One more month to go? - 3 December 2009

[silveradept]

Hi, desirable people of great attractiveness. Leading off with something intended to get your heart rate up to a more exercising pace, the stupidity of homeowner's association contracts - they are threatening a recipient of the Medal of Honor with legal action because the flagpole he has in his front yard is in violation of their covenants after they denied his request to put one up, considering it not asthetically pleasing.

Out in the world, North Korea announced a sudden revaluation of the currency, where 100 of the old unit, the won, is now worth one of the new. This looks to be a move intended to stomp out a significant amount of private enterprise and profits in the nominally socialist state.

An opposition group accuses the Iranian government of poisoning a prominent dissenter with drug-laced salad after exposing that prisoners were tortured in Iranian prisons.

The Australian parliament rejected a bill that would set up a carbon permits exchange. Let the people who believe climate change is an error continue to crow.

Domestically, lacking actions that they can hang their hat on as solid liberal victories, the liberal base may decide they're not all that interested in turning out for the 2010 elections.

New York State could see a shakeup, as while the bill to legalize homosexual marriage in the state failed, it also put the state senators on the record, meaning now advocates and opponents know where to aim and fire.

Senator Boxer is calling for an investigation and criminal charges for the hackers that exposed the e-mails of the East Anglia University climate researchers, pointing out that whatever you believe about climate change, a crime was still committed. This will likely be ignored in the rush to accuse climate scientists of keeping their alarms on to get more money, despite their own results telling them climate change wasn't really happening, we believe. The sane position, as always, has been to say, that climate science is not sealed away one way or another, because some of the data is clearly corrupted. Thus, confident doom prediction and confident conspiracy predictions are both wrong.

So, as part of the President's remarks delivered at West Point outlining his Afghanistan decision, he apparently implied that the previous administration did not fully resource or fulfill troop requests. Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld denies allegations that military generals were not given adequate funding and people during his tenure, and their requests for more people were denied, while also either stating or implying that there were no denials during the rpevious administration at all. Current Chariman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, made note of at least one incident in 2008 where requests for additional troops were denied, making some part of the Rumsfeld claim suspect.

With an upcoming summit on employment, the situation in the United States puts additional pressure on President Obama to reverse the dismal numbers currently reflecting the state of employment.

Last out before opinions, resolution to the New Haven Firefighters case - the Supreme Court upheld their suit, and their promotions are scheduled for December 10.

At opinion places, The WSJ talks up how it believes the Senate halth care bill actually drives up costs, claiming the Congressional Budget Office backs their position, and declaring the administration wants to take over health care, yet making no mention at all of the measures intended to control costs that are in the bill, and commenting based on the passage of mandated insurance coverage, but no competition for those insurers. Thus, concluding that prices will go up because there are more people and community rating is not that hard to predict.

Mr. McGurn takes umbrage at a bill introduced by Mr. Specter that Mr. McGurn claims would allow terrorists to sue the government frivolously, because the bill would supposedly reverse the standard of needing to prove you have a case before discovery can proceed in a lawsuit.

Mr. Lowry suggests that President Obama is conflicted because he is really a neoconservative who wants to "win&quo;t Afghanistan, but he has to try and avoid alienating his liberal, anti-war base who want him to get out of both Iraq and Afghanistan, the sooner the better. Mr. Lowry is almost right - the President is more of a centrist than a neocon, but he was further liberal than the conservative candidate, and further liberal than many of the liberals presented. Elsewhere, Mr. Musharraf says that the only way to win in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to leave when the job is done and not according to any arbitrary time frame. If that is the case, though, one could be stuck in a war that surges back and forth, but never resolves, unless one side decides to apply overwhelming force and then let the natives rebuild from there, much like the usage of atomic weaponry.

Investors Business Daily wants us to be afraid of nuclear Iran and take them seriously, in the "glass them before they get going" kind of way.

And last out, earning himself a solid Worst Person In The World, Mr. Scrooge Williams, taking his libertarian beliefs to their proper end - no person should have to have their money taken by the government to assist someone else, and to do so is slavery and theft. Including in those situations where someone has fallen sick and has no insurance - they should suffer and possibly die, adn nobody should be required to lift a finger to help them. I seem to keep thinking of this quote when I get around Scrooge Williams all this time, so once more, from Mr. Dickens:

"Are there no prisons?...And the Union workhouses...Are they still in operation?...I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there...If they would rather die,...they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

In technology, the best reason to enforce a net neutrality position and government regulation - we've already done the unregulated bit before, with the telegraph, and it was villains and monopolies the whole way, a warning from the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department about trusting your forecasting abilities, because even with forecasts, Humes tend to be too optimistic about their chances, commentary from the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics Department about the low nuimbers of people identifying themselves with either major political party in the United States, which should be a warning sign to both of them that a sufficiently motivated population with the right kind of independent leader might smoke both their hides in an election. Finally, the CEO of Google says that the Internet will not kill print media, but will instead transform it into something new.

That's all for today. Enjoy your football selection shows or other such useful things.

Comments

[silveradept]

It is, indeed strange, assuming that you look at without the shadings of "sin" - if it is a transgression to have extramarital sex, lacking the ability to place a scarlet A on the person, pregnancy is the next best thing - it cannot be hidden, and so one's transgression is on display for social shame. To terminate that pregnancy removes the punishment for the transgression, so it too has become a transgression with similar attempts at social shaming in the name of God, and dire warnings that the country will engage in all sorts of extramarital sex and terminations, which will displease God and he will visit vengeance upon the people because they are behaving so far outside his moral bounds, which are higher than any ethical or governmental authority.

I'm not sure I follow your train of thought through the rest, but if the general idea is that it is wrong to visit social shame and punishment on persons who have had misfortune happen to them out of their control, then yes, I agree, but I point out that a significant number of people do not, and many of them wield the ability to make law to enshrine their point of view. If not, please clarify, as I do not understand.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Such can hopefully be safely ignored.

Attempted clarification by example: a person is born into one of many families too poor to afford a coat or umbrella. This poorness, lack of bought coat/umbrella et cetera is to all intents and purposes (for this example) out of that person's control. One day when travelling along a necessary road, there is a downpour and the person begins to become drenched by cold rain. This is arguably a tragedy.

Said person (say, 'Person D') passes another person 'Person E' when travelling along this road as the downpour begins. Person E has a coat and umbrella; Person D has neither.

Person E was born into a family able to afford a coat and umbrella. This is likewise to all intents and purposes out of Person E's control.

Person E sees that Person D has no coat or umbrella. However, Person E does not wish to and does not choose to give Person D coat nor umbrella. There are a variety of possible reasons for this.
There are many people that Person E has seen and knows exist in the world without coats or umbrellas and Person E cannot hope to make a significant difference even if stripped naked, for instance. Having bought a coat and umbrella with money given by parents for Person E's benefit, it would be negligent and unfair to those parents to give them away and have to ask for replacements (particularly several/many times), for instance. Person E straightforwardly likes the umbrella and coat, as well as the warmth and dryness they provide, and doesn't want to lose them to a stranger for instance.

Person E does not give Person E's belongings to Person D. This is not Person E 'punishing' Person D for being born into a poor family. Person E is not doing anything to hurt Person D. If Person E were not there, Person D would be suffering exactly as much. Person E's retention of Person E's belongings is not unethical.

Person D suddenly runs at Person E and snatches Person E's umbrella, then runs off. If anything, here you could argue that Person D is 'punishing' Person E. Person D is doing something to hurt Person E. If Person D were not there, Person E would not have been hurt. Person D's theft of Person E's belonging is unethical.

'To be hurt is a sadness. To hurt is a sin.' (Hearkening back slightly to the religious-toned concepts mentioned earlier.) Ethicality is action-based: when one is hurt because of something under no one's control no one is at fault, no one is to blame, no one is in the wrong, no one has done anything unethical, but when one deliberately hurts another completely with oneself under one's own control, one IS to blame for that other person's hurt, one is at fault, one is in the wrong. One has done something unethical.

Does that clarify the point somewhat?

[silveradept]

It does, and most people will agree with you that it is a sound ethical position, one that most of us find ourselves in. What seems to be missing, though, is any sort of impulse to rectify the problems that left Person D in their situation. Person E may be a charitable person, which is fantastic and commendable. Most people believe that poverty is systemic, though, and requires the action of greater organizations than individuals to rectify. At that point, they start turning to government as the natural actor to provide ways of making up for misfortune and getting people up to the level where they have the opportunity and means to purchase their own raincoat and umbrella. Government, though, is limited in the ways it can raise revenue. Thus, taxation, which then leads to the complaint we had originally about taking from those who have the means to support those who do not, with or without the additional rider that the poor deserve to be that way because of choice instead of misfortune.

Did that help?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) '90% of everything is crud.' The world as it is is and will continue to be filled with suffering, with very little perceptible change resulting from throwing money at the problem[/at other people's problems].

Lines of thought regarding permanent solutions tend to go along the lines of considering original causes. Why are there so many suffering people? Huge numbers of people, small amounts of resources. Why are there so many people for so little resources? Because people keep breeding despite the low resource amounts available. Why do people do so? Because they are uneducated and/or stupid. How can we prevent this?

We can try to educate everyone, but that would require vast amounts of resources, and any section of the population we failed to educate would correspondingly swell and largely negate the efforts that made a second try impossible. Otherwise, we can try to make many smaller efforts which each educate only small numbers of people and make very little even-temporary difference, which has the same long-term effect. Otherwise, we can do nothing at all, which has the same long-term result.

We can try to forcibly lower reproductive rates by sterilisation, but that for similar reasons is unethical and sufficiently difficult to do on a large enough scale to be infeasible.

We can try to optimise human intelligence/wisdom at the genetic level, linking together all human minds to allow all awareness of the entirety of human knowledge. This is not yet technologically possible, but apart from anything else would arguably be unethical to do to people against their will.

Even for the last case, there will definitely be people who will refuse. There will definitely be a large proportion of people who continue to live in a manner which horrifies others.

If we cannot help them, then we cannot prevent this. If we can help them and they do not wish to be helped, we can only help them against their will.

If we cannot help them, then all that remains is to leave them alone.

How do you end poverty? You end the people who are poor. Either you change something broken about them so that they become less poor over time through their own actions, or you thin their numbers (e.g. by lowering reproductive rate) so that there are enough resources per person that they aren't poor any more.

As long as there is not enough resources to give to the poor all at once to render them all non-poor permanently, whenever one turns around there will be poor there. If they've been given resources in the past, they may be asking for or demanding resources. It will not stop.

There will always be a Person D, as long as one does not rectify all problems which tend to result in Person D-like people. Mental ability, education, reproductive rates, absolute ratio of resources to person in terms of food, liquid, shelter, employer positions... either all must be fixed at once, or left as an abyss of natural selection for the outliers to crawl their way out of.

Which has been most feasible so far has seemed fairly clear.

(Apologies for any sleepiness-related incoherency above.)

[silveradept]

And thus we arrive at the two opposite poles of the argument - on one end, the world cannot be fixed, excepting at once, and thus no effort beyond what people are willing to do should be expended. On the other end, the world can be fixed with concerted efforts of large enough actors such that everyone can be brought up to the desired minimum level (at least) and sustained there. There is often an assumption that by doing so, one is able to tap into the collective brainpower of a group that would otherwise be wasting resources on survival and unable to contribute to the betterment of Humes as a whole.

I do not think we can reconcile those differences, but it is the push-pull of those poles that move us in one direction or another toward optimism or cynicism. There may always be Person D, but a lot of optimists believe that even if we can shift the place where Person D is more toward equality and sustainability than they are now, we should. They may not be completely equal with the rest of the world, but they will be further along than they were before, and then another brilliant mind can move them more toward equality later on.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) This is perhaps dealable with by separating the two poles in practice. Those who think that such a group is unable to fix itself to one group, in which they're allowed to do what they wish, and those who think that such a group is able to fix itself to another group, in which they voluntarily subject themselves to the measures thought to be able to fix the group. Stand back, see if the group is fixed. If it's fixed, people from the first group will leave to join the second. If it's not, people from the second group will leave to join the first. Either way, the appropriate standpoint will clearly be arrived at.
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A problem with this might be that those who want resources to be taken may largely be those without (significant) resources, and those who don't be those with (significant) resources.
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If the first group has a greater resource density than the second, and the second claims that the inclusion of that greater density of the first is required for the desired 'fixing', one reaches the (earlier?) question of whether it is ethical to take the resources of the few for the benefit of the many, and whether a sustainable result will realistically come about even if that path is taken. The Labour party first coming into power, levying huge taxes on the very rich and almost all of said rich as a result leaving the country and so overall impoverishment (?) comes to mind. (I may or may not be recalling the details of that occurrence correctly.)
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If you can definitely 'fix' the standard of living for a large group by seizing the resources of a subgroup, is it ethical not to?
The base state: the supergroup (?) is the same size of the subgroup, only encompassing those with resources. They have the resources, they use them for their own benefit, and so they are already 'fixed'.
N people in that group. Assume that all in the subgroup have a certain resource density, and all outside have practically none at all.
Group of 2N: by 'fixing' the situation you can reduce all to a lifestyle of half that which the subgroup were living at. Group of 3N: a third. However large the group is, you can add more people, making the large fixed group the new subgroup.
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Extreme example: one hundred happy, content people, living fulfilling lives and making great progress (e.g. scientific, cultural, et cetera). One hundred billion people living at the lowest possible level of resource density, that just sufficient for continued life. 'Fix' the situation by seizing the resources of the hundred-person group and enforcing a minimum level incrementally higher than that lowest possible level of resource density. 'Is it possible to approve of this?/Is this ethical? Why not?' is a slightly-tempting line of questioning.
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The minimum level itself is arbitrary: to enforce it on those who wouldn't choose it is unwanted, and to demand its costs from those who wouldn't choose it is unfair. If a minimum level is enforcable amongst those who care about such a thing, then they can be wished happiness. To make someone who desires a lower minimum level pay for someone who desires a higher one, though, seems unworthy of approval. (Note to self/selves: find more synonym-equivalents for that concept.)

(That issue of what the 'desired minimum level' is is significant, as it varies depending on the person. If you're at the desired minimum level, but then have to sacrifice your resources to undesiredly raise the minimum level, you've suffered overall. ...subsidies from taxes which effectively decrease the choice available to consumers come to mind, taking money which someone might have used to buy carrots one day and potatoes the next and subsidising potatoes so that the person with the taxes taken and the potatoes subsidised can only afford to eat potatoes both days... hm.)

Where do you draw the line? How do you decide how much of Person E's resources 'should' be diverted to raise Person D's minimum lifestyle level? How much should be left for brilliant minds and future equality-movements? The extreme is that of taking all resources and spreading them equally, so that there isn't enough left over to educate a brilliant mind to the level where it would be able to make any further significant changes.

[silveradept]

Deciding what the minimum level is to satisfy the condition is a matter of much debate, and every side waves evidence that their way is best and most fulfilling, we agree. If food, shelter, and clean drinking water are your minimum standard, it would not appear to require much for resources. Add education and there's more, and so forth. Where you set the minimum line often affects whether or not the people with the greater resource density are willing to share/give up/have taken their resources, discounting any beliefs they may have about the deservedness of the people receiving their largesse/taxation, we both know. This is another potential stopping point in a theoretical debate, because once the numbers become concrete, often the argument shifts as to whether the numbers are right, instead of the concept.

To address the ethical yes/no on seizing the greater resource pool to benefit everyone, it depends on your philosophy. Socialist and Communist thinking consider it a crucial part of the ethics that resources are to be seized and then divided in a more equitable manner for everyone's benefit, and that in dividing those resources, all standards of living are raised to happiness. Techno-singularity types may insist that computing and robotic resources be divided appropriately such that Humes are freed from drudgery and can accelerate their work in the sciences and the arts to find fulfillment and advance the standard of living for all. A capitalist trusts that markets (regulated and unregulated) are the most efficient manner of distributing resources, even if those markets create inequalities.

There are also matters of scale to be discussed - some of those philosophies claim that they must be implemented planet-wide before anyone can judge their successes or failures.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) To think in absolutes, taking concepts to extremes to judge their merit, conveniently simplifies such cases.

In practice, resource-seizing tends to lead to observed collapse of all standards of living, particularly over time. Ayn Rand's 'consuming more than you produce' problem somewhat comes to mind (though it's acknowledged that there are likely various flaws in that camp of objectivism (?)).
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Humans are currently unequal in many respects; technology (used voluntarily) could hypothetically remedy a lot of these. Especially with a small cooperating group, too, robots et cetera could be used to maintain a high standard of living for all.
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The capitalist equivalent might be to use robots when cheaper than humans (currently tricky, if one assumes that there are many who will work for a pittance, largely due to overwhelming numbers--in short, many who place a lower value on their own lives than on that of a robot), eventually resulting in a similar state of menial tasks being handled automatically and non-menial matters being handled intelligently. Humans could thus be freed to turn their full potential to where it would have the greatest effect, where the greatest (hopefully generally positive) difference could be made. In doing so, for those able, monetary value would be accumulated in exchange (through the normal routes). Those who have nothing of value to sell to society to money will as usual necessarily have no money to buy objects of value from society with.
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In regards to human potential, assuming that human potential varies, a meritocracy is the ideal: the most resources go to those who can do the most with them. Those few who can comprehend and bring about more than all the rest of humanity are elevated to the top, at which they bring about more dramatic (again, hopefully positive) changes than any others had those others been elevated to the same positions and given the same resources.
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How, though, to approach this ideal meritocratic existence? Directed legislation to comb for, identify and groom those of high potential may speed the process, but currently capitalism is one of the more efficient methods seen to accomplish the allocation of scarce resources to those who can do the most with them. Those who can accomplish more rise above those who can't, gathering more resources in the process, and using them to rise to greater heights of accomplishment. The end result is those with greater potential ending up at the top and those with little to none ending up at the bottom. There are deviations from this, such as accidents et cetera interfering, but the general principle over time seems sound.
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Glancing over the paragraph again and returning to the first sentence, in ethical terms the clash between those who try to seize another's property and those who try to defend against it being seized tends to resemble a fairly black-and-white portrayal of ethical and unethical behaviour. Granted, to someone sympathising on the other side the ethicality/unethicality associations would be reversed, which is a little disturbing to contemplate. Hm. It's tempting to try to create a more-emotionally-charged mental image to try to sway the perceptions of such people, but they could do roughly the same thing in the other direction, and so doing so might be meaningless. Hrm.

A planet seems like a rather arbitrary measurement of group size. It might be relevant for such things as ozone layer maintenance which are a factor of planets, granted. In any case, especially given the dangers of committing all eggs t one basket, it seems as though an isolated system would be sufficient for most hypotheses--especially taking into account hypothetical encounters with aliens, et cetera. Any system which cannot handle interactions with entities outside it is prone to collapse upon encountering entities outside it. Thus, such philosophies I'm inclined to treat with great scepticism.

[silveradept]

The meritocracy is the ideal, but it requires a shared idea of what is meritorious and proper, and it requires checks against the possibility of corruption or malice by those who have greater resources, something that Humes have not yet been able to solve for successfully. Pure capitalism tries corrects for this through the market, but in popular perception, especially in the wake of financial scandals, the perception is now that those at the top are rigging the system so as to continually provide for their own achievement and not in attempting to increase the wealth of humanity, or even of their community. Some believe, instead, they are operating on a reverse effect, draining the community of resources to enrich themselves.

As for dealing with outsiders, one suspects either that those philosophers believed the outsiders would be converted and join the collective, or that there was a minimum size requirement for a stable operation, and in many cases, that stable size was the entirety of the planet, so that all the resources, natural and human, would be available to be distributed properly. No shortages due to incompatible systems or hoarding of resources to attempt to extract higher prices or the like. Once achieving that stable size, they could trade with outsiders as normal, without necessarily impacting the stability of the system on the planet. It may turn out to be that it's unsustainable or continually requires new planets to join the system so that new resources are available. On a less-than-planetary scale, the system collapsed. Who knows whether it will do the same at the planetary level?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N?/B?) (*makes a mental note to think about the meritocracy/capitalism case at the end of the comment (?)*)
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'conversion and join the collective': treating the rest of humanity as outsiders, if this reasoning held then all the rest of humanity would join the group which held to it without significant problems.

'minimum size for stability, that size estimated at the whole planet': deeply questionable. (Given the arbitrariness of planet-size.) If so large that 'the whole planet' is the closest estimate that could be made for it, then likely it's in fact significantly larger, in which case it couldn't be accomplished no matter how much of the planet were converted. More plausibly, there perhaps is no stable size, and trying to postulate ever-larger sizes at which it would work is just grasping at straws out of blind faith in their ideals, much like Midas stockmarket programs throwing more and more money at a crashing market to try to reach the amount of money thrown at which it would bounce back.
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Also take into account the problems of human overreproduction in response to abundant resources, in that even if one hypothetically provided a certain high minimum level of lifestyle for all, many would likely respond by having many children and significantly lowering the minimum level attainable.
This argument may be weak, given that those with higher lifestyle quality tend to have fewer children in practice.
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Whether a 'planet' or a 'continent' or a 'country' or a 'town' or a 'solar system' or a 'galaxy arm', the same policies can be put into practice regarding all the resources inside and the rest of the universe outside.
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That it collapsed in the first place throws significant doubt on it, to the point where entrusting the entire planet to it (especially without concrete data predicting a precise threshold of stability, born out of maths rather than hope) seems foolhardy.
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An unsustainable/pyramid-scheme-like arrangement would be an example of disastrousness in that collapse, once it finally came, would have far worse consequences than the collapse of a less-than-planetary test case.

[cut for length; first paragraph response below]

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N?/B?) [cut for length; second paragraph response above]

'and proper': seemingly irrelevant, or otherwise already being addressed in laws against homicide et cetera. Likewise with corruption/malice/et cetera, that already being a significant government-related problem regardless of meritocracies.
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A shared idea of what counts as 'merit': indeed problematic, given the many different (and here the phrase comes up again) comparative advantages which different people may hold. In practice, trying to manually identify and promote individual cases is crude and likely to lead to severe problems down the line if that's the only approach taken.
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The concept of capitalism bypasses this easily by ensuring (?) a result-based positive (and negative?) feedback system, those able to accomplish something of value to others able to obtain resources in return for their accomplishments. Thus, without having to manually select which qualities are desirable, those with those qualities will by using them be able to accumulate the resources needed to make best use of them.

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.v

The 'reverse effect' possibility is of significant concern in this regard. Money as power... distortions... black holes...

One might argue that this is consistent with the underlying concept. Those of greatest ability are able to make greatest use of resources and are greatest able to accumulated resources. Part of this is also the use of resources to accumulate more resources, the ultimate case being one person naturally selected as 'fitter' than all others (warning: as claimed that natural selection only applies to groups rather than individuals for evolutionary purposes, whether true or not this may be a warped case) ending up in control of all resources, standing in the position of a god-king/god-emperor/god-[gender-neutral ruler term] perhaps, with all the rest of humanity his/her/its vassals for instance.

It could be understood how this concept could prompt opposition.

Another argument could be that forceful draining, disadvantaging others rather than more efficiently making use of their skills, would only result from using money as power to forcefully warp the structure of the economy itself, for instance by enforcing monopolies, using money as power to crush enemies, bribing politicians et cetera.

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Both these mental images, as well as any third or other relevant images, may warrant further thought/discussion.

What are your thoughts on the appropriateness or inappropriateness or likelihood or otherwise of the Gilgamesh possibility?

What are your thoughts on the methods and/or deciding factors of such 'reverse effect, draining' methods?

What are your thoughts on any other issues of significance regarding this manner which have not yet been directly addressed?