Thursday, July 12, 2012

Primary Challenge of Humanity


Is the primary challenge of humanity the basic circular information flow of evolution >increasing complexity > adaptability > innovation > scalability > increasing complexity >...?

If so, what obstructs that flow, and how can the obstructions be lifted?

25 comments:

Major_Freedom said...

Primary challenge of humanity? What about your primary challenges, and my primary challenges, and every other individual's primary challenges?

If so, what obstructs that flow, and how can the obstructions be lifted?

One thing and one thing only: Initiating physical force that prevents individuals from using their reason to solve problems, and thus obstructs increasing complexity that is derived in the division of labor.

Street thugs, abusive bullies at schools, abusive parents at home, and, most prevalent in our society, violent statesmen, anyone and everyone who initiates force against person and material property.

For example, violence backed monopoly control over a fiat money printing press, the output of which is mandatory in taxes, severely impairs and hampers market participants from coordinating their behavior in the incredibly complex division of labor. As such, central banking obstructs the flow of market-based information, and thus obstructs productive activity, and thus obstructs adaptability and innovation to the extent it is related to productive activity.

Humanity doesn't act. Individual people act. There are no challenges to "humanity" apart from challenges to individuals, who by the way are constantly changing in terms of knowledge and actions.

JK said...

Major Freedom,

It seems the people around here are approaching issues from a macro, or systems, perspective. Do you see any value in that? Or is your entire perspective: free the human from violence (of all kinds) and all will be well?

P.S. I've enjoyed your commentary since you switched from being unconstructively criticial to constructively critical. That's what I like to see.

Major_Freedom said...

JK:

It seems the people around here are approaching issues from a macro, or systems, perspective. Do you see any value in that?

Well, I do not hold causality to be from "systems" to individuals, but rather from individuals to "systems."

This chapter from HA, is a good overall explanation:

http://mises.org/humanaction/chap2sec4.asp

Or is your entire perspective: free the human from violence (of all kinds) and all will be well?

Do you think that you would be all well if everyone, forever after, ceased initiating violence against you, such that you could do whatever you wanted, with whoever you wanted, provided of course that what is true for you (no violence against you) is true for others (you do no violence to them)?

For a species like humanity, our characteristic tool is our ability to reason. If our reason is given free reign, then how can anything else be optimal to that for human society?

P.S. I've enjoyed your commentary since you switched from being unconstructively criticial to constructively critical. That's what I like to see.

It's because I have received more constructive responses instead of unconstructive antagonism. There are still a few here who would rather engage in ad hominem all the time, but it's getting better.

Major_Freedom said...

This chapter on a critique of the holistic and metaphysical view of society is also good:

http://mises.org/humanaction/chap8sec2.asp

Major_Freedom said...

"According to the doctrines of universalism, conceptual realism, holism, collectivism, and some representatives of Gestaltpsychologie, society is an entity living its own life, independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals, acting on its own behalf and aiming at its own ends which are different from the ends sought by the individuals. Then, of course, an antagonism between the aims of society and those of its members can emerge. In order to safeguard the flowering and further development of society it becomes necessary to master the selfishness of the individuals and to compel them to sacrifice their egoistic designs to the benefit of society. At this point all these holistic doctrines are bound to abandon the secular methods of human science and logical reasoning and to shift to theological or metaphysical professions of faith. They must assume that Providence, through its prophets, apostles, and charismatic leaders, forces men who are constitutionally wicked, i.e., prone to pursue their own ends, to walk in the ways of righteousness which the Lord or Weltgeist or history wants them to walk."

"This is the philosophy which has characterized from time immemorial [p. 146] the creeds of primitive tribes. It has been an element in all religious teachings. Man is bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power and to obey the authorities which this power has entrusted with the enforcement of the law. The order created by this law, human society, is consequently the work of the Deity and not of man. If the Lord had not interfered and had not given enlightenment to erring mankind, society would not have come into existence. It is true that social cooperation is a blessing for man; it is true that man could work his way up from barbarism and the moral and material distress of his primitive state only within the framework of society. However, if left alone he would never have seen the road to his own salvation. For adjustment to the requirements of social cooperation and subordination to the precepts of the moral law put heavy restraints upon him. From the point of view of his wretched intellect he would deem the abandonment of some expected advantage an evil and a privation. He would fail to recognize the incomparably greater, but later, advantages which renunciation of present and visible pleasures will procure. But for supernatural revelation he would never have learned what destiny wants him to do for his own good and that of his offspring." - pg 145

Major_Freedom said...

"The scientific theory as developed by the social philosophy of eighteenth-century rationalism and liberalism and by modern economics does not resort to any miraculous interference of superhuman powers. Every step by which an individual substitutes concerted action for isolated action results in an immediate and recognizable improvement in his conditions. The advantages derived from peaceful cooperation and division of labor are universal. They immediately benefit every generation, and not only later descendants. For what the individual must sacrifice for the sake of society he is amply compensated by greater advantages. His sacrifice is only apparent and temporary; he foregoes a smaller gain in order to reap a greater one later. No reasonable being can fail to see this obvious fact. When social cooperation is intensified by enlarging the field in which there is division of labor or when legal protection and the safeguarding of peace are strengthened, the incentive is the desire of all those concerned to improve their own conditions. In striving after his own?--rightly understood?--interests the individual works toward an intensification of social cooperation and peaceful intercourse. Society is a product of human action, i.e., the human urge to remove uneasiness as far as possible. In order to explain its becoming and its evolution it is not necessary to have recourse to a doctrine, certainly offensive to a truly religious mind, according to which the original creation was so defective [p. 147] that reiterated superhuman intervention is needed to prevent its failure."

Tom Hickey said...

MF : According to the doctrines of universalism, conceptual realism, holism, collectivism, and some representatives of Gestaltpsychologie, society is an entity living its own life, independent of and separate from the lives of the various individuals, acting on its own behalf and aiming at its own ends which are different from the ends sought by the individuals.

That's just bonkers. Not worth addressing.

Jeff65 said...

MF said:
"One thing and one thing only: Initiating physical force that prevents individuals from using their reason to solve problems"

I might agree with this as reasonable, but this can only work in the real world if it is inclusive. It is not inclusive if all resources are owned and new entrants to the economy have the choice of acquiring resources by working for those that own them or starving to death.

That is coercion.

jrbarch said...

My 2/- worth, swept away on the digital torrent:

Sat << Chit >> Anand

Truth << Consciousness >> Bliss

When the human being becomes conscious of the reality within, fulfillment (purpose) is complete; in that moment - everything makes sense; there are more answers than questions. In each moment is an infinite depth.

It's a feeling; an experience. The human being the door. One must practice every day, diving in the ocean, if you want to get wet and stay wet!

The world is a noisy place; plenty of distractions - like a big carnival.

We are feeling machines. Thinking is just for driving a car (with eyes shut according to the newspapers).

The obstruction is thinking (ego, lust, anger etc - well documented). You can't stop the mind. You can't use the mind to understand Sat! The proper tool is the human heart! When the heart is ready ..... trust your heart; it has never ever let you down. From the heart arises the thirst to know. The mind is curious.

Going within, the inner universe begins to glow: the mind goes silent but is always there; the heart is very happy.

Kabir laughed and laughed about all of this!

We just have to learn how to drive consciously on the outside; realising the destination is actually within.

What is the purpose of a human being?

Tom Hickey said...

@ jrbarch

Well said.

What is the purpose of a human being?

The purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life and that requires going beyond purpose.

reslez said...

Inreasing complexity requires information flow to orient and act. As population swells into the billions our civilization has become more complex and requires ever more coordination. Yet the twin evils of marketing and propaganda pollute that information flow.

Thus, the rat elite who keep the public stupified and stupid to make them easier to control will ultimately destroy our civilization.

Matt Franko said...

MF: ""This is the philosophy which has characterized from time immemorial [p. 146] the creeds of primitive tribes. It has been an element in all religious teachings. Man is bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power and to obey the authorities which this power has entrusted with the enforcement of the law. "

This is certainly NOT what the Hebrew and Greek scriptures depict. The philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans were certainly NOT founded upon any sort of knowledge of God, they deified their human ancestors and looked at MAN and HUMAN reason as the measure of all things.

They were without God in the world until the Apostle Paul introduced them to God in the first century. Until this time, God would not reveal Himself to them.

Here is Paul from the book of Acts in Athens, on the Aereopagus making the first introduction of God to the Greco-Roman nations:

"22 Now Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus averred, "Men! Athenians! On all sides am I beholding how unusually religious you are.
23 For, passing through and contemplating the objects of your veneration, I found a pedestal also, on which had been inscribed, 'To an Unknowable God.' To Whom then, you are ignorantly devout, This One am I announcing to you.
24 The God Who makes the world and all that is in it, He, the Lord inherent of heaven and earth, is not dwelling in temples made by hands,
25 neither is He attended by human hands, as if requiring anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all.
26 Besides, He makes out of one every nation of mankind, to be dwelling on all the surface of the earth, specifying the setting of the seasons and the bounds of their dwelling, for them to be seeking God, if, consequently,
27 they may surely grope for Him and may be finding Him, though to be sure, not far from each one of us is He inherent,
28 for in Him we are living and moving and are, as some poets of yours also have declared, 'For of that race also are we.'
29 The race, then, is inherently of God; we ought not to be inferring that the Divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, a sculpture of art and human sentiment."

He was "unknowable" (the scriptural term) to them until this time.

So this guy is making all of this up that somehow since "time immemorial" the human was "bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power", that's BS. Only the house of Israel was ever under such a set of laws. And NO ONE is now.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, were on their own, without God, and had to try to figure this out by themselves using ONLY HUMAN REASON to guide them (good luck with that! that as we can see presently leads you to moronville statements like: "we're out of money").

This ALL changed in the first century when Paul went to "the nations" with the evangel (good news) of the grace of God for the nations.

This is revisionist history here with this "time immemorial" and laws of a superhuman power stuff.

rsp,

Septeus7 said...

Quote from Major Slavery: "Initiating physical force that prevents individuals from using their reason to solve problems, and thus obstructs increasing complexity that is derived in the division of labor."

Prove it. You have no evidence that certain kinds of coercion makes people unable to be creative. In fact the private workplace, people are coerced into production all the time according to the their human rental contracts but you seem to think that is perfectly fine.

By claiming that utopian society free of coercion is possible you have the burden of evidence. What evidence do you have that lack of coercion is not only possible but optimal?

You have no evidence nor can you ever have any such evidence for the idea is not possible.

What is this about only physical force? Social and mental constructs play no role in the obstruction of the use of reason? Ridiculous.

There is no such thing as violence against property. Property is a thing not a person. Force destroying property is actually violence against the holder of property. However, property is force against all others by definition in that it defined as monopoly force of use and disposal.

Quote: "Violence backed monopoly control over a fiat money printing press, the output of which is mandatory in taxes, severely impairs and hampers market participants from coordinating their behavior in the incredibly complex division of labor."

That is exactly why I oppose a gold standard. So much better to have a voluntary national credit system like MMT. I don't have to use public services but when I do then government sometimes takes back it's IOUs it had given to voluntary private production in the private economy who I then earn my dollars from.

My grocery store does the same thing with coupons but I don't see Major Slavery running around claiming that being forced to return coupons to the monopoly issuer is slavery to the grocer.

Quote: "Humanity doesn't act. Individual people act."

Wrong Idiot! Neither Humanity or nors Individual act. There is not such thing as an unbalance force or action.

Reaction is not action as reaction is determined according to context and history whereas action is is a concept related to the antiphysical and metaphysical concept of libertarian free will which physical science has disproven empirically.

Individuals react and humanity reacts to them changing the individual future actions as holons in a network. There is no dichotomy of action nature only the simultaneity of reactions.

Quote: ""The scientific theory as developed by the social philosophy of eighteenth-century rationalism and liberalism and by modern economics does not resort to any miraculous interference of superhuman powers."

BS. Total BS. Not true in any sense at all. The principle of physicality is rooted in Cusian Universality and that is the basis of the scientific revolution starting with Kelper who mocked your Aristotelian ideas.

Tom Hickey is a trained philosopher of Science which why he isn't even going to respond to your peripatetic idiocy.

Leverage said...

I don't get it.

There is no 'individual' without language. Language is a creation of 'society', it only makes sense in an environment where organisms have to coordinate.

Indeed language has been evolving since first life appeared in the Earth constantly. Evolution is precisely a fight against entropy through coordination (language).

How does make any sense this ultra-individualist 'freedom' ideology in a context where the own idealistic constructs emanate precisely from social purpose evolutionary tools. It's moronic, completely. It does not only ignore current established science, it also ignores logic! (See how most of this anarcho-capitalistic ideologies ignore basic logic reasoning, praexology even is an insult to logic.)

Then you have all this 'freedom' and 'property' chit-chat. First how is that the very own freedom and property cannot be 'originators' of coercion and violence?

It looks like that if you invent a random rule to limit freedom (not physical violence) you can overcome any sort of violence. But this does not happen in the real world, where in daily basis you can see how force in the form of property is used to coerce other human beings.

Hell, this was the first reason white Europeans started to migrate to North America (just to 'steal' property). OFC in an ideal world where everybody could claim some piece of resources (of SAME value, this is, with same potential) for itself it wouldn't be a problem. But this would even negate the necessity for the current established system of property (at least to a big degree), in such an abundant ideal world.

Frank said...

The ersatz new-agey esoterism that is starting to proliferate on the blog comments is really nauseating.

Anonymous said...

The main problem facing humanity is that the world is turning into a business--corporate run business, therefore a world in which humanity is essentially an ant heap--and even so, much of it is increasingly largely irrelevant or dispensable or even a nuisance. God help us.

Major_Freedom said...

Tom Hickey:

That's just bonkers. Not worth addressing.

Bear in mind that the lack of addressing it does not constitute an argument against it.

Jeff65:

"One thing and one thing only: Initiating physical force that prevents individuals from using their reason to solve problems"

I might agree with this as reasonable, but this can only work in the real world if it is inclusive. It is not inclusive if all resources are owned and new entrants to the economy have the choice of acquiring resources by working for those that own them or starving to death.

That is coercion.

The choice to live, which has the necessary requirement of eating, which itself requires labor and productive activity, is the same for all individuals whether they are alone in the world, or born into a world where everything is privately owned. If a person is born into a world where everything is not privately owned, or in a world where nothing is privately owned, labor is necessary to sustain this person's life. If it's not that person, then it will be someone else who has to perform labor for their benefit.

Thus, the claim that it is "coercive" if one has to perform productive activity to support themselves in a world where everything is privately owned, is literally like saying freedom is slavery.

Why would anything be different in terms of the requirements of life, if one were to perform productive activity that earns a wage instead of performing productive activity to farm one's own food? In both cases one has to do something if one wants to eat. Why is it coercive if one has to work to earn a wage instead having to work on one's own farm? In both cases you MUST perform productive activity if you're going to live.

Is it really so bad to have to work for someone, instead of working for oneself? Obviously many people who work for others have the option to work for themselves, but they choose not to, because they can earn more working for others than they can earn working for themselves.

In other words, in terms of material prosperity, it is better for a person to be born into a world fully privatized by separate owners, than he would be in a world with a single collective ownership. In a world with a single collective ownership, his life would represent a burden on others, because he would be "another mouth to feed." In a fully privatized world, his life would represent a boon to others, because he would be "another producer who earns what he consumes by being productive."

Being born does not automatically give them the right to consume what others have produced. A person born into a world that is fully owned by others, is not "coerced" into working. They'd have to work whether anyone is there or not, if they want to live.

For me, I'd rather be born into a world with as many private land owners as possible, because then the chances of me producing what I want becomes so much more possible, as there would be so many more options to trade. If on the other hand I was born into a socialist world, where everything is owned by large collectives, then my options would be drastically reduced. Instead of having to convince only one person among many to trade with me, I'd have to convince entire populations of people to trade with me.

Major_Freedom said...

reslez:

Inreasing complexity requires information flow to orient and act. As population swells into the billions our civilization has become more complex and requires ever more coordination.

Increasing complexity makes central economic planning less and less effective, and decentralized coordination more and more effective. As populations swell to billions, each individual knows less and less relative to the whole, which of course would make them less and less effective at centrally planning and coordinating the entire population.

Yet the twin evils of marketing and propaganda pollute that information flow.

Yet it didn't "pollute" you now did it? No, you leave yourself an escape hatch.

Thus, the rat elite who keep the public stupified and stupid to make them easier to control will ultimately destroy our civilization.

The "rat elite" are the very central coordinators you are claiming is needed as the world becomes more complex.

-----

More responses later...

Major_Freedom said...

Matt Franko:

MF: "This is the philosophy which has characterized from time immemorial [p. 146] the creeds of primitive tribes. It has been an element in all religious teachings. Man is bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power and to obey the authorities which this power has entrusted with the enforcement of the law."

This is certainly NOT what the Hebrew and Greek scriptures depict.

It most certainly is.

The philosophies of the ancient Greeks and Romans were certainly NOT founded upon any sort of knowledge of God, they deified their human ancestors and looked at MAN and HUMAN reason as the measure of all things.

False. Both the ancient Greeks and Romans invoked Gods.

They were without God in the world until the Apostle Paul introduced them to God in the first century.

False. Greek mythology predates the 1st century.

Until this time, God would not reveal Himself to them.

Zeus was claimed by the Greeks to have revealed himself. Saturn was claimed by the Romans to have revealed himself.

He was "unknowable" (the scriptural term) to them until this time.

False. Theists claimed to know Gods prior.

So this guy is making all of this up that somehow since "time immemorial" the human was "bound to comply with the law issued by a superhuman power", that's BS.

No, it's true.

Only the house of Israel was ever under such a set of laws. And NO ONE is now.

False. In both ancient Greece and Rome, the people believed themselves under the law of Gods.

The ancient Greeks and Romans, were on their own, without God, and had to try to figure this out by themselves using ONLY HUMAN REASON to guide them (good luck with that! that as we can see presently leads you to moronville statements like: "we're out of money").

False. They were not without Gods. They both worshiped Gods and held that Gods were all powerful and that man was bound to the Gods' laws.

This ALL changed in the first century when Paul went to "the nations" with the evangel (good news) of the grace of God for the nations.

False. Paul just introduced another one among many Gods. After Paul, Mohammed introduced Allah, and the Hindus introduced Vishnu.

Prior to Paul, Zeus and Saturn were considere Gods.

This is revisionist history here with this "time immemorial" and laws of a superhuman power stuff.

False. It's actual history.

rsp

What does this mean? You keep ending your posts with it.

Major_Freedom said...

Septeus7

"Initiating physical force that prevents individuals from using their reason to solve problems, and thus obstructs increasing complexity that is derived in the division of labor."

Prove it.

Reason is what guides human action. By using force against people, you prevent them from using their reason to guide their bodies.

You have no evidence that certain kinds of coercion makes people unable to be creative.

The evidence is overwhelming. The greatest innovation occurs in freer countries, that is, in countries with more economic freedom, that is, in countries with less systematic coercion from the state. In countries with less economic freedom, with more systematic coercion from the state, there is less innovation.

You are more creative if you are free to act unmolested. If I make you my slave, your creativity will be seriously undermined, because you have to obey me instead of using your creative reason.

In fact the private workplace, people are coerced into production all the time according to the their human rental contracts but you seem to think that is perfectly fine.

False. People are free to leave their employments. Wage earners who leave their jobs are not going to be threatened by violence from those they are voluntarily trading with.

By claiming that utopian society free of coercion is possible you have the burden of evidence.

I didn't claim totally free societies exist.

What evidence do you have that lack of coercion is not only possible but optimal?

Economic logic and empirical history. Where does most innovation take place? It's not in North Korea, it's in countries with some economic freedom.

You have no evidence nor can you ever have any such evidence for the idea is not possible.

False. There is evidence, you just don't understand it as such.

What is this about only physical force? Social and mental constructs play no role in the obstruction of the use of reason?

Social and mental constructs? Social constructs obstruct reason to the extent they are based on initiations of force. Mental constructs are not obstructions to reason to the extent they are voluntary.

Ridiculous.

Why?

There is no such thing as violence against property. Property is a thing not a person. Force destroying property is actually violence against the holder of property.

Semantics.

Major_Freedom said...

Septeus7:

However, property is force against all others by definition in that it defined as monopoly force of use and disposal.

False. Property is not force against others. Property is inherent in human action itself. Calling property force is like calling all human action force, which makes it meaningless, because force is usually meant to be distinguished from voluntary human action.

When private property owners voluntarily trade, they are not using force, so you can't say property is force.

Defensive force must be distinguished from aggressive force.

Quote: "Violence backed monopoly control over a fiat money printing press, the output of which is mandatory in taxes, severely impairs and hampers market participants from coordinating their behavior in the incredibly complex division of labor."

That is exactly why I oppose a gold standard.

You oppose the gold standard because of violence backed monopoly control over a fiat money printing press? That makes no sense.

My statement concerned fiat money. If you oppose a mandatory gold for the reasons above (which by the way is false), then you must logically oppose mandatory fiat money, indeed all mandatory money.

So much better to have a voluntary national credit system like MMT.

MMT isn't a voluntary credit system you idiot. MMT is a theory about the involuntary, violence backed state monopoly control of a fiat money standard.

I don't have to use public services but when I do then government sometimes takes back it's IOUs it had given to voluntary private production in the private economy who I then earn my dollars from.

False. You have to pay those "IOUs" whether you "use" the government's "public services" or not. Don't have any kids? F you, you shall pay for public schools. Don't use public roads? F you, you shall pay for the roads. Don't want to use the public courts? F you, you shall pay for those courts. Don't want to use public police? F you, you shall pay for those police. Don't use the drones that kill families in the middle east? F you, you shall pay for those drones. Don't want to throw people into prison for smoking a jay? F you, you shall pay for those prisons.

Your notion that you pay because you chose to "use" the state's "services", as if your payment is contingent upon your choice, is ludicrous on its face. You have a massive case of cognitive dissonance.

My grocery store does the same thing with coupons but I don't see Major Slavery running around claiming that being forced to return coupons to the monopoly issuer is slavery to the grocer.

False. The grocery store owners don't throw you into a cage if you don't deal with them and don't pay them. If you don't pay the state, you will end up in a cage, even if you didn't attempt to use any "services" at all.

Quote: "Humanity doesn't act. Individual people act."

Wrong Idiot!

It's actually quite correct.

If individuals don't act, then who or what is responsible for your response, and prove why it and not you are the originator.

Major_Freedom said...

Septeus7:


Neither Humanity or nors Individual act.

If individuals don't act, then I cannot take your response as intending to mean anything. I should just take it as meaningless symbols.

There is not such thing as an unbalance force or action.

For humans, it is a logically necessary component in our nature as actors. Even telling me there is no such thing as action, must itself be understood as an action or else I cannot consider you to be intending to convince me of anything.

Reaction is not action as reaction is determined according to context and history whereas action is is a concept related to the antiphysical and metaphysical concept of libertarian free will which physical science has disproven empirically.

False. If reaction is determined according to context and history, then must have taken action to learn such a thing is true.

Action has not been empirically falsified. Even the researchers themselves must admit that what they are learning is a priori unpredictable. For if they knew the outcome of research, then there would be no reason to research in the first place.

Individuals react and humanity reacts to them changing the individual future actions as holons in a network.

If I am past causally determined, then you cannot possibly approach me in the way you are approaching me, which is telling me I am wrong, as if I made the wrong choices of accepting false doctrines and you are here to change my mind so that it is in line with reality. For if you were right about human behavior, nothing humans ever do can be considered wrong, and there would be no point in you telling me I'm wrong and that my mind should change. You would consider everything I say and so as past causally determined, and you would not treat me as a choosing entity the way you are approaching me now.

There is no dichotomy of action nature only the simultaneity of reactions.

If you are just reacting to something, then I cannot take what you are saying to be true, since the way I am allegedly reacting contradicts the way you are reacting. If we're both past causally determined, then you cannot tell me I am behaving incorrectly, and you certainly cannot expect me to accept what you say as correct, not when the way I think is opposite to the way you think.

Quote: ""The scientific theory as developed by the social philosophy of eighteenth-century rationalism and liberalism and by modern economics does not resort to any miraculous interference of superhuman powers."

The principle of physicality is rooted in Cusian Universality and that is the basis of the scientific revolution starting with Kelper who mocked your Aristotelian ideas.

Aristotle could not been wrong if he is past causally determined.

Mocking is not refutation. Cousin Universality is the "basis" of science? In what way? Cousin was influenced by Kant, who showed the existence of true synthetic propositions.

If science is rooted in Cousin's philosophy, then what is Cousin's philosophy rooted in?

Tom Hickey is a trained philosopher of Science which why he isn't even going to respond to your peripatetic idiocy.

You haven't shown how anything I said is idiotic.

Hickey's knowledge of philosophy of science is, IMO, too superficial for my liking. He is too much of a dabbler and not enough of a deep thinker. He is motivated by an agenda of social control.

Major_Freedom said...

Frank:

The ersatz new-agey esoterism that is starting to proliferate on the blog comments is really nauseating.

This is a non-argument that any fool can say to sound informed.

Major_Freedom said...

Anonymous @
July 13, 2012 2:50 PM


The main problem facing humanity is that the world is turning into a business--corporate run business, therefore a world in which humanity is essentially an ant heap--and even so, much of it is increasingly largely irrelevant or dispensable or even a nuisance. God help us.

The state is a corporation.

It has executives (Executive branch), investors (the taxpayers), a board of directors elected by the investors (Congress), R&D dept (public schools and publicly financed universities), a marketing dept (WH Press secretary, mainstream media), internal audit dept (Budget office), a finance dept (Treasury), a collections dept (IRS), a security dept (police, army), competitors (other states), a territorial target market (country), intelligence and market research dept (FBI), corporate espionage dept (CIA), communications dept (NSA), transportation dept (DofT), logistics dept (FTC), and corporate responsibility dept (Supreme Court).

Major_Freedom said...

Corporations are creations of the state.