Originally Posted by Justin '77

I'm confused.

I think this is the most sane thing you've said.

Rani - a critical part of all of this is that 'people' and 'the members of a particular species' aren't wholly-overlapping sets. If we get hung-up on that (and given what I think I know about your stance on animals, I'd be a little bit surprised if that particular point was one where we didn't see eye-to-eye).

---

Summer - there are two kinds of people who talk about the death of the Earth's star. There are religious folks, exceptionalists, and other nutters who look for it to happen because of something special about the Earth and/or the people on it.
And then there are these guys called 'astronomers' (perhaps you've heard of them? they sometimes use fancier names like 'astrophysicists' . they're worth checking out). You know, guys who like to think that the one star is a thing with much of the same common properties of all those other multitudes of other stars. And all of those star-thingies experience a thing they call 'death' (although purely metaphorically, since none suspect stars of being alive)

If you're incompetent to tell the difference between those two groups, then I'm afraid you're beyond at least my limited ability to help. If you're not incompetent in such a way, evidence here strongly suggests that you are no more than a common troll. Not even a particularly good one, I'm sad to say.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Summer - there are two kinds of people...

I repeat...

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Look out the window, Justin. Is the sky falling? Have we gone 10 days and nights without sun? So why the hell are you talking like it's the apocalypse?

And just so you remember what you said...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

In fact, who's to say it need be a hominid at all? I mean, if people are going to be that can survive the death of their star and system, the hominid template might not be flexible or rugged enough for them. I certainly don't know and have vanishingly little opinion on the question, except that I certainly hope that someone is around to persist. I'm a person myself, and therefore biased in favor of us being around for as much as possible. I imagine things are more fun with people around than without, and relatively-more-fun makes me happy.

Then you turn around and say this...

Originally Posted by Justin '77

...There are religious folks, exceptionalists, and other nutters...

Now one more time...

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Look out the window, Justin. Is the sky falling? Have we gone 10 days and nights without sun? So why the hell are you talking like it's the apocalypse?

Originally Posted by The Rani

If humans are going extinct, and other "people" are taking over the planet, it seems like they would have to be another species.
I don't ever call non-humans "people" either, FYI.

Sorry. My viewpoint comes out of 60+ years of reading science fiction. If they're not homo sapiens, they are not human; but if they're sapient, they're "people", with the rights accruing thereto. That's whether they're self-aware AIs, aliens, uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees, a silicon being protecting her eggs, or a hive race from Serpent's Reach.

And yes, if I meet a Neanderthal walking around campus, I'll cheerfully grant him both "people" status (self-evident) and human status.

Originally Posted by James50

Even if everything were mathematical, it doesn't get you very far. One impediment is Godel's proof which says a mathematical system can either be complete or consistent, but not both.For any mathematical system, there will always be statements that are true, but that are unprovable within the system.

This is one of the most important theorems on the limits of computability.

The problem of optimal resource allocation in an economy is undecidable which is true of most optimization problems. Sometimes if the problem is small enough we can use search techniques such as depth-first branch and bound to find an optimal solution. When the state space is too large, like in a real economy, then we use the same solution that nature uses which is some form of evolution. The process of evolution is very easy to describe as an algorithm but you never quite know what the solution will be and understanding the results can be difficult to say the least.

Computation does not only take place in a digital computer. It can be done in analog electronics, mechanical systems, biology and even neural networks like the human brain. A market can itself be considered a computing system with the object of optimizing material well-being among its participants. In this case the interactions of its participants become the means by which the computation is done.

You see the economy itself becomes the mechanism by which optimal resource allocation is discovered. Attempts to create equality will simply destroy the information needed to perform this discovery. Its all in the math I'm afraid. I support a market economy because I believe in free will and all other solutions will ultimately prove to be worse in the end. Modern economists are now starting to realize this. Ludwig von Mises was one the first to understand this and decades before the math existed to analyze or even describe such problems. You can see it if you know what to look for and if you are willing to, which Eric, Brian and a whole host of others are most unwilling.

This is not a matter belief or faith but rather an application of science and mathematics, some of which you are using even now on this message board.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I don't consider "people" worthy of any special treatment to which "non-people" aren't entitled, so for me the distinction is irrelevant.

Hmm.. That's pretty good, too. Although I worry that you are missing Badger's (and my) point, and continuing to use 'people' and 'human beings' as if they were interchangeable concepts.

In any case, do you at least recognize a difference between 'living things that can tell stories' and 'living things that cannot tell stories'? Being one of the former myself, and rather enjoying stories and story-tellers as I do, I like the idea of them continuing to be around for as long as being around is something that living things can do. Again, I fully admit that it's all founded in my own personal tastes and biases.

I think these examples is slightly different. Stories are creative rather than informative. Best...

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nope:

Scientists claim fish 'talk' to each other


Biologist Discovers 'Stop' Signal in Honey Bee Communication

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Um. What is 'likely' is Rani's contention that "there's a survivalist mentality out there where some people feel like if they have enough guns and food they will be "saved."". I quoted it, you quoted it. I'm pretty sure there's no ambiguity there.

This says that the analogy rang true to her. That your need to put restraints on what I meant (i.e put words in my mouth) in order to box it off from what you have already acknowledged is easily observed, is only evidence of your limitations in thinking. I've never been a Creationist or advocate of prayer in the schools. But after engaging in this thoroughly bigoted exchange, I have more reason than ever before to sympathize with Right Christian fundamentalists, patronized by intellectuals and fearful of being deprived of their prerogative to worship. I can now support, without a tinge of doubt or reservation, intelligent design taught in the schools. To your credit, I have been shown the depths scientific religionists will go to to preserve their dominance in society. Thank you for teaching me about this sadness which for much too long I heralded as superior wisdom, common sense and reason. And I mean that sincerely.

As stated...

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Look out the window, Justin. Is the sky falling? Have we gone 10 days and nights without sun? So why the hell are you talking like it's the apocalypse?

Shoulda realized I wouldn't get an answer. Best...

night all...

Originally Posted by Galen

The problem of optimal resource allocation in an economy

Okay, here's where the rub is: define what you mean by "optimal".

Optimal as in greatest total wealth (regardless of distribution)? Optimal as in greatest wealth per capita (again, regardless of distribution, or whether many never come anywhere close to that average)? Or, can it be something else?

I used to be a Libertarian, believe it or not (big "L", as in a party member--still get their mail asking for donations every once in awhile, after 8 or 9 years. Voted for Harry Browne in 2000). And at the core of my political considerations, then and now, is the imperative that no one (person or other entity) gets too much power. Back then I thought the greatest threat of that happening was from government (or at any rate, that was what I paid more attention to). But I've come to see that that threat is just as valid and just as dire (if not more so*) from the private sector as well. And that made things a lot more complicated.... So I guess for me "optimal" (not really a good word for it, as the goal is too imprecise--more in a "general area") is where the economy isn't distributed in such way that any one or few get an amount of power that significantly threatens the well-being of others. A world that has compassion as well as wealth, a world where all have some dignity, because no one can have enough leverage to effectively lord it over others. Not perfect equality of resources, just so those at the bottom have enough so they aren't exploitable (or are much less so than now). A general area, not an optimal "point" because I don't think you could define that.

As for an "equation" to get there then, I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder. I'm not a computer guy, although I think I got what you were saying about that--too many damned (and chaotic) variables! Something like this gets "solved" (or ever closer to "solution") by humans living and learning--"evolution" as you say. But that evolution is as much or more of that of the overall society as of individual people--sort of what Brian was saying. Because individual people will sometimes be striving for maximizing power for themselves, which could create a conflict of interest with what (IMO) is "optimal" as I described above, if he's too successful at maximizing his power so that he becomes a threat to others or even the whole. Evolution through the market mechanism alone will enable this kind of imbalance of power and probably make it starker--even if it might actually lift total aggregate wealth which might be what your "optimum" is. But since we are sentient creatures, we can include conscious and deliberate "tinkerings" here and there if we have a goal in mind beyond simply "more". Indeed, we can observe that quality of life of the whole population can make a society stronger and more resiliant, if we're talking about evolution of whole societies.

As the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, so the price of freedom from exploitation (which I believe is an essential component of liberty) is some checks and balances--and more vigilance.

You can see it if you know what to look for and if you are willing to, which Eric, Brian and a whole host of others are most unwilling.

This is not a matter belief or faith but rather an application of science and mathematics, some of which you are using even now on this message board.

No, it is a matter of how you define "optimal"--where you want to go. A value judgment. And Eric, Brian, and that whole host of others (including me) simply disagree with you, I suspect, on that question--which is of course not in the purview of "science and mathematics" to solve.



*"If not more so": Libertarians argue (and they're right about this) that powerful private interests have essentially captured much of the government--which I say is making them more a threat than government, since they are gaining control of it as a big part of their arsenal of weapons. But I think they could just as easily become more of a threat than government if government was shrunk too much to be an effective check against them either.

Optimally, we need to figure out a way to have government as the advocate of the voters it was intended, to be a check on private power which answers to no one but itself (at least the government is supposed to be answerable to all of us, and sometimes it has been moreso than others--it is less so than usual now it seems). We need to "recapture" it and put it back to that purpose. Then, we need to figure out how it can perform that necessary check function most efficiently (and honestly) so that it doesn't get bloated and ineffectual and ripe for recapture by those private interests again.

As for the market side of things, many healthy small businesses, I think, are the key to economic democratization--i.e. the "making people less exploitable" bit. If "evolution" alone doesn't achieve this--if in fact it pushes away from this (as I believe it does)--then yes, we'll have to tinker and interfere. It's not a problem nature itself can solve, perhaps: it will take conscious and deliberate decisions from us, as sentient beings that we are (which separates us from most or all other animals, and I'd argue changes the game of evolution somewhat).

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Summer - there are two kinds of people who talk about the death of the Earth's star. There are religious folks, exceptionalists, and other nutters who look for it to happen because of something special about the Earth and/or the people on it.
And then there are these guys called 'astronomers' (perhaps you've heard of them? they sometimes use fancier names like 'astrophysicists' . they're worth checking out). You know, guys who like to think that the one star is a thing with much of the same common properties of all those other multitudes of other stars. And all of those star-thingies experience a thing they call 'death' (although purely metaphorically, since none suspect stars of being alive)

If you're incompetent to tell the difference between those two groups, then I'm afraid you're beyond at least my limited ability to help.

She's a very extreme postmodernist.

Postmodernism was a reaction to modernist overconfidence and the harm that was being caused by this. It was necessary and valuable. For example, my partner and I aren't married because we don't want to be forced into socially constructed gender roles that half of our society still up and assumes are innate. We got the tools to articulate our perceptions from postmodernism.

However...

The link is to physicist Alan Sokal's article about his 1996 social experiment: He submitted a "parody" article to Social Text, a journal of "postmodern cultural studies," to see if "a leading North American journal of cultural studies -- whose editorial collective includes such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross -- [would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."

It did.

Originally Posted by Alan Sokal, 1996

What's going on here? Could the editors really not have realized that my article was written as a parody?

In the first paragraph I deride "the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook":

that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal" physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these laws by hewing to the "objective" procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method.

Is it now dogma in Cultural Studies that there exists no external world? Or that there exists an external world but science obtains no knowledge of it?

In the second paragraph I declare, without the slightest evidence or argument, that "physical 'reality' [note the scare quotes] ... is at bottom a social and linguistic construct." Not our theories of physical reality, mind you, but the reality itself. Fair enough: anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)

[...]

What concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits their existence but downplays their practical relevance....

In short, my concern over the spread of subjectivist thinking is both intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There is a real world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to blur these obvious truths -- the utter absurdity of it all being concealed through obscure and pretentious language....

Politically, I'm angered because most (though not all) of this silliness is emanating from the self-proclaimed Left. We're witnessing here a profound historical volte-face. For most of the past two centuries, the Left has been identified with science and against obscurantism; we have believed that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications promoted by the powerful -- not to mention being desirable human ends in their own right. The recent turn of many "progressive" or "leftist" academic humanists and social scientists toward one or another form of epistemic relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines the already fragile prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing about "the social construction of reality" won't help us find an effective treatment for AIDS or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat false ideas in history, sociology, economics and politics if we reject the notions of truth and falsity.

[...]

In the end, I resorted to parody for a simple pragmatic reason. The targets of my critique have by now become a self-perpetuating academic subculture that typically ignores (or disdains) reasoned criticism from the outside. In such a situation, a more direct demonstration of the subculture's intellectual standards was required.... I offered the Social Text editors an opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual rigor. Did they meet the test? I don't think so.

I say this not in glee but in sadness. After all, I'm a leftist too (under the Sandinista government I taught mathematics at the National University of Nicaragua). On nearly all practical political issues -- including many concerning science and technology -- I'm on the same side as the Social Text editors. But I'm a leftist (and feminist) because of evidence and logic, not in spite of it. Why should the right wing be allowed to monopolize the intellectual high ground?

Well, that last part has changed since 1996: Many elements of the right have embraced extreme postmodernism as well.

Like I said: summer in the fall is the left-wing version of JPT.

Here are Social Text's response to Sokal's experiment and Sokal's reply to them.

Originally Posted by Alan Sokal

My goal isn't to defend science from the barbarian hordes of lit crit (we'll survive just fine, thank you), but to defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself. Like innumerable others from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, I call for the Left to reclaim its Enlightenment roots. We're worried above all for the social sciences and the humanities, not the natural sciences....

[The Social Text editors] conflate science as an intellectual system with the social and economic role of science and technology. They conflate epistemic and ethical issues.

These confusions lead [them] into a serious error: setting up an opposition between science and progressive politics. They describe science as a "civil religion" that supports existing social and political structures. It is of course true that scientific reasearch is skewed by the influence of those with power and money. But a scientific worldview, based on a commitment to logic and standards of evidence and to the incessant confrontation of theories with reality, is an essential component of any progressive politics.

Was Sokal wrong? Gee, what's happened to the social sciences and the humanities since the '90s? Perhaps David Kaiser might have something to say about this?

:sigh:

ETA: Aaaaaand summer proves the point!

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

I can now support, without a tinge of doubt or reservation, intelligent design taught in the schools. To your credit, I have been shown the depths scientific religionists will go to to preserve their dominance in society. Thank you for teaching me about this sadness which for much too long I heralded as superior wisdom, common sense and reason. And I mean that sincerely.

Postmodernism first caught on on the left, but as Sokal predicted, its lack of commitment to "the incessant confrontation of theories with reality" leads ultimately to acceptance of "the mystifications promoted by the powerful."

Or as Franco Moretti wrote in response to the Social Text editors:

Towards the end of his reply, Ross states that "we must ask, again and again, wherever it is possible, or prudent, to isolate facts from values." I would respond that yes, it is possible (though difficult), and certainly very prudent, because it's the only way to learn anything. If facts cannot be isolated from values, then values can never be tested, never contradicted, never changed. Research, experiment, evidence, and discussion all become useless. Only values, everywhere. A nightmare: Cardinal Bellarmino and Stanley Aronowitz, forever together.

Originally Posted by Odin

I was offended by Churchill's calling the victims of 9/11 "Little Eichmanns".

"I was offended" is no excuse for even succumbing to, let alone instigating, a mob mentality.

"I was offended" is even less of an excuse for casually referencing how someone you disagree with is a "freak" who, you casually -- CASUALLY! just in PASSING, not even anymore in the grip of anger! -- imply, should therefore be Shunned Forevermore No Matter What. "He said the wrong thing once, so obviously nothing else he ever said before or ever says since has any validity whatsoever!" Dude, no.

Even if it might have a ring of truth to it, it is the kind of offensive thing you just don't say, you just don't.

Wait, so you *agree with* him, yet he's *still* Evil And Should Be Purged?

Just for SAYING THE WRONG THING?!?!?!

Do you seriously believe that "ability to memorize what society has determined is and is not 'the kind of thing you just don't say, regardless of whether it's true'" is what should determine whether people get shunned from society, lose their jobs, or even get arrested, executed or lynched?

I agree that there are some things you shouldn't say. However, "true but too offensive to say anyway" is not a category it would ever have occurred to me to use.

To me, the things you shouldn't say are, well...the kinds of things one tends to say when extremely offended. IOW, things that have no or little content other than to be attacks and/or threats. Things like (as I've seen said to me and to others online), "You deserve to be [graphic description of specific torture] to death." These are the things that are normal to feel when extremely angry, but too harmful to others to say.

Something that does have content, something that's an actual opinion...that's something that can be argued with. And should -- rather than being labeled just, "something you don't ever say."

My view is, when you're offended, you stay calm and control yourself so you don't find yourself part of a mob. Doesn't the idea of being drawn into a witch hunt or lynch mob scare you? It should.

Hickory Dickory Dock
The crowd ran up the block.
A cop struck one,
A rock got thrown;
Hickory Dickory riot.
--Eve Merriam

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Look out the window, Justin. Is the sky falling? Have we gone 10 days and nights without sun? So why the hell are you talking like it's the apocalypse?

Uh, the death of the Sun from exhaustion of hydrogen fusion is not estimated to occur for another 4-5 billion years. So no, the sky isn't falling today, Justin didn't say it was, and (as usual) you are hitting strawmen of your own making. For someone "against combativeness", you sure like to find excuses for being combative, don't you. Have fun with that.

Postmodernism seems to be the intellectual equivalent of "everyone gets a gold star or trophy for showing up", no matter what they actually do or achieve (or don't). You know, how they supposedly started doing things in schools and youth sports after we Xers grew up and left the scene.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

Okay, here's where the rub is: define what you mean by "optimal".

Optimal as in greatest total wealth (regardless of distribution)? Optimal as in greatest wealth per capita (again, regardless of distribution, or whether many never come anywhere close to that average)?

So far as I can determine free market economies tend to optimize wealth creation and total wealth which would tend to follow a normal distribution curve. This is what has happened in every use of evolution I have seen as well as those I have implemented myself. Keep in mind that as the upper limit of the moves to the right then the mean of that curve will also move to the right which means that more individuals are better off.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

I used to be a Libertarian, believe it or not (big "L", as in a party member--still get their mail asking for donations every once in awhile, after 8 or 9 years. Voted for Harry Browne in 2000). And at the core of my political considerations, then and now, is the imperative that no one (person or other entity) gets too much power. Back then I thought the greatest threat of that happening was from government (or at any rate, that was what I paid more attention to). But I've come to see that that threat is just as valid and just as dire (if not more so*) from the private sector as well. And that made things a lot more complicated.... So I guess for me "optimal" (not really a good word for it, as the goal is too imprecise--more in a "general area") is where the economy isn't distributed in such way that any one or few get an amount of power that significantly threatens the well-being of others. A world that has compassion as well as wealth, a world where all have some dignity, because no one can have enough leverage to effectively lord it over others. Not perfect equality of resources, just so those at the bottom have enough so they aren't exploitable (or are much less so than now). A general area, not an optimal "point" because I don't think you could define that.

You know as well I as do that compassion and cooperation are not ruled out by a free market economic system. The threat that you see from the private sector is a consequence of the crony capitalism or rather mercantilism since the beginning of the twentieth century. I have told Odin to look into who was funding the Progressive Party of the early twentieth century. I would as you to do the same and you will find out why things are as they are now. Also look at what happened to the trusts that were formed in the late nineteenth century. You will find that they were unable to maintain them without the use of the government force.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

As for an "equation" to get there then, I'm not sure if that makes it easier or harder. I'm not a computer guy, although I think I got what you were saying about that--too many damned (and chaotic) variables! Something like this gets "solved" (or ever closer to "solution") by humans living and learning--"evolution" as you say. But that evolution is as much or more of that of the overall society as of individual people--sort of what Brian was saying. Because individual people will sometimes be striving for maximizing power for themselves, which could create a conflict of interest with what (IMO) is "optimal" as I described above, if he's too successful at achieving so that he becomes a threat to others or even the whole. Evolution through the market mechanism alone will enable this kind of imbalance of power and probably make it starker--even if it might actually lift total aggregate wealth which might be what your "optimum" is. But since we are sentient creatures, we can include conscious and deliberate "tinkerings" here and there if we have a goal in mind beyond simply "more". Indeed, we can observe that quality of life of the whole population can make a society stronger and more resiliant, if we're talking about evolution of whole societies.

If you paid attention to what I had wrote then you know that the problem is too big for anyone to tinker with and have any real clue as to the consequences. You should know from the broken window fallacy that there are consequences that go beyond what we normally look at. Consider the Solyndra affair for a moment. Not only was taxpayer money lost but what about the labor and materials diverted into that company. We are all poorer as a result because scarce resources were put into a politically connected but ultimately doomed venture. This was an example of both the Socialist Calculation problem and Regulatory Capture both in the same place.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

Indeed, as the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, so the price of freedom from exploitation (which I believe is an essential component of liberty) is some checks and balances--and more vigilance.

This is why government power must be strictly limited. These days it recognizes no limits and no good will come of it.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

No, it is a matter of how you define "optimal"--where you want to go. A value judgment. And Eric, Brian, and that whole host of others (including me) simply disagree, I suspect, on that question--which is of course not in the purview of "science and mathematics" to solve.

What the math tells me is that every other strategy will result in increasing economic dis-coordination until it finally collapses. The increasing boom-bust cycles are proof of this.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

*"If not more so: Libertarians argue (and they're right about this) that powerful private interests have essentially captured much of the government--which I say is making them more a threat than government, since they are gaining control of it as a big part of their arsenal of weapons. But I think they could just as easily become more of a threat than government if government was shrunk too much to be an effective check against them either.

This is the problem with crony capitalism and the response has been to give the organization they have been using as a tool even more power. This does not strike me as a winning strategy.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

As for the market side of things, many healthy small businesses, I think, are the key to economic democratization--i.e. the "making people less exploitable" bit. If "evolution" alone doesn't achieve this--if in fact it pushes away from this (as I believe it does)--then yes, we'll have to tinker and interfere. It's not a problem nature itself can solve, perhaps: it will take conscious and deliberate decisions from us, as sentient beings that we are (which separates us from most or all other animals, and I'd argue changes the game of evolution somewhat).

The only solution that can work is to effectively separate government and business in much the same way separation of church and state should work. In a zero sum game that would be true but given that various innovations that occur make the economy a positive sum game which means that a monopoly in any particular industry is not likely to last. The trick is to keep the barriers to entry as low as possible and that has not been the case for a very long time in the US.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

Uh, the death of the Sun from exhaustion of hydrogen fusion is not estimated to occur for another 4-5 billion years. So no, the sky isn't falling today, Justin didn't say it was...

Thank you bringing it to my attention. But your interpretation is not what I was aiming for. And I pretty much accepted a long time ago that it was not going to be grasped. Best...

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Thank you bringing it to my attention. But your interpretation is not what I was aiming for. And I pretty much accepted a long time ago that it was not going to be grasped. Best...

How about his "interpretation" of what he was trying to say? Which he keeps trying to explain to you--what he meant by what he said. Which out of common courtesy you should go by. Do you like it when people misinterpret what you say? Especially if you try to explain to them what you were trying to say, repeatedly, and they just don't listen or care?

See, this is the pattern that I see emerging: someone says something (in this case Justin; in a case before, Brian), and you not only interpret it differently than how they meant it, but if they say "no, I meant this", and very carefully explain what they meant, you reject their explanation and go on arguing against what you interpreted they said. That's not communication. That's not having a conversation. That's inherently frustrating. And in the end, that's why few will want to deal with you.

If a person says they meant a certain thing when they said something, you should accept that that's what they were meaning to say. I mean what are they all otherwise, liars? I hope you catch on to this and show this basic respect going forward, but if you don't, you'll just alienate more people here. The choice is yours.

Originally Posted by Alioth68

Postmodernism seems to be the intellectual equivalent of "everyone gets a gold star or trophy for showing up", no matter what they actually do or achieve (or don't). You know, how they supposedly started doing things in schools and youth sports after we Xers grew up and left the scene.

Possibly. If so, you and Ted may have pointed a finger at what is to blame for summer's intellectual incompetence -- if that is indeed what is going on. There's always the possibility of simple trolling, which I tend occasionally to think of as the more charitable interpretation when I encounter such severely a-rational, noncommunicative personae on teh Inter Nets. Trollism strikes me as the less permanently-debilitated state.

@Galen: let me chew on what you said some more. I'm leaving from work (I work nights) and I may not be online for a couple days.

But let's just say for now, that my interests aren't just in optimizing wealth, but also in ensuring that even the least among us can't be manipulated by the circumstances of their poverty by people who hold "all the cards" so to speak (even if it costs some of that overall wealth). And I don't think that just letting every market player do what they will is going to ensure that--especially those players who have no compassion, or who hunger for power. The "free market" allows for compassion, sure. But the question is, do enough people (players) actually have it? Or do some have ends quite the opposite, and the means to realize them (even without government help)? How are such individuals stopped? The government has allowed itself to be used by them. But if government wasn't there, what would keep them in check? The question I guess is, since government might be the only thing strong enough to keep effective check on them, if it was so inclined to: how to repurpose the government to that end, and keep it from being bought and captured again?

Originally Posted by Galen

This is one of the most important theorems on the limits of computability.

The problem of optimal resource allocation in an economy is undecidable which is true of most optimization problems. Sometimes if the problem is small enough we can use search techniques such as depth-first branch and bound to find an optimal solution. When the state space is too large, like in a real economy, then we use the same solution that nature uses which is some form of evolution. The process of evolution is very easy to describe as an algorithm but you never quite know what the solution will be and understanding the results can be difficult to say the least.

Government is good at best at meeting very basic needs when those needs are easy to stereotype. Social Security works because it is simple even if it is large. Likewise Medicare. Much of business activity depends not on simple calculations but instead upon hunches and feedback in the form of sales figures or media ratings that become a surrogate for prices. It may be the fads and crazes that make life interesting; "How to Increase Your Potato Production", however practical, might have at most a limited use. If you are an orange grower, you aren't interested.

Computation does not only take place in a digital computer. It can be done in analog electronics, mechanical systems, biology and even neural networks like the human brain. A market can itself be considered a computing system with the object of optimizing material well-being among its participants. In this case the interactions of its participants become the means by which the computation is done.

Mathematics are easy to reduce. Mathematics through at the least differentiation is easy. The trick is in forcing natural and human phenomena to fit mathematical calculations. The mathematics used in business (as in accounting) are at best post hoc, good largely for describing what happened in the past. When the news goes through the accounting department, then the good -- or damage -- is already done. The mathematics used in engineering get tricky enough to require specialists... well, engineers aren't cheap labor.

Doing the math is one thing. Knowing which math to use is the tricky thing.

You see the economy itself becomes the mechanism by which optimal resource allocation is discovered. Attempts to create equality will simply destroy the information needed to perform this discovery. Its all in the math I'm afraid. I support a market economy because I believe in free will and all other solutions will ultimately prove to be worse in the end. Modern economists are now starting to realize this. Ludwig von Mises was one the first to understand this and decades before the math existed to analyze or even describe such problems. You can see it if you know what to look for and if you are willing to, which Eric, Brian and a whole host of others are most unwilling.

Hunches don't fit mathematical models. Some few people are capable of turning a hunch into a successful business proposition. Is there a mathematical algorithm that would have shown that Barbra Streisand or Elvis Presley would be wildly popular? Not in the least. Or that Star Wars, which resurrected themes recalling heroic warfare preserving a nation (allusions to World War II with the "rebels" resembling Great Britain and the Evil Empire resembling Nazi Germany) would be extremely successful in America after the debacle of the war in Vietnam? One would have to be crazy! Or that kids worldwide would love stories of sorcery set in an elite British "public school"? Not in the least! That is in culture alone. Oil wildcatters guess where underground petroleum might be and then sell out to Big Oil because the successful wildcatters (the unsuccessful wildcatters simply go broke or find another way in which to make money) don't have the expertise at engineering that Big Oil has.

But the cash cows can be reduced to mathematical realities. That's how insurance works. That's how banking works (so long as one can judge the character of the debtor). That's how the marketing of simple antibiotics and painkillers operates. That's how 'old industry' like steel, concrete, and glass businesses work -- "Give us the orders and we will fill them", says the supplier of the government contractor.

This is not a matter belief or faith but rather an application of science and mathematics, some of which you are using even now on this message board.

I repeat -- knowing which mathematical model to use is as essential as is mastery of the math.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Doing the math is one thing. Knowing which math to use is the tricky thing.

Yep. As an aside, this reminds me of my physics classes in college. We could totally botch the actual math in terms of deriving the answer, but if we set up the problem correctly and applied the "right" formula to the problem, we could still get like 2/3 of the credit.

Originally Posted by Ted '79

"I was offended" is no excuse for even succumbing to, let alone instigating, a mob mentality.

"I was offended" is even less of an excuse for casually referencing how someone you disagree with is a "freak" who, you casually -- CASUALLY! just in PASSING, not even anymore in the grip of anger! -- imply, should therefore be Shunned Forevermore No Matter What. "He said the wrong thing once, so obviously nothing else he ever said before or ever says since has any validity whatsoever!" Dude, no.



Wait, so you *agree with* him, yet he's *still* Evil And Should Be Purged?

Just for SAYING THE WRONG THING?!?!?!

Do you seriously believe that "ability to memorize what society has determined is and is not 'the kind of thing you just don't say, regardless of whether it's true'" is what should determine whether people get shunned from society, lose their jobs, or even get arrested, executed or lynched?

I agree that there are some things you shouldn't say. However, "true but too offensive to say anyway" is not a category it would ever have occurred to me to use.

To me, the things you shouldn't say are, well...the kinds of things one tends to say when extremely offended. IOW, things that have no or little content other than to be attacks and/or threats. Things like (as I've seen said to me and to others online), "You deserve to be [graphic description of specific torture] to death." These are the things that are normal to feel when extremely angry, but too harmful to others to say.

Something that does have content, something that's an actual opinion...that's something that can be argued with. And should -- rather than being labeled just, "something you don't ever say."

My view is, when you're offended, you stay calm and control yourself so you don't find yourself part of a mob. Doesn't the idea of being drawn into a witch hunt or lynch mob scare you? It should.

Hickory Dickory Dock
The crowd ran up the block.
A cop struck one,
A rock got thrown;
Hickory Dickory riot.
--Eve Merriam

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. What I meant to say is that there are better and more tactful ways of explaining the roots of Militant Islamism than intentionally blaming the victim in order to cause outrage. This is something that really ticks me off about many radical Boomers, they will do something outrageous and offensive simply because they WANT TO BE outrageous and offensive.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Justin mentioned two different extinctions:

1. The sun exploding ... in billions of years.
2. Humans going extinct and being replaced by some other "people" ... no specified time frame for that one.

Indeed. The first was mentioned as merely one of the many scenarios which will end personhood if, at the time it occurs, 'person' solely consists of human beings. In other words, given the certainty of the first (and the likelihood of there being other modes for which human beings are unsuited to persist), the first clause of the second second necessarily follows, and the second clause therefore quite critical if we hope for 'persons' not to end. In other words, the second extinction might come sooner than the death of the sun, but it's certainly not going to come very long after it. In either case, it's for all intents and purposes a given.

It's worth noting that human beings aren't a particularly unsuitable organism -- far from it, we do pretty damn good, all things considered. It's just that we're possibly the only option right now, and even a casual ecological viewpoint recognizes that it is diversity in a system (and in fact, diversity of systems), not monoculture, that is the most durable.

Originally Posted by The Rani

If you're saying that by maintaining diversity NOW we can increase the likelihood of our species (or whatever other people we have morphed into by then) surviving the explosion of the sun billions of years from now, I still think that the Rapture analogy fits.

Again, the sun dying (IIRC, it's not explosion we have to worry about.. our type of star goes red-giant and 'merely' expands its size to something like the orbit of Mars. Also not good for Earth and the things on it.) isn't the way homo sap ends. It's merely a reasonably conclusive proof that homo sap will necessarily end. There are plenty of other circumstances which could reasonably occur far, far prior to our sun's death which would do the trick just as well. But for those, we're talking probabilities, whereas the sun-death has the virtue of being certain.

In any case, diversity NOW may or may not be sufficient to make the set of 'persons' adaptable enough to persist whatever-the-hell. But it's a damn sure thing that a lack of diversity at any point in time -- and that includes necessarily selection and exceptionalism as particularly egregiously bad values -- not only means less adaptability to survive whatever-the-hell when and if it comes around, but even increases the number of conditions which could prove fatal to persons as a set. It's about recognizing and playing the odds -- which is a pretty damn far cry from what you're claiming as analogous.

"Diversity" would have to mean acquiring the ability to breathe in outer space or travel to whatever distant planet might contain oxygen. Those things sound as nutty to me as the hand of God swooping down to save the Believers.

There's all sorts of nutty ideas that would fall under 'diversity'. And at least a small number of not-so-nutty ones. It's not nuttiness that matters, though, so much as just plain getting at least some of our eggs out of that one damn basket. Evolution gets into shitloads of dead-ends. But sometimes not. And we're here at all thanks to a long, long chain of those 'sometimes nots'. At least, it seems that way so far. Maybe we just haven't gotten to our dead end yet. We won't know until it happens, and I'd like for us to have more to say at that time than simply, "oh crap, it's too late for us". That's a piss-poor ending for a story that's been pretty cool from time to time.

Maybe a fungus could turn into spores and travel light-years away to land on a suitable planet, but I'd hardly call that a survival of "people."

Unless the fungus was people (which I don't see as one of the even slightly-plausible paths), it certainly wouldn't be. Although... IF we on earth genuinely are the only people, AND that fungus on whatever other planet were the genesis of an ecosystem which had a chance of, over however many millions of years, giving rise to people... That would be, in my admittedly biased opinion, better than nothing. Better than the end of human beings being the end of people for all time in all places.
So it's not my first choice, but... why the hell not? Diversify far and wide, in all possible manners.

Originally Posted by The Rani

That's just it, though. What you'd like or wouldn't like is irrelevant in the course of natural history.
To pretend otherwise is ... well ... as nutty as hoping that God will save us.

What we want is, of course irrelevant. What we do hardly is. After all, there's no dodos or thylacine anymore, and there's quite a bit more ground-level alpha-emitters in a part of eastern Europe and a medium-sized island off the eastern shore of Asia than there used to be -- because of things people did. Those are hardly irrelevancies in natural history (and hardly even scratching the surface of a comprehensive list). If we imagine persons to be things possessed of the ability to choose among courses of action based on ourtheir wants, then our wants are very much indirect impacts on natural history.

Again, that's not religion. Just observation.

Originally Posted by Odin

Thanks for putting words in my mouth.

Sorry, Odin, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth!

What you said really did creep me out, though, and I was trying to explain why. I think there really is a difference between um...the Boomer-Millie mentor-protege group on the one hand and the Silent-Xer group on the other, when it comes to accepting "I was offended" as a valid reason for launching a content-free personal attack. The Boomers seem to accept it from their proteges, and so the Millies seem to do it a lot, and I think that's harmful.

And I think it does lead toward the kind of society where "ability to memorize what ideas society has deemed Unacceptable To Ever Express" determines survival. Only social and not physical survival, I hope!

What I meant to say is that there are better and more tactful ways of explaining the roots of Militant Islamism than intentionally blaming the victim in order to cause outrage.

Agreed. I don't agree with what Ward Churchill said. But I don't think "he said something offensive" justifies purging someone. Referring to someone in passing as, "the [insult] [name]" implies that because of the one wrong thing they said, they are now forever discredited about everything. That's what I'm objecting to. (Especially if your main objection is that they did a bad job expressing themselves and were tactless.)

If that's not what you were trying to say, I'm glad, but please, don't go around referring to people as "the [insult] [name]"!

This is something that really ticks me off about many radical Boomers, they will do something outrageous and offensive simply because they WANT TO BE outrageous and offensive.

I think most Boomers who deliberately cause outrage do so in order to say, "You shouldn't be outraged by this" -- for example, "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" (which overall was more helpful than harmful IMO). Or else to say, "I did this outrageous thing because I'm outraged by this other thing and you should be too!" -- for example, flag-burning. The latter fits in with the Boomer focus on "raising awareness," I guess. And I agree, there comes a point when people should be proposing solutions, not just pointing out problems!

I just had a thought about the origin of this: If GIs were like Millies are...well, one of the things I've noticed about Millies is, they're pretty easy to offend. And *that* just reminded me of that pair of articles from the late '40s/early '50s someone linked a while back, about the "new young adults" -- the Silents -- and how they differed from the GIs: One of them IIRC had a quote from a college professor who said that it had always been easy to get the GIs riled up (which the professor liked to do, in order to "make them think")...but not the Silents. The Silents, he complained, "just sit there and take notes."

Hate to say it but I'm getting tired of Millie students' easy outrage...give me some New Artists who might actually let me complete a thought before launching into their "I'm offended" speech!