Re: How do you calm down the hot-heads?

From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 18:35:41 MDT

  • Next message: Damien Broderick: "Re: cancer rates"

    On Thursday, September 11, 2003, at 09:54 AM, matus wrote:

    > I suggest reading Matt Ridley's "The
    > Origins of Virtue"

    Will do, sounds fun.

    > When you say 'niether loses nor gains' is that an objective statement
    > of
    > fact? What are they not 'losing' nor 'gaining'?

    Both of them are losing exactly 1 hour each. Two hours total. That's
    the objective facts of it. The subjective fact "Did they enjoy their
    hour" is well, subjective, not to say arbitrary, but certainly
    negotiable.

    A person can learn to love even the most awkward drudgery.

    > If I trade my skill
    > for yours, I feel I have won something, since otherwise I would have
    > had
    > to spend years training at said skill.

    Not if you give up something of equal value - your 1 hour. You may
    have the subjective feeling of "pheew" but you haven't actually gained
    anything, you've lost your hour. It was an hour very efficiently
    spent, but still an hour of your life, gone, dusted, forever lost to
    memory and wistfulness, spent performing menial labor, something you've
    done a thousand times before.

    MAYBE it would be more fun and interesting to learn other people's
    trades? That is a subjective factor. You can spend your time how you
    like. But you can never gain any more of it, and it is that TIME that
    is valuable to You, Me and your cohorts. That's why you're willing to
    make the trade - you can save some time by spending some time.

    But the fact is, you didn't actually save time, you only spent it. So
    did your other person.

    Consider the possibility that you didn't NEED their help. Consider the
    possibility that even though it would take you YEARS to get as good at
    doing what they're doing that those years might be a lot of fun! Even
    Pig-Farming can be fun.

    > This is the inherient value of
    > money, it is a representation of man-hours worked or intellegint human
    > effort.

    Perhaps a better way of putting it is that money can be artificially
    inflated so that the people who print money and control the money
    supply can always maintain an upper-hand in monetary exchanges, making
    the value of money arbitrary - that is, it is the main value of money
    that its value be changeable over time so that my hour today can be
    devalued to 1/2 hour in 10 years or 2-years depending on how quickly
    inflation "happens" - or more accurately, on how fast the money supply
    is changed by those who control it - in particular:
    http://www.ny.frb.org/

    > You seem to imply absolutely that no one loses or gains, while
    > I feel I do win out, and so does the other party.

    Sure, you've got what you wanted, he got what he wanted. On the other
    hand, you had to do something you (let's assume) didn't want to do and
    so did he. The exchange, has no net creation of time.

    > If the other party
    > agrees, are you stating that we are both wrong and just diluded? Or is
    > your 'niether loses or gains' statement purely an opinion?

    It's a statement about what is valuable in exchanges. The answer is
    human effort, time. Of course there are subjective factors that say
    whether or not your "time is well spent" but the objective factor is
    the simple expense of your human labor doing something for someone else.

    >>> Does this not demonstrate that 'effort' as
    >>> directed through technology has no limit to its value?
    >>
    >> Each person should be able to determine the value of their own time.
    >> That's what freedom is.
    >
    > You did not answer the question. Is their a limit to value that
    > technology produces?

    the question is badly formed. If there were a machine that could
    convert solar energy to hamburgers, that machine would be really,
    really great to have. It's value, however, would be determined by how
    hard it would be for me to acquire it and/or the hamburgers it creates.
      That would be determined by the amount of effort I had to put in to
    get them.

    > And why is freedom the ability to determine the *value* of your time,
    > and not just what to *do* with your time?

    Because if I am free, I can charge $3000/hr for my time. If I am not,
    I can be forced to do something for less.

    >> If you say "I'll give you a dollar to play guitar for me for an hour."
    >>

    > If you say "Ill give you a dollar for that loaf of bread" and I might
    > do
    > it or might not, perhaps I consider my effort put into that loaf of
    > bread as worth more than a dollar. ...You think Ill sell that for a
    > dollar?

    The cases are exactly parallel - the bread and the guitar-playing.

    > This is the fundamental contradiction in your stance, you state both at
    > the same time that "each person should be able to determine the value
    > of
    > their own time" and in the next statement...

    Oooh, I'm excited!

    > Which is it, is value determined by the effort, or by how much person
    > thinks is own time is worth? How are you measuring 'value'? (hence my
    > comments on calories expended)

    By the subjective factor by which a person values their own time. No
    dichotomy here.

    > What if a million people gave you a
    > dollar to all hear you play your guitar for a minute.

    Depends on what I have to play. If I have to play "Come Mr. Tally-man
    Tally-me-bannana" I (may have) lost my self-respect and my minute.

    On the other hand if I just plain WANTED to play what I happened to be
    playing and someone wanted to give me money for it, we still have a
    zero-sum, to use your terminology. Money is of variable value. If
    people are making "average" guitar-players millionaires in 1-minute,
    then a million dollars isn't worth that much, is it?

    > Did they not 'win' out also?

    Again, if they do it "OF THEIR OWN WILL" that is, if they do it for
    themselves, then sure, they have spent their time the way they wanted
    to, they're free, they win - they simply did what they wanted with
    their time.

    Maybe I did too. But the objective factor - how much time - we both
    lost exactly the same amount. Tick Tick Tick.

    >> "Efficient markets" If the theory is that food is becoming more
    >> available with time, it SHOULD follow that it would become less
    >> expensive with time too, right?
    >
    > It has, it is cheaper than it has ever been before.

    Well, I for one know that in 1991 I could get a nice BLT in westwood
    for $5.95. Now it's $8.95. That's not cheaper. What standard are you
    using for "cheaper". Even by my standard - time - I still have to walk
    over to the restaurant, sit down, ask. That person has to go order,
    get, have made and bring it to me. You can see why I prefer to measure
    by time - it manages to transcend epochal and cultural distinctions of
    value ( but not religious or moral distinctions of value - the
    Religious or Ethical person doesn't care how long it takes to do the
    right thing.)

    > Did you say 'worth' paying for? But I thought you didn't win out?

    I said there was a tie - we both lose the exact same amount of the only
    thing worthwhile - the TIME.

    > Is this not a non-zero sum interaction!?

    You can see that there's a hole in the zero-sum theory then. What if
    all transactions "objectively" have a net-creation of nothing? What
    if, for instance, the laws of physics apply to economics too, and no
    matter what you do, no matter or energy or time or space is created or
    destroyed in any transaction?

    I would put it this way as in other things. There is an hierarchy of
    goods:

    Physical Needs
    Physical Wants
    Pleasures
    Mediate Happiness
    Temporal Fulfillment
    Ethical Fulfillment
    Honor
    Glory

    At the level of the physical are the "objective" transactions of simple
    Time.
    At the level of Honor and Glory are Good Uses of Time.

    But these will have very little to do with economics.

    > Great, so who ever has bigger guns wins out.

    No, whoever is smart enough to stay away from people with big guns wins
    out.

    > And why do you call this
    > 'peacefull' anarchy exactly?

    Well, let's say you KNOW I have a really, really big gun. And let's
    say you think you have a bigger one. There's still the risk that your
    bigger gun will not be effective in beating me to the draw and you may
    die. It will, therefore, be reasonable for you to seek cooperation
    rather than competition with me UNLESS your gun is SOOO BIG that I
    can't possibly win (like our Iraq war), in which case if you are a mean
    person, you may attack.

    In fact, this is roughly what has happened, the Military Industrial
    Complex of Capitalism has attacked and you have lost. Tough cookies.
    You're a tax-paying slave to whoever they decide to put in the
    government.

    Alternatively, you can go around killing people and fighting both your
    current and potential enemies. We'll call this version of "peaceful
    anarchy" the peace of Death.

    > And how is this any better than the
    > current post-industrialize west system?

    Its more honest and more local and more manageable. Clearly I'm
    suggesting that the current power structures be dismantled. Why?
    Because they (the people who collect and manage the 50-70% of your
    income that goes to the government in a variety of taxes charges and
    tariffs) managed to gain such an advantage over us non-combatants that
    we're helpless before them. It's sad and a little scary. DO YOU like
    the fact that GW can drop bombs and call in the CIA to get you, but you
    can't, and that there are parallels to George Bush calling out hits on
    the David Kelly's of the world?

    Without the network to support their power structure and without the
    ideology to support the network, those kinds of things, I believe,
    would just be a thing of the past.

    > Do you not think a local
    > warlord pointing a gun at your face to take some of your food you grew
    > on your farm is 'alienation of labor'?

    Definitely. I doubt he'd do that if we were on roughly equal
    "military" footing. Military footing is gained, once again, by the
    aggregation of human effort and labor. This is harder without the
    underlying structures of power that are already in place (eg money,
    "free markets", etc.)

    > I don't exactly want to maintain
    > an arsenal, can I pay someone else to do it and ensure no one threatens
    > me with their aresenal? Isnt that, in a way, what I am all ready doing
    > with my taxes?

    That's your CHOICE. I don't personally trust the police very much. I
    would like to have alternatives. Isn't that the core of
    Libertarianism. We should have competing police.

    > After all, if someone comes up to me with a gun, I call
    > those people I pay, and they are hear to drag off the gun toting nut
    > and
    > keep him, basically, from f-ing with me.

    If someone comes up to you with a gun with the intent to kill you RIGHT
    NOW, you're probably dead. The US police are reactive and exist
    primarily to protect the property rights of the wealthy. Call murder
    in Watts, get no response. Call Insurance Claim in Beverly Hills, get
    two patrol cars.

    > That's fine, but what if the system you are proposing is worse. And it
    > kills millions of people.

    Better than billions, right? Millions would be an improvement.

    > What if the system you are rallying most
    > against is what will bring the world to the closest it can possibly get
    > to an ideal world free of force?

    Doubtful. Any reason to expect that it is? Plenty of genocides year
    after year, century after century demonstrate that STATES - not
    religions, not hordes, not cave-people, etc. - are the truly dangerous
    elements in human lives.

    > How are you determining, objectively,
    > what is the best way to persue such a goal.

    Say you've got a burning coal on your hand. It hurts. You may
    conjecture "Well, my hand may hurt more if I take it out" since you
    just don't know. So you leave it there. "Better the devil you know,
    after all," you muse to yourself.

    > I am sure Pol Pot thought his goals laudable,

    Doubtful. I'm sure Pol Pot was a murderous power-monger.

    > It seems like you
    > are just doing a lot of complaining, without looking at the
    > consequences
    > of your suggestions.

    Well, I have some concrete suggestions that might tend to make the US
    slightly better, but they're clearly really just middle-steps and
    compromises that might make the country less terrifyingly dangerous and
    evil, but that's all.

    > It also sounds like you are more like a social
    > anarchist then a 'peaceful anarchist'

    Maybe. I don't like pigeonholing myself. I did it because it was
    convenient for you to categorize me. If it's more convenient to think
    of me as a "social anarchist" then fine.

    > So we do have property rights then?

    Rights are negative. I don't have a right to take something from you,
    so you therefore have the right to posses what you posses. What will
    really "turn your noodle" is the question "What do I possess?"

    > Well, what if I want more property
    > than you think I should have?

    Depends, is it something I need?

    > Is that when we whip out the big guns and
    > enforce that 'peacefull anarachy'?

    Definitely.

    > But regardless, there may be plenty of food and water, but since we all
    > have property rights, what if I buy up most of the food production land
    > and charge what I want for the food.

    well, if you were to try to set up a "New STATE" obviously we'd have to
    deal with you.

    I'll assume that the people who are living without taxes will not want
    to invite a new warlord to town.

    > Does a gang of 'peacefull
    > anarchists' come beating down my fences with machine guns and iron
    > bars?

    Pretty much.

    | Um, how is this any different then the current market based system?

    Centralization of control and state-sponsored monopolies.

    >> People would have to recognize the value of what they'd achieved to
    >> make it worth keeping.
    >
    > And if they do not recognize the value of what they achieved, what
    > then?

    then they'd be free to change it. As opposed to NOW when it's nearly
    impossible.

    The point of a free society is that it would have to be free - that is
    - changeable.

    > Is it not worth keeping. What if others recognize the value, but the
    > producer does not, even though he continues to produce and others
    > continue to consume.

    Then the producer stops producing?

    > However, should we divide up my provisions, perhaps some 50% of them
    > would not starve or freeze, but 50% of my family would. What is the
    > 'right thing to do'?

    Well you'll have to figure that out. You have the same choices today.
    You can feed yourself or you can help people in cambodia. What do you
    do?

    > Maybe, maybe he is sick of performing brain operations.

    > ... he is perfectly content
    > to sculpt clay instead of perform operations.

    Then he's not a doctor, go find someone else.

    > The more something is valued by more people, the higher people are paid
    > to perform that service, and the more likely people are to perform that
    > service.

    some people do things because the LIKE to. Some Doctors genuinely
    like saving other people's lives. Those are the people we'd LIKE to
    have for doctors as opposed to the ones that just LIKE to make money.
    When money subordinates the health-care profession, you get systems
    like those in the US where the very wealthy get very good care and the
    poor and middle class get only emergency care.

    > He's free, after all. Of course, I'll die, but he
    > is free!

    why would he want to let you die when he's able to save you?

    > You also say "Each person should be able to determine the
    > value of their own time" Perhaps the good doctor feels his time is
    > valued at 1 million dollars per second of operation time. He is, after
    > all, free to determine the value of his time, is he not?

    and you are free not to pay him, go use some other doctor. No
    difference from today's world, the difference is that the Government
    isn't propping up the cost of medical care in our future dream-world.
    Doctor's have to eat too, you know.

    > But what if he does not want to help me? I hear lots of 'shoulds' and
    > 'it's the right thing to do' but no concrete answers to problems.

    Because you want to build a system like we have today where people are
    forced to do things. Free your mind.

    > And
    > Sure the government is helping, we have no shortage of brain surgeons.

    Well, if the supply and demand theory is true, there is a shortage of
    brain surgeons - that's why they make so much money.

    > The system, kept in place (for the most part) by governments, helps to
    > ensure that money is a representation of effort or man-hours worked and
    > has value, that no one with a big gun will hold you up and take all
    > your
    > bread, and that worth is determined by the consumer and the producer in
    > competition, yet both benefit.

    Actually the system that is in place PRE-STEALS your bread and prevents
    other people from doing so IF the target is wealthy. It also has a
    nice habit of changing the value of money occasionally as
    necessary/convenient.

    > You insit that worth should be
    > determined solely by the producer E.g. "Each person should be able to
    > determine the value of their own time" and seem to suggest that value
    > as
    > determined by an interaction of consumer and producer leads both to be
    > 'unfree'

    No, it's the 3rd party that I'm complaining about. You seem to be
    insisting that there be SOME power structure in place that would FORCE
    a doctor to treat you NO MATTER WHAT.

    Well, tough patooties. That system doesn't exist now, nor do I think
    it would be ideal, for the system that would force doctors to fix you
    might also force them to be slaves. Is that what you want? Slavery?

    >> How about asking nicely, most people are reasonable when
    >> asked.
    >
    > What about the people who are not reasonable?

    Well, you're the one asking for help, ask nicely. If they say no, move
    on.

    > But I thought you said "Each person should be able to determine the
    > value of their own time" What if the value of his time is an
    > unreasonable fee to me?

    That's right, they shouldn't be FORCED by some third party to make
    arbitrary exchanges. If you can't FORCE me to do something, then I do
    it because I WANT to.

    In our world, all people are effectively forced to pay taxes and that
    drives "most" of them to take shitty jobs.

    > Robbie, how is this *any* different than a market based
    > capitalism?

    I said I was a libertarian. The difference is the non-existence of a
    force-based 3rd-party either propping up demand or supply with nuclear
    weapons and VX gas.

    > Either he determines the value of his time, or
    > all the parties involved determine the value (the producers and the
    > consumers)

    If he can freely walk away from a transaction, he determines the value
    of the transaction.

    > And what if I did not? A significant majority of the population does
    > not 'plan well enough' for such things, yet society generally expects
    > them to receive the same 'adequate' health care that others who do plan
    > well enough receive.

    How is this a problem?

    >> in turn would pay because if they didn't you'd be pissed and so would
    >> the rest of their customers.)
    >
    > An insurer would pay because I would be pissed? What if they had
    > bigger
    > guns than me? Would they care if I were pissed?

    Only trust people as far as you can throw them, especially insurers.

    Test it for yourself, make a BIG medical claim while under the
    protection of US law.

    > The system you propose is basically what we have in place in most post
    > industrilized west nations, barring the existence of the things most
    > minarchist liberterians generally object to (drug war, subsidies,
    > intereference of business by government, etc) Seems you should just be
    > a minarchist libertarian, and move to new hampshire with the rest of us
    > in a year or two.

    Probably. But the existence of drug wars, subsidies, business
    interference in governement and vice versa make up the main problems as
    I see them. That's what makes the freedom impossible - the underlying
    material conditions of advanced societies.

    > 'THIS' isnt perfect, but it's the best thing we have seen so far, and I
    > fear your sytem would be far far worse.

    Fear is the mind killer. Like I said, the devil you know is worse than
    the devil you don't. I don't feel that way. I feel like I'm stuck in
    a room with the devil and a bunch of other people, there's a door and
    it sucks in here and nobody's brave enough to try door B. I'm ready to
    try door B, and am tired of the nightly pineapple suppositories.

    >>> Is that so? I guess most communist governements just never
    >> got to sit
    >>> around long enough to turn into full anarachies.
    >>
    >> It's an empirical question and so I am agnostic about it.
    >
    > Huh? You are agnostic about empirical questions?

    Yes, time will tell. The matter will be settled after a few hundred
    years. Your statement was that communisms never get old enough to
    "come to fruition". My statement is - "well, let's wait and see." But
    the evidence so far is that they don't become egalitarian in less than
    75 years, and there's no reason to expect that they will in the next 75
    years. BUT if your proposition is wait 2000 years, I'm willing to wait
    and be agnostic about this "futurism" question.

    >> By letting people benefit from their own land and labor.
    >
    > In what cases to people not benefit from their labor?

    When large percentages of it are paid in taxes that go to support
    military regimes and programs that serve only to perpetuate themselves.

    > Which doesn't exist anywhere anymore.

    Word games. I'll substitute "Effective Slavery" if you prefer it.

    > What if people
    > want to all sell their land because they don't want to farm, and buy
    > land on the water? There is only so much land on the water, what if
    > everyone wants to move there?

    What if it started raining monkeys? Are you Mr. question or what?

    > But isnt being forced to charge a 'reasonable' fee, as in the case of
    > our Doctor, a form of coercion?

    Yes, in order to be a free transaction, he always has to be able to
    walk away.

    > If I am forced to
    > charge less than what I think my services are worth, I am still
    > FORCED!!!

    You could just not perform them. Go pick berries in the forest.

    > In the first possible example I give you of where someone
    > values his time differently than what others value you, you assert that
    > the value should be a reasonable interaction of those, this is exactly
    > what the supply and demand curves determine.

    Which supply and demand curves , the "with military-money backing" or
    the "without military-money backing".

    Try this one on for size, there is no "supply and demand curve" any
    more than there are "recessions". It's words, mumbo jumbo used to give
    ease of conceptualization to almost impossibly complex phenomena.

    > Is it just the concept of money you don't like?

    Force-backed money.

    If I'm willing to take paper in exchange for tomatoes, that should be
    my choice.

    In the united states, it's illegal to take alternate forms of money.
    In fact, in almost every country, they INSIST that you carry on
    commerce in their form of money - the penalties for setting up
    alternative money schemes are pretty severe. That's called FORCED.

    > Then who will protect me from the people with big guns? What if I want
    > to pay for that protection service?

    Answered above.

    >> Alienation simply means taking something that was yours and making it
    >> someone else's. Forced alienation is when someone MAKES you do it.
    >
    > A perfect description of being forced to charge 'reasonable fees' You
    > are taking somethning that isnt yours (my time, skills, and effort) and
    > making me give it to you for less than I think it is worth. How do you
    > resolve this contradiction?

    What am I taking from you? It seems to me I'm right now GIVING you my
    time. Mostly in answering silly questions like this one. Why?
    Because I believe you're a rational person also in search of a
    less-repressive governmental system.

    >> People manage to figure out valuable things that other people want.
    >
    > But you said "Each person should be able to determine the value of
    > their
    > own time" Maybe I want to be a rock thrower, and I can throw them
    > really well, and I think it has a lot of value. I do, after all, get
    > to
    > determine the value of my own time.

    Sure, go ahead, throw rocks, have at it. Send pictures home if you
    want. What does this have to do with ANYTHING?

    >> They don't need governments to show them how to do this. Governments
    >> come in when small groups of people band together and force other
    >> people into submission by violence.
    >
    > Oh, like being forced to charge a 'reasonable' fee?

    When people show up and DECIDE FOR YOU what a reasonable fee is, then
    it's forced. Otherwise not, it's pretty simple.

    Not clear.

    > NOT CLEAR!!!! Have you not seen the pictures of piles of skulls? The
    > Tual Song prison camp, where 20,000 political prisoners went in and
    > SEVEN came out? The official decrees to 'smash' dissenters and enemies
    > of the people?

    At least try to finish the paragraph, jeez.

    >> It may be that the underlying factors which support
    >> Australia also support Pol Pot.
    >
    > But it isnt, since Australia's economy is not run by the will of one
    > individual who has absolute power.

    Oy vey, if Australia's government supports either directly or
    indirectly the government of Pol Pot OR the conditions which make the
    Australian government POSSIBLE also make Pol Pot's goverment more
    likely, then the Austrialian government is just as bad as Pol Pots.

    > http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WF.CHAP6.HTM

    Very familiar.

    > I understand that the CIA was funding
    >> Pol Pot's campaign against his people.
    >>
    > You understand incorrectly. But I wont dwell on this point, as it
    > deviates from the topic.

    "What I learned about US Foreign Policy" is one popular video source.

    We have a disagreement about facts here.

    > and people over eat
    > because food is so damn cheap and consumer goods so inexpensive,
    > leading
    > us to live more sedantary lives than ever before.

    Maybe. Maybe they overeat because they're so stressed out and
    over-commercialized and have absolutely nothing better to do because
    they're trapped working in shitty jobs paying of large mortgages.
    Perhaps our societies actually have a psychological effect on the
    people.

    > Plenty of people work
    > with No stress also, work does not absolutely cause stress.

    Sure, and plenty of people work with stress. I'll get stats, but I'm
    pretty sure they favor the stress explanation. BUT as a rhetorical
    move, as far as I know nothing :ABSOLUTELY: causes anything at all.
    Isn't that one of the basics of physics nowadays?

    > But suffuce to say, in this
    > example your hunch is entirely wrong.

    Interesting hypothesis.

    I've been wrong before. Let's hear your evidence.

    Which people?
    >
    All the people, as an average, both the mean and the median. Did they
    > live better lives or not?

    No idea. You?

    > Can you think of any way to measure the quality of life besides
    > 'limosuines per capita'?

    Number of minutes during the day spent doing anything I like.

    Best,

    Robbie



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