The basis of the environment is people and humanity. It follows that if you change the nature of the people, by physically changing their brains say, you change the social environment.
My take on it is that Russia is basically crazy, and that the assassinations and general hellraising have been done by people acting outside state control. Large parts of Russia have on many levels no governmental control at all, as I understand it. And - evil ogliarchs "stealing state property"? Okay, Putin solved that by yanking it back from their control - and then people complains that the government stole the property?
Sure. Unless you are talking cyberware, chemical/gene modification and hard AI, preferably in combination. The key to "technocratic" solutions is to not so much "fix" social issues, as removing the basis of the problems entirely by altering the human condition. Like with condoms and the pill, for example.
What's the difference between a highly structured mafia organization with decent moral standards/a reasonable love for peace and quiet and a government?
Oh, wait, that one's true; drawn "child pornography" *is* illegal here. I believe it was the current Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask who had gotten into her head that it's drawings of real, live people. Someone needs to speak up against that besides the PP, who it seems have been semi-discredited in the local media recently. Another fun thing she's done was suggest openly that men suspected of visiting a prostitute should get letters home in some jarring colour so the whole family can berate them for their shame.
Maybe she's good at her job, just a bit impulsive?
I'm tethering at the brink of aquiring the pseudo-natural template due to methylphenidate "withdrawal" here, but I think I can coherently formulate myself thus: due to human nature, I would be difficult to convince that self-interest in any shape or form could cover up adequately for what we can call "natural altruism", or the will and drive to help your fellow man and participate to create a stable and just society, regardless of what you call it.
Not entirely relevant, but I believe that is exactly what J.R.R. Tolkien refered to as "Morgothism" and "The Iron Crown" in some of his published letters. He also justified the ability of Sauron to corrupt people to serve him as coming from his fundamentally pure intent (preventing people from coming to physical harm), unlike Morgoth Bauglir who didn't care about anyone else at all.
I know and understand the term "tragedy of the commons". It's just a matter of terms that irk me - at least in northern europe, the socialist (government owned and ran) parts of society are refered to as standing on a socialistic ideological basis, and the rest is "the free market/the market/capitalism". They exist in nobodys self-interest, but to serve the public at large. In contrast, the US at least refuses to use the word "socialism" for anything other than "oppressive state-ran planned market economies doomed to failure". Any ideology that includes socialism, then, becomes "social liberalism" or "social democracy". It *is* essentially a planned economy run by bureaucrats in some sense, just at a very high level. Of course, words are just words - but the current economic system evolved out of both social liberalism and true "idealistic communism".
The Golden Rule then? But again, that only works if everyone is reasonably similiar. I have (amongst other things) Asperger Syndrome (via several psychologists, to the point of being urged to seek treatment/further investigation of it). I'm cold, direct, "affectively unreciprociative" and so forth. When I act according to how I expect to be treated other people seem to get quite offended, if not truly emotionally wounded and disturbed. I can almost never truly act according to the Golden Rule in my daily life. There are more severe cases, such as this sadistic (not BSDM, really sadistic) man who is the boyfriend of one of my sisters aquaintances. He's clearly neurotic, and I can see why; if *he* acted according to the golden rule (well, you have to expect a little abuse in life, that's just how it is) he'd probably shortly be in court. And let's just not open the can of worms that is religious morality, especially Sharia law... ugh.
And by "Public Goods" we mean essentially tax-funded state-owned things of any kind, eg., socialism? I'm not in possession of any academic economical knowledge at all, but the word "laissez-faire capitalism" strikes me as the absence of socialism. There is the model where private companies provide partially or fully to the public infrastructure, which is the case here in Sweden. The state owns the network backbone, for example, and the last mile is leased out to private companies. It's a bit complicated, but the result is clearly effective: RJ45 jacks into a peak 100mbps guaranteed 60mbps line for 36 USD/month (even in the semi-rural cities), and a symmetrical guaranteed 100mbps line for 196 USD/month. But this is "third way economics" as far as I know, and mentioning it in the same breath as "lassiez-faire capitalism" seems rather silly, as the state owns (through government bodies and state owned companies, not to be conflated with the companies being contracted to provide public services) the core infrastructure of society. Like all the hospitals for example, but private clinics are allowed to operate freely. Or through owning the whole road network, but what you build on your own land is your business. The railroad network is a complicated experimental mess, but basically the state owns one company, and then there are other regulated privately-owned companies in direct competition with that. The school system is government-owned, but private schools are allowed and subsidized, and vouchers are issued. Homeschooling and attending non-approved schools is forbidden, and there is the question wether religious private schools should be forbidden even if they meet the educational standards (and on what grounds, in that case.) The "generic protestant church" and other religious gatherings are entirely separate from the state, and recieve no subsidy. You get generous welfare (if you need to know, my parents have spent most of my life being supported almost entirely by welfare in various ways, but I have never felt ostracized or underprivileged in any way), but you are watched like a hawk and need to provide proof that you are trying to get employment, given that freeloaders are an obvious problem. This whole mess is socialism without a doubt, but it's also capitalism. They exist in inorexable tandem.
But can't you see that justified self-defense and the Non-Aggression Principle is a moral stance, if a very bare-bones one? I also think "most people" can't live in a society sidestepping morality, and will try to enforce their views of good and evil on others given the chance. I can see it as an attempt to create a "core" morality framework or axis for society and government that fits everyone, but I still think that it is lacking in content. It basically seems like taking the core principles of most every justice system everywhere, and saying "here, this is all there should be, no special cases or additional clausules." What about the current legal framework in the society you live in makes you want to do that?
Aha. And this periodic bloodbath is better than implementing a system forcing the rich to distribute their wealth, how? It's more fun? I am born and raised in Sweden, and I can assure you that a stable socialized support system does in fact benefit the poor. Certainly not the rich, most of whom are clearly not sociopaths (a silly thought - none of the sociopaths I have met have been capable of holding on to money, and the people around them who actually are rich are certainly in some cases "predatory" or "aggressive", but if you think that's all a sociopath is you've never met one.) That said, a social safety net does make it easier and safer for everyone in society - including the rich.
Rorschach tortures people for information. V performs ritual murders for venegance. Not saying I do or don't agree with their methods, but I can't see how any of them follow any sort of "non-aggression principle". Your point is that I can be as violent as I feel justified to be, as long as I don't restrain people in any way? And how do you argue that their methods are less immoral than 40% income taxation? Torture and murder is fine, but socialism and a large public sector is ultra-violence?
Yes, that's what I thought. This is not a troll, but let's say that I'm a selfless person who hate to see others suffer, and manage to convince enough people of my position to implement a heavily taxed socialistic system in the society in which i live, raising general welfare on the expense of the successful, some of which truly detest this (they do not honestly consider it to be in their enlightened self-interest to contribute to the poor, caring not for societial mores or others suffering. They are strange people, but they exist by their own right.) Who's "enlightened self interest" takes predecence? The strongest? But if the roles where reversed, a lot of people would suffer and die needlessly. Thus, "enlightened self interest" is just "moral relativism" in disguise? Or it assumes moral relativism?
Was there ever a time when scientific rigour was higher than now? Or is it just the various media debacles surrounding modern science that makes it seem so? If scientific rigour is affected so negatively by "grant fishing", one has to ask oneself if that science had been done at all before there where grants in the modern sense. I have no idea how it looked in the time between "only nobles and merchants could afford the time to dabble much in science" and the "modern post-doc grant system", or if that dichtonomy even exists. Modern science involves a lot more material requirements, of course, and training and education certainly isn't free...
I am not familiar with the specifics of Rand's works, I can see a problem here: trying to determine what constitutes "enlightened self interest" is in any case key. If we factor out shortsightedness, most people probably wouldn't be able to compete in todays society if they had to take full economic responsibility for themselves. No, it's clear that they can't. And then people spit on them and call them "white trash". Another problem is fundamentally, am I not expected to act morally unless it is in my self-interest to do so? That assumption is, in fact, sociopathic. Unless you count in "lack of empathic pain" as a part of self-interest, which I assume she may well have done if I read the tone of the discussions correctly.
Most people espousing randian "no-holds-barred" capitalism seem to do so out of a general nihilism towards people ever working for anyone but themselves. That is, they seem to think people are egotistic and amoral, and any attempt at socialism in any form resulting in either oppression or parasitic stagnation or both. They don't seem evil as such, but it is a strange view, and I cannot wrap my head around it fully.
When I'm saying "arranged", I meant "arranged as a general agreement between civilized countries". Not in the "jack-in-the-box sudden secret pocket battleship" sense. PMCs are tolerated almost everywhere, and so is armed guards of every kind. Unless there's something about modern naval history I have missed, I can't see how lightly armed (by comparision to an actual navy) merchant vessel would constitute a problem.
I'd like to point out that surströmming is something that I've never even considered eating, and a lot of people don't, either. Eat something that smells like an old badly salted cadaver? It's revolting.
Again with the neuroticism. From my perspective, your position is like a 12-year old kid running from girls complaining about "cooties". I'm not a soldier nor a veteran of any sort, but it's entirely possible to have a peaceful relationship with your "lizard brain" and still be perfectly normal. You just need to develop the capacity to "handle" the emotions, and understand them for what they are. I used to be like you, so I know what I'm talking about. Whatever this is that makes people into righteous murderous warmongering hypervigilants aways assuming the worst - low-grade PTSD of some sort is my personal guess - it doesn't make you amoral, at all. More prone to violent outbursts, maybe, but certainly not amoral. And it's exhausting, let me tell you. If I percieve a possible threat, the resulting adrenaline chock can leave me in "fight or flight mode" for hours afterwards. Not to mention the paranoia. I've never killed, but when I see that helicopter video there's quite a bit of "there for the grace of god" (and also, of course, when observing these violent young men with AK-47 forcing old men to pray "properly" in mosques, too.) Are you certain you aren't just running from your own shadow?
Slashdot Mirror
The basis of the environment is people and humanity. It follows that if you change the nature of the people, by physically changing their brains say, you change the social environment.
My take on it is that Russia is basically crazy, and that the assassinations and general hellraising have been done by people acting outside state control. Large parts of Russia have on many levels no governmental control at all, as I understand it. And - evil ogliarchs "stealing state property"? Okay, Putin solved that by yanking it back from their control - and then people complains that the government stole the property?
Sure. Unless you are talking cyberware, chemical/gene modification and hard AI, preferably in combination. The key to "technocratic" solutions is to not so much "fix" social issues, as removing the basis of the problems entirely by altering the human condition. Like with condoms and the pill, for example.
What's the difference between a highly structured mafia organization with decent moral standards/a reasonable love for peace and quiet and a government?
To frighten away armed robbers?
Oh, wait, that one's true; drawn "child pornography" *is* illegal here. I believe it was the current Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask who had gotten into her head that it's drawings of real, live people. Someone needs to speak up against that besides the PP, who it seems have been semi-discredited in the local media recently. Another fun thing she's done was suggest openly that men suspected of visiting a prostitute should get letters home in some jarring colour so the whole family can berate them for their shame.
Maybe she's good at her job, just a bit impulsive?
Noone can know who's right and who's wrong without doing the work to check it. That's just how it is; simple.
I'm tethering at the brink of aquiring the pseudo-natural template due to methylphenidate "withdrawal" here, but I think I can coherently formulate myself thus: due to human nature, I would be difficult to convince that self-interest in any shape or form could cover up adequately for what we can call "natural altruism", or the will and drive to help your fellow man and participate to create a stable and just society, regardless of what you call it.
My Concerta (Ritalin) is tapering off at the moment, sorry if that was a bit incoherent.
Not entirely relevant, but I believe that is exactly what J.R.R. Tolkien refered to as "Morgothism" and "The Iron Crown" in some of his published letters. He also justified the ability of Sauron to corrupt people to serve him as coming from his fundamentally pure intent (preventing people from coming to physical harm), unlike Morgoth Bauglir who didn't care about anyone else at all.
I know and understand the term "tragedy of the commons". It's just a matter of terms that irk me - at least in northern europe, the socialist (government owned and ran) parts of society are refered to as standing on a socialistic ideological basis, and the rest is "the free market/the market/capitalism". They exist in nobodys self-interest, but to serve the public at large. In contrast, the US at least refuses to use the word "socialism" for anything other than "oppressive state-ran planned market economies doomed to failure". Any ideology that includes socialism, then, becomes "social liberalism" or "social democracy". It *is* essentially a planned economy run by bureaucrats in some sense, just at a very high level. Of course, words are just words - but the current economic system evolved out of both social liberalism and true "idealistic communism".
The Golden Rule then? But again, that only works if everyone is reasonably similiar. I have (amongst other things) Asperger Syndrome (via several psychologists, to the point of being urged to seek treatment/further investigation of it). I'm cold, direct, "affectively unreciprociative" and so forth. When I act according to how I expect to be treated other people seem to get quite offended, if not truly emotionally wounded and disturbed. I can almost never truly act according to the Golden Rule in my daily life. There are more severe cases, such as this sadistic (not BSDM, really sadistic) man who is the boyfriend of one of my sisters aquaintances. He's clearly neurotic, and I can see why; if *he* acted according to the golden rule (well, you have to expect a little abuse in life, that's just how it is) he'd probably shortly be in court. And let's just not open the can of worms that is religious morality, especially Sharia law... ugh.
And by "Public Goods" we mean essentially tax-funded state-owned things of any kind, eg., socialism? I'm not in possession of any academic economical knowledge at all, but the word "laissez-faire capitalism" strikes me as the absence of socialism. There is the model where private companies provide partially or fully to the public infrastructure, which is the case here in Sweden. The state owns the network backbone, for example, and the last mile is leased out to private companies. It's a bit complicated, but the result is clearly effective: RJ45 jacks into a peak 100mbps guaranteed 60mbps line for 36 USD/month (even in the semi-rural cities), and a symmetrical guaranteed 100mbps line for 196 USD/month. But this is "third way economics" as far as I know, and mentioning it in the same breath as "lassiez-faire capitalism" seems rather silly, as the state owns (through government bodies and state owned companies, not to be conflated with the companies being contracted to provide public services) the core infrastructure of society. Like all the hospitals for example, but private clinics are allowed to operate freely. Or through owning the whole road network, but what you build on your own land is your business. The railroad network is a complicated experimental mess, but basically the state owns one company, and then there are other regulated privately-owned companies in direct competition with that. The school system is government-owned, but private schools are allowed and subsidized, and vouchers are issued. Homeschooling and attending non-approved schools is forbidden, and there is the question wether religious private schools should be forbidden even if they meet the educational standards (and on what grounds, in that case.) The "generic protestant church" and other religious gatherings are entirely separate from the state, and recieve no subsidy. You get generous welfare (if you need to know, my parents have spent most of my life being supported almost entirely by welfare in various ways, but I have never felt ostracized or underprivileged in any way), but you are watched like a hawk and need to provide proof that you are trying to get employment, given that freeloaders are an obvious problem.
This whole mess is socialism without a doubt, but it's also capitalism. They exist in inorexable tandem.
But can't you see that justified self-defense and the Non-Aggression Principle is a moral stance, if a very bare-bones one? I also think "most people" can't live in a society sidestepping morality, and will try to enforce their views of good and evil on others given the chance. I can see it as an attempt to create a "core" morality framework or axis for society and government that fits everyone, but I still think that it is lacking in content. It basically seems like taking the core principles of most every justice system everywhere, and saying "here, this is all there should be, no special cases or additional clausules." What about the current legal framework in the society you live in makes you want to do that?
Aha. And this periodic bloodbath is better than implementing a system forcing the rich to distribute their wealth, how? It's more fun? I am born and raised in Sweden, and I can assure you that a stable socialized support system does in fact benefit the poor. Certainly not the rich, most of whom are clearly not sociopaths (a silly thought - none of the sociopaths I have met have been capable of holding on to money, and the people around them who actually are rich are certainly in some cases "predatory" or "aggressive", but if you think that's all a sociopath is you've never met one.) That said, a social safety net does make it easier and safer for everyone in society - including the rich.
Rorschach tortures people for information. V performs ritual murders for venegance. Not saying I do or don't agree with their methods, but I can't see how any of them follow any sort of "non-aggression principle". Your point is that I can be as violent as I feel justified to be, as long as I don't restrain people in any way? And how do you argue that their methods are less immoral than 40% income taxation? Torture and murder is fine, but socialism and a large public sector is ultra-violence?
Yes, that's what I thought. This is not a troll, but let's say that I'm a selfless person who hate to see others suffer, and manage to convince enough people of my position to implement a heavily taxed socialistic system in the society in which i live, raising general welfare on the expense of the successful, some of which truly detest this (they do not honestly consider it to be in their enlightened self-interest to contribute to the poor, caring not for societial mores or others suffering. They are strange people, but they exist by their own right.) Who's "enlightened self interest" takes predecence? The strongest? But if the roles where reversed, a lot of people would suffer and die needlessly. Thus, "enlightened self interest" is just "moral relativism" in disguise? Or it assumes moral relativism?
Was there ever a time when scientific rigour was higher than now? Or is it just the various media debacles surrounding modern science that makes it seem so? If scientific rigour is affected so negatively by "grant fishing", one has to ask oneself if that science had been done at all before there where grants in the modern sense. I have no idea how it looked in the time between "only nobles and merchants could afford the time to dabble much in science" and the "modern post-doc grant system", or if that dichtonomy even exists. Modern science involves a lot more material requirements, of course, and training and education certainly isn't free...
I am not familiar with the specifics of Rand's works, I can see a problem here: trying to determine what constitutes "enlightened self interest" is in any case key. If we factor out shortsightedness, most people probably wouldn't be able to compete in todays society if they had to take full economic responsibility for themselves. No, it's clear that they can't. And then people spit on them and call them "white trash". Another problem is fundamentally, am I not expected to act morally unless it is in my self-interest to do so? That assumption is, in fact, sociopathic. Unless you count in "lack of empathic pain" as a part of self-interest, which I assume she may well have done if I read the tone of the discussions correctly.
Scientist: "I cannot do much, but I can bake you a reasonably tasty fruitcake if you want?"
Philosopher: "No, I want God."
Most people espousing randian "no-holds-barred" capitalism seem to do so out of a general nihilism towards people ever working for anyone but themselves. That is, they seem to think people are egotistic and amoral, and any attempt at socialism in any form resulting in either oppression or parasitic stagnation or both. They don't seem evil as such, but it is a strange view, and I cannot wrap my head around it fully.
When I'm saying "arranged", I meant "arranged as a general agreement between civilized countries". Not in the "jack-in-the-box sudden secret pocket battleship" sense. PMCs are tolerated almost everywhere, and so is armed guards of every kind. Unless there's something about modern naval history I have missed, I can't see how lightly armed (by comparision to an actual navy) merchant vessel would constitute a problem.
I'd like to point out that surströmming is something that I've never even considered eating, and a lot of people don't, either. Eat something that smells like an old badly salted cadaver? It's revolting.
Again with the neuroticism. From my perspective, your position is like a 12-year old kid running from girls complaining about "cooties". I'm not a soldier nor a veteran of any sort, but it's entirely possible to have a peaceful relationship with your "lizard brain" and still be perfectly normal. You just need to develop the capacity to "handle" the emotions, and understand them for what they are. I used to be like you, so I know what I'm talking about. Whatever this is that makes people into righteous murderous warmongering hypervigilants aways assuming the worst - low-grade PTSD of some sort is my personal guess - it doesn't make you amoral, at all. More prone to violent outbursts, maybe, but certainly not amoral. And it's exhausting, let me tell you. If I percieve a possible threat, the resulting adrenaline chock can leave me in "fight or flight mode" for hours afterwards. Not to mention the paranoia. I've never killed, but when I see that helicopter video there's quite a bit of "there for the grace of god" (and also, of course, when observing these violent young men with AK-47 forcing old men to pray "properly" in mosques, too.) Are you certain you aren't just running from your own shadow?
Hippies, as opposed to the drop-out good-for-nothing 16-25 year olds frequenting 4chan?