Re: Mind's Eye Re: Science and the modern economic plight

Ah arch, you are wallowing in frustration yet again. Kick that black dog in the nads. The metaphorical one and not the happy, frolicking drooling one.  That one you can scratch behind the ears. One day you must come to terms with the simple fact that human beings are irrational and selfish by nature. I hope I get a chance to read that article in the Economist but since I'm well aware of our Statist direction here in the USA it probably won't hold much news for me. (plus I'm lazy and probably inept as well) What makes the current situation easier for me to bear is I'm mostly concerned with only "local" issues. Very local most important and then branching out in importance so that my level of compassion for those in Darfur or Ethiopia and even Syria is near non-existant. I can't be bothered. I'm more worried about improving my lot and believe you me I'm getting a bit tired of hearing all about the troubles around the world on NPR with not NEAR enough attention being payed to our troubles at home. All that said I'm fully aware things are better here in America and even better here locally in the Houston area then they are most other places. Our poor are rich compared to other places. My knowledge of Britain is limited but I would assume it is much the same there. If you're poor and avoid the drugs you can live a pretty decent life and never have to work in our country. I don't see that as possible if we didn't grease the skids for the rich to make more money. The trick is too give the new kids a chance to become rich as well. As you have noted this is becoming less likely due to Statism. The super wealthy are bribing their way to permanent dominance. They do this by influencing regulation. Makes me crazy every time some new regulation that's suposed to "protect the consumer" does nothing of the sort. Lies and more lies. Still looking out for number One here. 

I do wish everyone else well however. Especially you and everyone else on this forum. Cheers all.

dj

-The idea of taking on the burdens of the whole world scare me. We do enough, too much really, already. I don't want a world government and listening to Obama and Mrs. Clinton and pickyourUNdelegate that's what they all want and actively pursue. Speaking of Hillary has anyone else noticed she's looking rather.....medicated lately? Sleeping with Prince Valium perhaps? Oxycotin maybe. Ah well, we all get older and I noticed I look pretty shitty myself lately and all I abuse is caffeine.  

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 11:30 AM, archytas <nwterry@gmail.com> wrote:

What intrigued me when I took science seriously was the way I had to
learn what others were finding, and that. at least after school and
university, I could check on what was going on and marvel in the
complexity and shared language.  It was hard work I can't sustain
now.  Some take science as a clerical  method and sometimes, as Vam
points out, this is true.  I take the method as one of
demystification, something of an anarchist view.  The rest of our
lives are shrouded in mystification.  The current England football
manager has 'earned' over £24 million in the last few years and most
of us seem to think this is OK (and all the bwanking rest), apparently
with no clue on of how this is paid for and who really does the
paying.  The heir apparent is Harry Rednap, who admitted whilst on
trial for tax evasion not done through an offshore bank, that he can't
read, write or use a computer.
Human beings have been 'happy' with all kinds of madness, from the
divine rights of kings to lives dedicated to stone carvings that
required the destruction of their ecosystems (Easter Island).  Most in
the West are so stupid they imagine a world of dynamic individualistic
capitalism when, in fact we are now dominated by State enterprise (see
the Economist at http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/sponsorships/MM150/20120121_state_capitalism.pdf
).  The majority of our populations can't do science (school exams are
facile yet most still can't do them and choose not to).

This problem of a largely ineducable population is crucial in our
democracies.  I don't see any solution in 'philosopher kings' or
'Guardians'.  The essence of the problem is that argument is no good
because most can't hack it.  It entails personal admission of
inferiority that individualism can't allow because it can't give up on
identity or realise this identity is formed as a world-view.  The
lacking ingredient is imagination - to think of throwing oneself off a
cliff and see the flight of a cannonball as a straight line - yet also
the presence of imagination that allows all kinds of brutal facts
about the world to be ignored or rationalised.  In this trance we can
see a disabled family on welfare as a drain on the public purse but
not the soccer manager or bwankster costing us much more (because
somehow hard work justifies the welfare of the rich - even though for
the worker it may just lead to a broken back).

In science I can speculate on whether space structures appearances and
on transfer of our information to planets nearby in information speed
terms (think of the play 'Andromeda')  - in politics it appears to be
as fantastic to wonder of a society free from the grasping rich, or to
see this condition as a failure to understand our biology and the long
history of debt peonage.

On Feb 7, 12:17 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> E = mc2 is the most important upshot of relativity.  Write a 5,000
> word essay.  Well, don't worry too much, someone did one earlier -http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equivME/
>
> This is only one example, outside my sphere of expertise, I can think
> of concerning just how difficult thinking, experiment and proof can
> be.  How different it all is from moroneconomics that makes
> assumptions of standardised human behaviour and outcomes that bless
> the rich.  I wonder what physics would be like if it allowed such
> prejudiced thinking?
>
> When I walk Max I'm rather proud of him - he does his business in our
> backyard and is an all round nice guy.  I can't but notice our
> neighbours have let their dogs foul and that local kids foul with
> litter.  We need quite draconian measures to stop the worst in our
> society levelling everything down to the midden and jungle.  It seems
> reasonable not to expect the best as standard human behaviour.   When
> I look at the stealing going on under the name of economics, politics
> or whatever I get the same feeling.
>
> As a scientist, I realised most people know very little of the
> reasoning and skills involved.  One tries to be charitable and assume
> this is because they don't get the chance, but to be honest I've felt
> for a long time this is more to do with dullardry, ineptitude and
> laziness.  I don't believe the natural human condition is one of hard
> work and animals are not much of a model for this.  The 'busy bee'
> usually isn't and spends more time incumbent.
>
> When one looks at such as the consideration of mass and energy in
> physics, one should wonder on such matters as 'work' in human
> interaction, and how that may 'break down'.  We don't and still  live
> in the Dark Ages.  If I ask for a 5,000 word essay on work motivation,
> 95% of responses from those forced to comply for qualification
> purposes will be a regurgitation of textbooks on Maslow, Hertzberg,
> Lawler and other 'names' (all dross).  The odd student might start in
> such contradiction as that of the wealthy manager sated with money and
> the poor farmer in India saddled with debt.
>
> The content of management textbooks has long been a scandal and the
> only change I've noticed since the 1950s is 'weight and gloss'.  They
> just weigh more these days, glossing over the same old trash  One can
> note the same in legislative documents.  Glass-Steagal was 30-odd
> pages, whereas the 'Facilitation of Bankster Fraud Acts' of modern
> times run to thousands.
>
> What strikes me as a scientist is that questions like what kind of a
> world do we want ourselves and others to live in, what is the work
> needed to do and maintain this and so on is all excluded.  If physics
> was like economics we'd only be able to describe earth, wind, fire and
> water.  All that's come from science in this direction is unwarranted
> abstraction, usually of maths-based 'proof'.
>
> The farce of our system lies in allowing people to get rich and then
> control wealth and politics.  This is obvious.  We rightly worry that
> simply overturning this only produces another set of such 'worthies'
> likely to be worse.  We may even worry that the absence of such
> libidinal wealth opportunity takes away all motivation.  Whatever this
> is about, it's not science.  Unlike science, which you won't be doing
> unless you can demonstrate some competence, general argument assumes
> you have some.  Hearing this, many fear the message is a call to be
> ruled by scientists.  All the scientist really wants is a break from
> superstition.