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And who is going to make that happen? Should we individual resist da guberment or are you suggesting we act collectively against it?
We are going to make it happen. Not in our lifetime, the problem is too large and the intellectual cancer is too big.
The power of ideas, however, is strong enough to get the job done, over time. The Internet will one day be observed to be the invention that turned back the dark forces of collectivism, theonihilism, and bad philosophies.
Our job as todays philosophers is to plant the seeds of Reason for future growth. Collectivist and doctrinistic institutions were the sole repositories of ideas for how to live properly and govern properly. The Internet will destroy that cancer, and good philosophy will permeate mankind over the next few thousands of years.
I am comfortable with helping to make that happen even though I will never see its fruition. All of us should be designing, and publishing, and retweeting so to speak, so that future generations can rid mankind of collectivism and mysticism.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwynedd1
And yet people are irrational.
Some people are. Many are not. The people that move the world are not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Actually I am a collectivist by the grim recognition of reality, though as much as I loath that fact. To deny that much of what we do is collectivist, let alone coercive, is to deny one has cancer. And one with cancer who denies it dies of it anyway.
And da guberment enforced monopoly we call private land does nothing other than allow a person to remove and prosecute another for "trespass". This is "freedom"? No its also coercion.
It is easy to give up and come to the conclusion that you have reached. It is all around us and impossible to ignore. I mean, we elect bankrupt and vacant empty suits such as Bush or Obama, and it seems that all is lost. But it is not. We need to keep pushing, and the thing we need to push is Reason. It will one day bury mysticism, but the process is one of evolution, and that takes lots of time, and lots of very small victories.
We are going to make it happen. Not in our lifetime, the problem is too large and the intellectual cancer is too big.
The power of ideas, however, is strong enough to get the job done, over time. The Internet will one day be observed to be the invention that turned back the dark forces of collectivism, theonihilism, and bad philosophies.
Our job as todays philosophers is to plant the seeds of Reason for future growth. Collectivist and doctrinistic institutions were the sole repositories of ideas for how to live properly and govern properly. The Internet will destroy that cancer, and good philosophy will permeate mankind over the next few thousands of years.
I am comfortable with helping to make that happen even though I will never see its fruition. All of us should be designing, and publishing, and retweeting so to speak, so that future generations can rid mankind of collectivism and mysticism.
Some people are. Many are not. The people that move the world are not.
It is easy to give up and come to the conclusion that you have reached. It is all around us and impossible to ignore. I mean, we elect bankrupt and vacant empty suits such as Bush or Obama, and it seems that all is lost. But it is not. We need to keep pushing, and the thing we need to push is Reason. It will one day bury mysticism, but the process is one of evolution, and that takes lots of time, and lots of very small victories.
I have read enough political philosophy to know the only thing that works and its not libertarian paradises. A good government is one that is subjected to competition and external threats. Montesquieu all but predicted that the United States would become a world power simply by describing its attributes.
It is, therefore, very probable that mankind would have been, at length, obliged to live constantly under the government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical, government. I mean a confederate republic. This form of government is a convention by which several petty states agree to become members of a larger one, which they intend to establish. It is a kind of assemblage of societies, that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by means of further associations, till they arrive at such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the whole body. It was these associations that so long contributed to the prosperity of Greece. By these the Romans attacked the whole globe, and by these alone the whole globe withstood them; for when Rome had arrived at her highest pitch of grandeur, it was the associations beyond the Danube and the Rhine -- associations formed by the terror of her arms -- that enabled the barbarians to resist her.
Baron de Montesquieu
States that compete for citizens and yet unified against as common enemy.
With the collapse of the power of the states our only protection is China and Russia.
Was it a fluke when Tzar Nicolas encourgaed the liberty of the Hungarians
in the Hapsburg empire? No, its a regular occurrence. In fact The US and Russia now lead the world in weaponized democracy.
The freedom of the people saps the power of the private interest that is in a position to reap the benefits and externalize the cost of war.
Thus is not about reducing government.
Its about increasing the power of state government at the expense of the Federals.
Its the one slim hope there is, if any yet exists at all.
50 states at odds is will allow circumstances to provide liberty .
However will people actually allow another state to have laws that they themselves would not like? Or will they insist the Federal Government force them into compliance?
Even if I have little use for pot heads, I consider states legalizing it a great victory to how I see a functioning political system. Let another state reject it and we will see who wins.
Unless they have the skill to do a different job, or unless they move to an area with a different worker to open positions ratio, or a thousend other options.
People keep pretending that labor is not a market. IT IS, and market rules apply. If the supply of a certain type of workers is way higher than the demand for them, well, they will be offered low salaries. That's the reality, and it doesn't go away by decree.
Some people do not have millions of other options but this is the delusional idea the right wing have that anyone can just get more skills or get a different job that they will not because they are lazy.
Some people do not have millions of other options but this is the delusional idea the right wing have that anyone can just get more skills or get a different job that they will not because they are lazy.
Why can't you learn new skills? If you have eyes and ears and a working brain, you can, unless you choose not to.
Why can't you learn new skills? If you have eyes and ears and a working brain, you can, unless you choose not to.
Opportunity cost of acquiring skills, affirmative cost of acquiring new skills, marginal cost of the prior named costs in attaining new skills, musical chairs fallacy (if all or most people acquire a new skill, many or most will not receive benefit from that skill as there are no accessible options to gain value from it). All of these things are much larger obstacles (if not absolute obstacles) for those with few resources and few pre-existing connections.
Indeed, the scope of one's functional liberty (or "choice" as you phrase it) is proportional to one's access to the resources necessary for actually using those liberties. Liberties without resources to use those liberties are of no value. This is why equality and liberty are only nominally separate.
And there is also the reality that some people - with functioning brains - will be poorly suited to learning the new skills. Intellectual capacity in a raw sense does not mean that one is equally capable of learning and becoming skilled at all subjects. That's not due to ANY fault, as any number of unchosen developmental obstacles (even genetic) change our proclivities and the background knowledge upon which we can (or cannot) adequately "stack" new knowledge.
Why can't you learn new skills? If you have eyes and ears and a working brain, you can, unless you choose not to.
Because it takes more than learning a new skill to do anything with it? I could be the master of C#, but if I have no way of promoting that or selling it as a contractor, I might as well have learned how to properly dig a hole for my own grave, which I have thought about many times in 2008. Random person thought "Oh, I'll go get a STEM degree A,B,C, I'll be good." Get's STEM degree A,B,C. Now works at MCDs or Walmart. Or just can't find any job really...
This what happened to a lot of these grads with huge amounts of debt.
Because it takes more than learning a new skill to do anything with it? I could be the master of C#, but if I have no way of promoting that or selling it as a contractor, I might as well have learned how to properly dig a hole for my own grave, which I have thought about many times in 2008. Random person thought "Oh, I'll go get a STEM degree A,B,C, I'll be good." Get's STEM degree A,B,C. Now works at MCDs or Walmart. Or just can't find any job really...
This what happened to a lot of these grads with huge amounts of debt.
So are we protesting that life demands effort? Or demanding that others provide us with a particular occupation because we studied for it?
And there is nothing wrong with working at Walmart if you have a STEM degree and are not good enough to land a job in the field you studied for. Taking an interim job while revising your game plan is honorable.
Opportunity cost of acquiring skills, affirmative cost of acquiring new skills, marginal cost of the prior named costs in attaining new skills, musical chairs fallacy (if all or most people acquire a new skill, many or most will not receive benefit from that skill as there are no accessible options to gain value from it). All of these things are much larger obstacles (if not absolute obstacles) for those with few resources and few pre-existing connections.
Indeed, the scope of one's functional liberty (or "choice" as you phrase it) is proportional to one's access to the resources necessary for actually using those liberties. Liberties without resources to use those liberties are of no value. This is why equality and liberty are only nominally separate.
And there is also the reality that some people - with functioning brains - will be poorly suited to learning the new skills. Intellectual capacity in a raw sense does not mean that one is equally capable of learning and becoming skilled at all subjects. That's not due to ANY fault, as any number of unchosen developmental obstacles (even genetic) change our proclivities and the background knowledge upon which we can (or cannot) adequately "stack" new knowledge.
Well of course there are costs. Life is a collection of costs. For humans and earthworms. So the fact that we observe that acquiring a new skill will involve some costs is irrelevant. Figure out how to save up money and design a timeline that integrates paying the costs of retraining and acquiring the new skill. All of this is simple logic and basic discipline. The mistake is thinking in terms of entitlement. There is none. All you get is freedom, the rest is up to you.
Some people do not have millions of other options but this is the delusional idea the right wing have that anyone can just get more skills or get a different job that they will not because they are lazy.
I believe that people should at least try to make an effort, demonstrate that they are making an effort, and try to make good decisions. There are always people who truly can't do it and that's where welfare comes in.
Supply and demand in the job market is like the dating scene. People choose their dates and future partners. If you are not good enough, you can better yourself to a certain degree. You get what you can get. No one says the attractive person must partner with an unattractive person just so that the unattractive person can have a bit more. The labor market and the economy work inn similar ways.
Why can't you learn new skills? If you have eyes and ears and a working brain, you can, unless you choose not to.
Exactly. You go to many countries in Asia and often the only beggars you see are truly and terribly disabled people. Apparently even them don't get welfare which is troubling to me. But it does show that those who can work often try to find work.
It is in the USA where you see young males who are able but unwilling, among other types of people, who spend hours at the highway ramp begging for money. But actually working gives you even more money than that. Undocumented immigrants can even find work. Why can't these people? If they have a serious physical or mental problem, I would be sympathetic. But often they are like the people working at restaurants, and the only difference is that they don't want to work.
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