Iraq Situation is Bullshit
POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 10, 2024 22:11
VIEWED: 28270
PAGE 12 of 17
Hey, real life has a nasty habit of interfering with the truly important things in life 
Identity is not quite right. I am me. I exist, and I have certain characteristics, both physical and mental that others have, and others do not. As close as that gets to being grouped into any organization, or several, it gets a bit dicey. Its never a complete or perfect match.
"You and I have the same goals, believe it or not. I want to see democracy and prosperity around the world. We may argue about the hows and whens but we are aiming in the same direction."
This was well said. We do have the same goals, and it does boil down to a question of means.
"But you have faith. For some reason you really really believe that these guys have America's best interests at heart. This is where you and I disagree. Since faith is unarguable, how do we get there from here?"
But I don't have faith. I have a different perspective than you do, a different "model of the universe" inside my head than you. I can claim that my views and reasons are just as founded on logic and observation as you can about yours. The real question is which view is correct.
Which is better, altruistic intentions or altruistic consequences? I ask this because this is why I see as default, that freedom is better than slavery, democracy is better than totalitarianism, and capitalism better than any form of centralized control of the economy. Each of the former members of these pairs are essentially selfish choices. My freedom, my vote, my ownership of my stuff, and my life. They may not be ideal, but they are better than anything else tried and that is enough.
I am a selfish bastard. I freely admit it. I am more concern with me and mine than I am with you and yours. But this is not some kind of Nietzchean Ubermench mentality. Your a person, with more or less the same hopes dreams and desires as the other 6 billion souls on this planet. You can be benefitical to my goals and wants, making things I desire, or even helping me verbalize a lot of the semi-coherent thoughts running through my skull. But in order to achieve that benefit, some tactics work, and some do not.
Its not that I don't care about you, as much as I don't even know you. I don't know what will make you happy, or what your dreams are. Unless you are able to articulate it, I can never know what goes on in that skull. The situation is symmetrical however. Multiply that by 6 billion folks, and you see the problem inherent in any kind of altruism based system.
If I become a real threat to your life, or your stuff, or your freedom, you are going to defend yourself. We might even agree that you have a right to do so. And that defense can prove very detrimental to me and mine. So to avoid all that, I am left with treating you as I want to be treated. And demand that you do the same in return.
By both of us acting like people and treating the other like people, we can both benefit from interacting.
There are those out there who think differently, believe, and have faith in their beliefs that is radically different from mine. That some are put on this planet to rule others, make decrees, and the rest are simply cannon fodder or toys for the elite to play with. Some see democracy as a clear and present danger to their very ideals, attitudes, and identities as the elite, or God's chosen few. And are willing to kill, rape, steal, do whatever it takes (or rather send others to do whatever it takes) regardless.
In one sense they are right. Without meaning to, they see this country is a threat to their way of life. We never got a class system running over here, and so a lot of our products, (both physical and cultural) are directed toward the lower class. There are more of them, and as our ancestors got kicked out of every decent country in Europe (or the world) we are more in tune with the lower classes than with the aristocracy (mullahcracies, or whatever the elite want to call themselves) Since we were founded on the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and ha
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Well Drakon, I'm glad to see that you haven't gotten bored of this discussion yet. It's so seldom that I get an in-depth (if off-topic!) conversation that doesn't degenerate into huffy name-calling. It's entirely to your credit. And your response is chock-full of such lovely ideas, so you have already made me happy. 
(I wish there was an icon for someone gleefully rubbing their hands.)
I think I understand where you are coming from. I think you would say that it is individuals acting in their own best interest that drive society forward. That those who desire wealth or power have beneficial (if unintended) effects: they put together the money, effort, etc to create the factories, maintain internal order and defend us from harm. That there are others who live by an entirely different paradigm, and that the two paradigms are mutually exclusive, they are an immediate and irreconcilable threat to each other.
OK, now here's the really weird part- I agree with 99% of what you're saying. I'm ALSO a selfish bastard. I freely admit to it, and I think everyone else should be a selfish bastard too. I hope not to see TOO many cases of people acting out of altruism.
BUT.... there are some (many) instances where we can get farther collectively/ socially than individually. The economy is not a group of individuals acting individually, it's a system that is capable of more than the sum of individual capabilities.
"Wealth of Nations" did a fine job talking about competition, but it left out the real driving force of human advancement which is cooperation- the division of labor, the ability to interact socially (humans are a social species not a solitary one), the ability to share ideas and create new ones- these are what lift us out of the individual grubbing for food in the forest. So while I DON'T believe in altruism, I DO believe in rationale cooperation.
If we were to study society, economy, language and technology as a system, then we might see something more interesting that the Darwinian viewpoint presents. For example, the nature of organizational power in human society- what are the feedbacks (if any) that keep an organization from becoming top-heavy, rigid, or ineffective?
As far as your view of radical Islamists- I agree with you that they are operating on an entirely different paradigm, and that our paradigm (which is an essentially materialistic one) represents a threat. Eventually, the system that offers a reasonable living and a predictable future for the most people will prevail.
But my lunch half-hour is up, and I have to finish this later!
TTUL 
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Drakon:
I really hate to barge into a private conversation but the irony is sOOO delicious.
We are not talking about a meritocracy here, where everyone plays by one set of rules. We are talking about a supreame court that has equated money with free speech, and one where the wife of one justice and the son of another worked for the Bush campaign. We are not really talking about Republicans in the John McKain or even the Richard Nixon sense (quirks and 5 Oclock shadow aside, Nixon was a brillent, decent, individual). We are talking about a government of kleptrocacy and cronyism.
You write
"There are those out there who think differently, believe, and have faith in their beliefs that is radically different from mine. That some are put on this planet to rule others, make decrees, and the rest are simply cannon fodder or toys for the elite to play with. Some see democracy as a clear and present danger to their very ideals, attitudes, and identities as the elite, or God's chosen few. And are willing to kill, rape, steal, do whatever it takes (or rather send others to do whatever it takes) regardless."
There is a class, who has just this attitude and whenever they are in power they change the rules to fleece the rubes. They call themselves Republican but Teddy Roosevelt and would shoot them and Abe Lincoln would prosecute. Their religion is greed. Remember the "Savings and Loan" mess during the Regean administration?
The Savings and Loans were undercapitalized?
They had changed Savings and Loan capitalization ratio requirement and with the stroke of a pen the S&Ls were undercapitalized.
(The capitalization ratio is the ratio of the value of the stock to the loans outstanding) They gave the S&Ls 6 months to raise more capitol, when it takes a year to do an S1 filing to sell stock, so the only way that S&Ls could balance the books was to sell junk bonds or call in loans. The result was that a lot of people lost all their equity, S&Ls were put under, assets were sold at 10 cents on the dollar, David Stockman (Regean's budget director) became a billionaire buying up the assets of the newly bankrupt, and you and I paid for a bailout.
And then there is the hostile takeover, leveraged buyout thing. Before Regean it was illegal to borrow money against the value of a company to buy the stock. We are the only country that allows that.
I worked for a company that was one member of five companies that was owned by a parent company.
We had no debt, 2300 employees, a R&D fund of 50 million, a fully funded retirement plan, a square mile of land near John Wayne Airport in Orange County and a stock price of $30 a share and a shop floor rate of $50 an hour.
That was before the buyout.
The stock price went up North of $100 pre share. The buyer used our R&D fund to pay the interest payment on the money borrowed from Coalberg Kravis, Roberts to make the tender offer. Our shop floor rate went to $300.00 an hour; we lost most of our contracts, everyone buy 70 employees were laid off. They bought the umbrella company for 260 million, sold off our property, took the R&D fund, took a tax write-off for depreciation against us of something like 100 million and then sold our single company for 260 million, and destroyed 2230 jobs in the process.
There are some people for whome 100 million dollars is not enough for them not to begruge milk money for children.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think I understand where you are coming from. I think you would say that it is individuals acting in their own best interest that drive society forward. That those who desire wealth or power have beneficial (if unintended) effects: they put together the money, effort, etc to create the factories, maintain internal order and defend us from harm. That there are others who live by an entirely different paradigm, and that the two paradigms are mutually exclusive, they are an immediate and irreconcilable threat to each other.
Bingo. There is no middle ground between life and death, between existence and non-existence. We want to live, to exist. They want us dead.
And yes, the rich have their function. That is the cool thing about capitalism, and what demostrates the potential of humanity. Everyone acting in their own selfish interests ends up having a net benefitical effect for everyone, whether it is intended or not is beside the point.
Some political theories have postulated that if only mankind was different, more altruistic, things would be better. But capitalism makes use of mankind as he is, uses that "evil selfishness" in a way that ends up benefitical to more folks than altruism ever could.
Quote:
BUT.... there are some (many) instances where we can get farther collectively/ socially than individually. The economy is not a group of individuals acting individually, it's a system that is capable of more than the sum of individual capabilities.
This is only sort of true. And this gets kind of deep philosophical territory here. You see, a society is, well, a figment of the imagination.
The best analogy I can think of has to do with evolution. We talk about "species evolving". But that brief phrase is a shorthand for the complex and myriad interactions of individual members of the species, that result in their individual success or failure, their survival to reproduce, or their early deaths.
When a population of individuals with one set of characteristics competes against another population with slightly different characteristics, generally speaking, the more apt survive, multiply and reproduce. The less able do not reproduce as much, and so you get a population shift. Before their were a large number with one set of characteristics. Later, the majority population has a different set.
That is the long hand meaning of the phrase, "species evolve".
The same is true with economic systems. The system is nothing more than a mental construct, with no reality apart from the real individuals who make up the system. Remove the system, the individual will still remain and find other ways of operating. But remove the individual, the system dissapears along with them.
Quote:
"Wealth of Nations" did a fine job talking about competition, but it left out the real driving force of human advancement which is cooperation- the division of labor, the ability to interact socially (humans are a social species not a solitary one), the ability to share ideas and create new ones- these are what lift us out of the individual grubbing for food in the forest. So while I DON'T believe in altruism, I DO believe in rationale cooperation.
Okay, now how do you achieve this cooperation? Do you coerce others to cooperate, regardless of cost to them? Or do you make it worth their while and let them decide for themselves whether to join or not. And live with their decision regardless?
Quote:
If we were to study society, economy, language and technology as a system, then we might see something more interesting that the Darwinian viewpoint presents. For example, the nature of organizational power in human society- what are the feedbacks (if any) that keep an organization from becoming top-heavy, rigid, or ineffective?
Grin, exactly. What is a feedback loop exactly? Its an information loop, information is transferred from one point on the individual's decision loop to another. We see reality, compare our sensory inpu
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As this is a public forum, barge right in.
I don't want to get into the 2000 election too much. I find it strange that two different groups can live through the exact same historical incident, and come away with two completely different (and mutually exclusive) views of the same thing. Besides its ancient history, and we have to deal with reality as it is today.
I disagree very strongly with your views that we are living under a kleptocracy. Other than the appointment of friends whom the President trusts, I don't see where you get the cryonism either. Would you prefer that only those who despised and hated the President and his policies be appointed?
The Savings and Loan problems was more bi-partisan than you seem to allow. Both sides of the aisle thought that those changes would work. They didn't, which is obvious. And not knowing anything about your particular situation, it makes it difficult for me to briefly comment on it. Heck its tough enough for me to be brief.
But you do have what appears to be an inaccurate model of both Republicans and greed in general. Look, greed is an evolutionary benefitical trait in humans. While it can lead to detrimental excesses, try imagining a world where no one was trying to get ahead, get more, make a profit. Things would end up in a static situation, technical advancement would grind to a standstill. Heck if things were only good enough, why bother working harder for more?
And again it comes to coerced altruism or allowing people to use their naturally and evolutionarily derived selfish impulses for the betterment of all. The closing of the business may have been tramatic, but you survived. You are working elsewhere, still providing something of value to your employer, your customer. And I would guess so did all your co-workers. Things change, and one either adapts to those changes or ceases to exist.
What you are essentially arguing for is statis. In the real world statis does not exist. Especially in anything that comes in contact with any biological entity, including people. The very definition, the essense of life is change. Statis is essentially equvalent to death. Businesses, like people, and other organic things, are born, live and sometimes die out.
"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"
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I've heard that Bush prays in bed, is that true?
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Quote:
Originally posted by Succatash:
I've heard that Bush prays in bed, is that true?
so would I, if I was him.
Keep Flying!
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"Some political theories have postulated that if only mankind was different, more altruistic, things would be better. But capitalism makes use of mankind as he is, uses that "evil selfishness" in a way that ends up benefitical to more folks than altruism ever could."
However, one other feature that consistently comes up in human behavior is cooperation, in one form or another. For example, while most people look at war as form human aggression, it is mostly a form of human cooperation- how else do you get people to give up their lives en masse? If humans didn't have the capacity to cooperate, our children would never have survived their extraordinarily long dependent state. (dependent= to hang from. Children must be carried through their first year of life.) In fact, it's that cooperation that prevents the total individualism and rationality required by capitalist theory.
"This is only sort of true. And this gets kind of deep philosophical territory here. You see, a society is, well, a figment of the imagination.
The best analogy I can think of has to do with evolution. We talk about "species evolving". ...The less able do not reproduce as much, and so you get a population shift.... That is the long hand meaning of the phrase, "species evolve"."
Yes and but...
Society is partly our ideas about how things should work, and partly our technological and language inheritance. Societies evolve, but not just by the survival of their individual members. The religion that discovered conversion did a lot better than the religion that was based on inheritance.
"The same is true with economic systems. The system is nothing more than a mental construct, with no reality apart from the real individuals who make up the system. Remove the system, the individual will still remain and find other ways of operating. But remove the individual, the system dissapears along with them."
The system has it's own life, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it's survival. The closest analogy I can think of is the body. While it's true that the body would disappear if the cells disappeared, no one would argue that the body is a figment of the imagination, or that one arrangement of cells (the hydra) is equivalent to another arrangement of cells (the human). To get really rarified about the whole concept, you can even postulate a whole ecosystem of systems. In that case, by analogy the survivability of a diverse ecosystem of systems is pitted against the efficiency of a monoculture. But I digress.
"Okay, now how do you achieve this cooperation? Do you coerce others to cooperate, regardless of cost to them? Or do you make it worth their while and let them decide for themselves whether to join or not. And live with their decision regardless?"
As I said before, you don't have to coerce people to cooperate, it's in our nature, just like competition. The only question is the rules of cooperation, which are socially defined.
"Grin, exactly. What is a feedback loop exactly? Its an information loop, information is transferred from one point on the individual's decision loop to another. We see reality, compare our sensory input to what we desire it to be, take action (in accordance with our mental model that hopefully predicts how our action will alter that external reality) and observe the consequences. And the cycle keeps going and going.
In free market economics, money serves as that information loop, that feedback path."
Again yes, yes, and but...
First a minor quibble- I'm not sure we see reality. We see part of reality, but there are large parts of reality that we filter out or are incapable of perceiving. So what we "see" is already highly mediated by our ideas and capabilites. But I know what you mean, so moving on...
I'm going to have to get real ethereal here, because I haven't fully thought out these ideas...
The history of successful systems (those that manage to overtake other systems on contact) seems to be that they reach a pinnacle of heirarchy and fall apart. I'm trying to understand this
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
"Some political theories have postulated that if only mankind was different, more altruistic, things would be better. But capitalism makes use of mankind as he is, uses that "evil selfishness" in a way that ends up benefitical to more folks than altruism ever could."
However, one other feature that consistently comes up in human behavior is cooperation, in one form or another. For example, while most people look at war as form human aggression, it is mostly a form of human cooperation- how else do you get people to give up their lives en masse? If humans didn't have the capacity to cooperate, our children would never have survived their extraordinarily long dependent state. (dependent= to hang from. Children must be carried through their first year of life.) In fact, it's that cooperation that prevents the total individualism and rationality required by capitalist theory.
Umm... I think we are talking past each other here. Individualism, or selfishness does not preclude cooperation. It precludes cooperation by force, (or fraud) or in cases when it is not benefitical to all parties involved. That is the key there.
Again one can either persuade others to join in with you, for a common goal. Or you can put the knife to their throat and force them (or alternately you can lie to them.)
Persuasion will fail, usually unless there is a benefit to be had by those other folks. And the backlash from fraud can be detrimental to you, and your future attempts at persuasion. Force is generally a bad idea, unless the issue is a matter of life or death and the other side cannot be talked out of them killing you.
Quote:
Yes, and but...
Society is partly our ideas about how things should work, and the partly our technological and language inheritance.
Societies evolve, but not just by the survival of their individual members. The religion that discovered conversion did a lot better than the religion that was based on inheritance.
Are you familiar with memetic evolution, the theory of how ideas evolve in a society? Genetic evolution follows Darwinian lines, yet memetic evolution follows LeMarkian lines. The essential difference is whether the idea can be re-written on the fly and the new change transmuted through the culture. While mice who have their tails cut off will still breed tailed mice, an idea can be changed and permeate a culture far faster.
And yes, societies do evolve based on the lives and happiness of their individual members. This is the whole reason for forming the groupings to begin with, is for the improvement of the lives and happiness of the individual members. There is no group, except as an idea. The individual members cannot, nor should not be forgotten.
But you do have a good point here about evangelical religions having a natural advantage over inherited or blood related ones. But its not always an either/or situation. We can really get boring on the subject of Dispora and how that been successful and has actually been benefitical to both Christians and Jews alike. (Or Malay and Chinese too, as similar situation exists in the Far East)
Quote:
The system has it's own life, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it's survival. The closest analogy I can think of is the body. While it's true that the body would disappear if the cells disappeared, no one would argue that the body is a figment of the imagination, or that one arrangement of cells (the hydra) is equivalent to another arrangement of cells (the human). To get really rarified about the whole concept, you can even postulate a whole ecosystem of systems. In that case, by analogy a diverse ecosystem of systems is pitted against the efficiency of a monoculture. But I digress.
But an economic system is not a physical thing. Free market economics do not have a brain, nor are free to choose the way a human is. It makes use of the decision making capabilities and freedom of thought to make those decisions of its individual members.
It does crea
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D
In both the case of the S&Ls and the changes in the legality of Leverage Buyouts, there was no bi-partisan change in legislation.
Changes in the banking legislation did occur some years later, but they had nothing to do with the S&L mess.
Rather there was a change in the interpretation of the law and thus agency regulations. The Republican administrations made a different interpretation of the existing law, and changed the rules.
When you elect a President, you actually elect his 7000 political appointees who head the rule making bodies. Congress makes laws and the Agencies carry out the rules. The laws did not change the rules changed.
Your postulate:
If the son of a rich man inherits his wealth, what does he do? He has the same choice as everyone else, produce or die. He can spend into his inheritance, but once its spent, its gone. Unless he is creating wealth, value, he will not get anything back and his wealth will wither until it is all gone. He cannot use force or fraud to get more; he can't steal, (in free markets) so eventually he dies out.
You speak in broad generalities while avoiding specific examples or substance.
But these are sustentative issues. Paradigms lead to beliefs which dictate where the money goes and who produces what, which in turn dictates to who will have a job and, do well, who will have a job and go to bed hungry, and who sleeps on silk sheets.
"He cannot use force, fraud and can not steal."
You are extremely intelligent so you know that there are manipulations which amount to the same thing but are much more subtle than that.
How about an interest free loan, which is then forgiven?
I did not know that these things (interest free loans that are then forgiven) existed until I was looking into the finances of a Republican congressional candidate in California.
The man had started a bank with his brothers. Then had each put up 20,000.00 and then had sold 10 million of stock in the bank. So essentially they paid for the business plan, filing and listing fees, and created a business that had not existed before. The bank had 50 million dollars in deposits and 250,000,000 in loans outstanding.
He became a director of the bank and received a salary of 300,000,000 a year.
Among the loans made by the bank (and this is when the commercial interest rate was north of 12%), were several loans large loans made to his businesses at 3%, and 16 months before he ran successfully for congress, the bank made him a loan of over a million (don't remember if it was 1,or 2 now, been a while) which was forgiven a little over a year before he decided to run for congress.
When I asked the Banking Commission about the legality of this, they told me that it was not unusual. So basically he took a couple of million from his bank to run for congress before the campaign reporting horizon, and under the rules of the Banking Commission
Rules this was judged to be legal. Weather this is considered legal or not depends on the administration in power. Another person with different politics might try it and get an entirely different ruling, and that bothers me a lot.
You apparently simplify this to a contest between the haves and the have-nots. Between Republicans and Democrats.
It is not a Democrat vs. Republican thing.
It is a Kelptocracy vs. all of us thing.
You constantly divide things into two groups, so try this.
Fair consistent rules for everyone, value and jobs created Vs kelptocracic manipulation of rules to allow cronies to get rich while businesses are ruined.
My grandpa always said that you have to take care of your people and you livestock.
The new kleptocrats have no idea of the concept.
The Puritans arrived and then there went the neighborhood.
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