natural selection among individuals, but in any humane society it takes the form primarily of mate selection, not of who succeeds and who starves.

And finally, the economy Galen proposes is radically different from that of Nazi Germany. The only similarity between the two is the misuse of the concept of natural selection as a justification, and even that involves a different form of twisting of the concept in each case. Galen does not accept Hitler's idea of natural selection, and Hitler would not have accepted Galen's.

Not quite true about me, of course. . . There are first principles, IMO, since I am a neo-platonist in that respect

These two statements contradict each other. If you are a neo-Platonist, and if there are first principles in your opinion, then you are a rationalist. Plato articulated the rationalist position in pure form, with his ideas about archetypes and perfect forms.

There can be (and have to be) assumed principles of epistemology, but assumed principles of metaphysics or, really, of anything else except epistemology mean that one is not an empiricist.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

...Okay for the record. Why did she get ignored...She either did not have the ability to give me a coherent answer or else she doesn't respect others enough to try...

More than two options exist in the universe. But with the shutting out of unpleasing voices, one will never know...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Actually, it's completely different, precisely along the lines I was talking about. Galen is referring to individual natural selection. The Nazis were into natural selection by group. Also, the Nazis weren't into simply letting natural selection take place among races, they meant to help it along artificially by such tools as war and genocide.

Natural selection per se is an idea with nothing wrong with it. There is indeed natural selection among nations, but we were even then approaching the point where the selection would be done by non-military means. Also, there is to an extent natural selection among individuals, but in any humane society it takes the form primarily of mate selection, not of who succeeds and who starves.

And finally, the economy Galen proposes is radically different from that of Nazi Germany. The only similarity between the two is the misuse of the concept of natural selection as a justification, and even that involves a different form of twisting of the concept in each case. Galen does not accept Hitler's idea of natural selection, and Hitler would not have accepted Galen's.

I don't disagree.

These two statements contradict each other. If you are a neo-Platonist, and if there are first principles in your opinion, then you are a rationalist. Plato articulated the rationalist position in pure form, with his ideas about archetypes and perfect forms.

There can be (and have to be) assumed principles of epistemology, but assumed principles of metaphysics or, really, of anything else except epistemology mean that one is not an empiricist.

Unlike a pure platonist as Plato so-well articulated it, I think the experienced empirical world is equally valid and foundational of truth and reality (in fact the empirical may be a bit more so). Neither one is derived from the other. I support a mix or fusion of empiricism and rationalism, not one or the other; though with a decidedly spiritualist bent.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Unlike a pure platonist as Plato so-well articulated it, I think the experienced empirical world is equally valid and foundational of truth and reality (in fact the empirical may be a bit more so). Neither one is derived from the other. I support a mix or fusion of empiricism and rationalism, not one or the other; though with a decidedly spiritualist bent.

Now this is getting interesting although we are also getting way off topic; maybe we should move this to another thread.

Tell you what. Let's move this over to your science/religion/etc. thread.

Hmmm...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

To which I'll add that for me, the ignore list has nothing to do with winning or losing. Rather, it has to do with the fact that we are participating in an open-to-everyone forum, for fun (I'm not getting paid to be here, are you?) and sometimes interactions become unpleasant due to the way some people behave towards others.

I don't care that Summer reflexively defends Obama. I don't agree with that, but there are other people here that I disagree with more but am happy to discuss ideas with. What I do care about is that she consistently insults others (to the point, insults me)...

I see..so...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

You are an obnoxious asshole.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Actually, the purpose was to confuse the issue, which is also the entire purpose of your last long-winded post. You have yet to provide an answer to anyone's argument, and instead have engaged in what amounts to a temper-tantrum. I don't feel any of it requires a response, frankly...

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

...It isn't that I didn't "get" something that is obvious to a half-blind mentally-impaired toddler. It's that I "get" all too well the kind of person I am dealing with: someone who uses every opportunity to insult, degrade, and abuse.

I am glad beyond expression that I don't know you in real life.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

...so we can add "dishonest" to your list of sins....The truth is, I would rather share my flesh with a shark, than my personal thoughts with the likes of you.

...means what exactly? Debate decorum? Or perhaps maybe something that begins with a "P" and ends with "jection".

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

That's almost correct. What you have to do is identify them CORRECTLY. Also, it would help to understand that evolution isn't a mystical process. The main driver involved in it, and the only one that transfers to economics (as an economy has no genes, and therefore cannot have genetic mutation or genetic drift), is natural selection. So what you really need to do is identify what it is that is selected.

God you are clueless about this subject. Genetic material is simply a storage device. In the case of human beings we have two information storage systems. The first is DNA and the second is the human brain the only difference is the representation and encoding of information. In this case it is ideas and behaviors that are selected. This selection is usually some form of bankruptcy. Ideas are just as much subject to mutation and crossover as the base pairs of DNA are. You are as bad as Eric because you can't be bothered to learn anything about the subject before saying something stupid.

To address Eric's objection, the process of evolution is very much a mechanical process. I have wrote useful self-organizing systems in about three hundred lines of Ocaml code. It is often easier to use LISP to implement such systems because code and data representations are identical in that language. I bring this up because process itself can be described in the mathematics of Lambda Calculus which these languages are based on and are equivalent in computing power to Turing machines. I bring this up so that you will understand that computer programs themselves can be the objects of an evolutionary system. I am saying this explicitly because the loudest critics clearly have been too lazy to read and study the material before making comment and will no doubt continue to be so.

So unless you can come up with another way for the economy to self organize in the way that a market economy does we are stuck with having a selection process. Evolution is the only kind of decentralized decision making process that can cope with a state space as large as a real economy. Unless you want to tell me that central planning can work.

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Originally Posted by Galen

God you are clueless about this subject.

No, I simply disagree with you. It's common, I've found, for believers in Austrian-school economics to confuse their own doctrines with objective fact, and thus to confuse disagreement with ignorance.

Genetic material is simply a storage device. In the case of human beings we have two information storage system. The first is DNA and the second is the human brain

Both are storage devices. However, the brain is far from JUST a storage device and is capable of things that DNA cannot do. Also, DNA is not just a storage device but also a transmission device capable of replicating itself and replicating living organisms on its contained plans, which the brain cannot do. Also, each has its own set of rules which are not necessarily transmittable to another system.

In any case, you are not talking either about the brain or about DNA but about a macro-entity, an economy, which MAY have some characteristics in common with an ecosystem (the writ-large analogy in biology), but should not be ASSUMED to have those qualities without examination. Empiricism. A good thing.

We may observe that natural selection does in fact take place in an economy. To that extent, an economy and an ecosystem are similar. All other parallels, however, must pass muster.

And as for your final sentence, you are wrong. I almost certainly know as much about the ideas of Austrian school economics as you do, or nearly so. But as I noted above, those are doctrines, not facts, and disagreement with them is not ignorance. Actually, I disagree with you because I have some knowledge that you do NOT -- about economics OUTSIDE the Austrian school. I disagree with you not because I am ignorant, but because I am not.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Which is fine, but that's something entirely different than saying "I am ignoring you and so is everyone else because you're a (insert insult of choice.)"

Apparently you have me confused with someone else.
In post 3387 I said: What a deep meaningful and insightful answer.

It's clear that you have nothing to offer beyond blind loyalty to the current administration.

I'm not going to waste anymore time on you.

To the ignore list you go.

I'm not the type to say 'and others are doing this too" that's never been the way I roll.
And I now have over 5000 post on this forum so it would have showed up here before now if that were my way.
The "popular kid" game was never my scene in high school nor since.
Although I will that if there is a trend then that trend likely didn't just come out of nowhere.
It is possible that if another poster did say that then they were trying to generate introspection rather than loathing.

Originally Posted by Galen

So unless you can come up with another way for the economy to self organize in the way that a market economy does we are stuck with having a selection process. Evolution is the only kind of decentralized decision making process that can cope with a state space as large as a real economy. Unless you want to tell me that central planning can work.

This actually is a straw man, or an example of the false-duality fallacy. There are many possibilities besides an unregulated laissez-faire economy and a Soviet style centrally-planned one, and all of them (including the latter) involve a "selection process."

The best-performing economy to date is a mixed, social-democratic version such as the U.S. had in the decades from 1940 to 1980, or that exists in Europe and Japan today. In the U.S., as I noted above, that economy outperformed what we have now, and what we had from 1900 to 1940, both of which came much closer to your ideal than the 1940-1980 version, by more than two to one, measured in terms of per-capita GDP growth per annum. A market economy with mixed private-public elements, regulated for the public good rather than centrally planned in some heavy-handed fashion, and rather than cut loose to run amok and maximize the personal aggrandizement of the powerful, has proven itself to be far better than either of those two extremes.

Of course, "evolution" works in all of these scenarios, so you are looking for a distinction in a place where it doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Both are storage devices. However, the brain is far from JUST a storage device and is capable of things that DNA cannot do. Also, DNA is not just a storage device but also a transmission device capable of replicating itself and replicating living organisms on its contained plans, which the brain cannot do. Also, each has its own set of rules which are not necessarily transmittable to another system.

The transmission device for the information stored in the brain are ideas expressed in some form of language which is subject to the same operators as are any other representation for information. Like I said before read and study the material before commenting because these are the sort of comments I expect from someone with next to no knowledge of how the process of evolution works in the general case.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

I may have to disagree with you Uncle Jim. They lost faith in themselves. The Obama movement has always been about people projecting their hopes and dreams onto him. As they lost faith in their own ability to maintain hope, Obama himself seemed to change. I've been there myself until I've literally had to shake myself out of it and say "Wait a minute, Obama isn't the problem."

Cheers

I will agree with you that a lot of lefties have been insufferable about HOW DISAPPOINTED they've been in Obama.

But there's a few of us out here that still support him and will work for his re-election.

Cheers back atcha.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The best-performing economy to date is a mixed, social-democratic version such as the U.S. had in the decades from 1940 to 1980, or that exists in Europe and Japan today. In the U.S., as I noted above, that economy outperformed what we have now, and what we had from 1900 to 1940, both of which came much closer to your ideal than the 1940-1980 version, by more than two to one, measured in terms of per-capita GDP growth per annum. A market economy with mixed private-public elements, regulated for the public good rather than centrally planned in some heavy-handed fashion, and rather than cut loose to run amok and maximize the personal aggrandizement of the powerful, has proven itself to be far better than either of those two extremes.

Yes, this economic model has worked so well that all of these economies are deeply in debt both public and private and are showing signs of systemic failure on a truly grand scale. This is very strong evidence that the mixed economy is not working and beginning to fail because the various interventions being made are destroying the signals and processes needed to make rational economic decisions.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Any chance in your mind that summer in the fall is trying to generate introspection rather than loathing?

Interesting question. A while ago I happened to scan the forum without being logged in.
Which is how I usually do so unless I intend to comment on something.
This has the practical but unintended effect of nullifying the ignore list.
Thus, I saw her second response which was also a non answer.
If she is trying to do so she's not doing a good job at it.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Nah, I reserve that for those who give me the kind of treatment you routinely give others. I'm selfish that way.

Did we build death camps in the Gilded Age? Were the death camps under Nazi rule for society's economic losers, or were they for categories arbitrarily declared societal enemies? Did the Nazis implement a dog-eat-dog Social Darwinist economy, or a mixed capitalist-socialist economy with private ownership but heavy regulation? Did they narrow or widen income gaps? Did they increase or decrease access to good-paying jobs?

The evils of Nazi Germany were simply nothing at all like those that would result from Galen's proposals. They were a completely different category of evil altogether. The bad things that happened under Hitler would not happen in the type of world Galen is looking for. At the same time, the bad things that would happen in that world did not happen in Nazi Germany. And you are full of shit.

I will take your implied assumption that underneath Galen's competition by individuals does not lurk hoped-for competition by group - although I'm not certain how you are certain about that.

I will note, however, that the process of both competitions in their pure form (that he espouses for at least one) either ignore, disregard or are outright hostile to the notions of empathy and beneficial reciprocity (not to mention Galen's lack of understanding of macroeconomic aggregation leading to his enormous fallacies of composition).

I must also conclude that our benchmarks for poor outcomes are just different. Perhaps yours doesn’t kick in until the ovens get lit; mine are when kids, burden with student debt, can't get a job. If that make me full of shit, so be it.

However, thanks for not putting me on ignore.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Well I guess you'll never know the answer.
By the way, I'm fairly sure that it was loathing in the other case:

Okay, you ladies are raising the bar way too high around here.

I guess my job (being the classy "full of shit" guy that I am) is to post another picture of heartshape "I love you too" poo to remind you, and to introduce Summer, on how bad things can actually get.

Lay off the boys or you're gonna get it!

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Yeah, but with me as part of the "gang," she has some difficulty acknowledging knowing it. Old story.

Myself likewise.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Ah yes, it must be all about YOU, Brian.
Unbelievable.

Hey, if you've got those contrary cigs on you, smoke 'em.

I've stopped reading this thread for content. Now I read it for entertainment.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Galen

Yes, this economic model has worked so well that all of these economies are deeply in debt both public and private and are showing signs of systemic failure on a truly grand scale. This is very strong evidence that the mixed economy is not working and beginning to fail because the various interventions being made are destroying the signals and processes needed to make rational economic decisions.

This is a lot like saying we have night and day, and our current illness results from there being more moonlight last cycle.

For a guy who professes adhernce to strict descriptive models, this is odd. No, this is approaching really weird weirdness.

Would some one please start a thread for personal attacks and criticisms? It could save a lot of us a lot of time.

For the record, two things get people onto my ignore list: endless repetition of the same lame points, and personal abuse. It includes both ends of the political spectrum.

Back to topic -

When it comes to the Libertarian wing of the GOP, you don't mess with da old man -

http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-09-08/force-vs-reason/

Force vs. Reason

During a commercial break at Wednesday’s Republican debate, Rick Perry and Ron Paul continued their spirited exchange on stage. Suddenly, Perry grabbed Ron Paul’s forearm while aggressively pointing his index finger towards the Congressman’s face. Alerted by Perry’s menacing gestures, Ron Paul’s bodyguard (front left) was standing by, ready to protect the Congressman.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Um, what??

ah, I'm glad you "forgot" my faux pas of years ago.

You're classy!

thx!