Democracy will not work. It does not work and will never work. Specifically any voting system is subject to Arrow's Impossibility, and democracy cannot violate any precept thereof without destroying itself.
To be a dictatorship is to not be a democracy, so I can safely ignore the idea of a democracy that is a dictatorship. That said, states such a Stalin's Russia or Saddam's Iraq tended to be highly corrupt and inefficient, and if you constantly keep people sated with fake security they will not secure real security for themselves. Of course if the individuals under the government do not protect the government, the government, being the group of individuals under itself, will also be unable to protect itself.
Next off, a democracy without Unrestricted Domain. This again is split into 3 distinct clauses I can violate. IE-
A democracy that does not take into account all individual preferences. In other words, a democracy with a limited vote, similar to America's original vision. The main flaw of this system is that people with power will use their power. IE, it is implausible to expect that you will be able to indefinitely keep the vote from being used by all groups. People will naturally vote, that additional voters who agree with them should also be able to vote. By compromising and giving various special interests support and various causes in return for extra voters, they will be able to expand to fill all limits. Those left out of this expansion will be completely unrepresented by their government and will thus be disloyal, hateful and in pain. As the unrepresented populace grows it will use progressively larger quantities of force in order to seize power. A strange alien government could probably repeatedly genocide such groups, but, as humans, we are naturally empathetic and kind, and cannot bring ourselves to build such a government. We could design a government that secretly carries out its genocides, (like Russia) but once again, a government without oversight will immediately fall to corruption.
A democracy without a complete ranking of all issues, IE a democracy wherein the government does not compare all options. The problem here is this- that on all issues a choice must be made. IE somehow, someone or some group must make the choice. In essence, what is proposed is merely a tiered democracy in which votes are located on different planes. X can be compared to Y, but not Z because Z is located in another castle. We can see some of this in the idea of division of powers/check and balances. The supreme court handles some issues while the president handles others and the congress handles others. Unfortunately this achieves very little if each branch is generated from the same group, and faces the same problems above if they are generated by separate groups (think house of commoners and lords from the past.) Of course you can generate certain policies via local populations and others via global population- thus ignoring the preferences of people unrelated to any given issue. Unfortunately people will tend to push an issue upwards until it receives support- IE if the city doesn't want X then you can still ask the state to mandate that every city build X. Fundamentally, if votes determine the government, then everyone will have an effect on every issue, regardless of cup games and vote shuffling.
The third axiom I can violate to avoid universality is to have a system wherein a person's votes do not necessitate any given result, IE the senate of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately there's a reason we call the Roman Empire an Empire- it was not a democracy.
Secondly a system that does not maintain independence of irrelevant alternatives. At first this seems very different from the original axiom, but fundamentally it's not. Instead of allowing a few people to vote on all issues you're allowing everyone to vote on a few issues. IE, your restricting the vote to the few people who care about the issue. Here we see many of the antics of modern American democracy- For instance, imagine a candidate as a conglomeration of issues. One candidate supports abortion while the other opposes it. Thus any person CAN vote for or against abortion. But, imagine that the same candidate who supports abortion also supports higher taxes and more spending. Note that a voter restricted to the two candidates will soon realize that due to caring more about economics, he IS NOT ALLOWED to vote on abortion. This will result in subsets that care heavily about an issue always winning any debate on the issue. (IE a teacher cares a lot more about schools than anyone else and will only support candidates that propose more spending on teachers. The teachers then push through smaller class sizes, higher wages, lower standards that are more specific to the teachers that exist to keep out competition by stopping the removal of the old and restricting access to the new.) Such a system can only result in larger government each voting cycle. As such, if you lack independence of irrelevant alternates then you are part of the communist system.
Finally we come to Pareto efficiency. IE a society in which preference of A over B does not necessarily lead to A being chosen over B. This is interesting, and assumes some sort of automata that can intelligently come to a conclusion given data. What we have here is not decisions being made by voters- it's decisions being made by the system, a amorphous object granted sentience by the votes fueling it. Note that such an automation need not be technically advanced- a machine in which black and white stones are placed into a box, and then a number are removed at random, would display a certain level of intelligence. While ignoring Pareto efficiency we can easily drift away from democracy to systems such as- Everyone votes, then a super intelligent robot decides on a fitting society. It's not a dictatorship, because the robot has no opinion, it merely takes votes and gives results. Everyone votes on everything (the robot could even simulate votes using its super-intelligence by predicting voter behavior without actually having to ask the voter personally) so all individual preferences are used. Since the robot is just a highly sophisticated program it will give the same results from the same vote every time. Assuming the robot chose each issue independently it could avoid being affected by irrelevant issues. This however is nowhere near a democracy, and any similar system inferior in amplitude is inferior to the max amplitude super robot. So, that leads to -Democracy as super robot, IE a system that is designed to be the closest thing we can build with modern technology to our super robot.
What we must understand about such a system is that in it we are already entrusting ourselves to a foreign intelligence- IE, if we are willing that an automata make our decisions for us then that automata has no advantage over any other decision making body besides that of the quality of the decisions made. Imagine then the alternate super robot- A super intelligent machine that contains its own motive power, and designs society to suit its predefined precepts. Any nobility, should be, in essence, our highest tech attempt at designing said super robot. As such, for our democratic super robot to succeed it must be superior to our noble super robot.
So we come to the question of- Just what is our democratic super robot? Answer- The bill of rights and representation. We compile a list of preferences, then throw out ones we don't like. Then we categorically link answers we do like to answers we like on issues wherein we received answers we didn't like. The problem here, is that it gives too much power to the representatives. With this power the representatives can influence the very votes they are supposed to be processing. Soon enough, we receive a system that is non-democratic, wherein the government feeds the populace lies, and the populace then turn around and say whatever is asked of them. The decisions are then made from the top down- Even though they are not enacted until the decision moves from the bottom up. IE just because a decision is approved by the bottom does not make a system democratic. The people in the Soviet Union were very supportive of the Soviet Union- Even as they did everything within their power to escape the lives produced by the Soviet Union. We cannot afford to trust our politicians because once trusted, they will abuse said trust. (Even if the politicians originally given said trust were trustworthy.)
So here I present my noble super robot- Wherein a group of people are selected via intelligence and personality testing. By scientifically designing the test and putting it through millions of test cases and simulations ahead of time, we can give it a high degree of accuracy. It will select people who are honest, intelligent, ruthless and kind. They will not hesitate to protect us in war or against criminals, but will not seek out enemies in peace. They will defend the environment without destroying the economy. They will enrich the poor but will not harm the rich. They will do everything every lying politician has declared he'd do during every election- Because he would be mentally suited to the task. However, the most important thing that the test could measure is this- That the selected nobility would not destroy the system. The chosen participants would not take their children who are mentally distinct from them and put them into power even though the test said they were ineligible. They would not extend federal powers into local disputes, nor would local nobility seek to elevate themselves to federal positions. Such people do exist, but we will never find them through democracy- a democracy will only elevate people who claim these properties- Only science can sort people based on who actually has such properties.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Economics, Property and Government
The market is a virtual construct. There is no such thing as a "free" market- the market is controlled by humans, and exists under laws. Property rights are communally decided constructs- IE when someone digs up some coal and it then becomes his is not some divine self evident reality. It's just basic settlement by a bunch of humans. Had that person not dug up the coal, than anyone could- by digging it up and claiming it, he's merely redistributing wealth to himself. More particularly if a person walks in, claims some empty land and then charges the next person who comes (who likely didn't even exist when the land was originally claimed.) he can easily produce nothing and do nothing, but still be bequeathed with magical wealth for no reasons except legal technicalities. The reason a person can't just walk in and start using a random piece of owned land is purely based on legal processes. Simply put, property rights are, like government, a communal creation- A virtual reality that is based upon the real world, but not a part of the real world.
It can be expected that a person's efforts should support his own vision. First off, people are unlikely to try hard to make someone else's dream a reality. Second off, it is practically infeasible to manually control everyone's activities such that they fulfill a utilitarian greater good. Thirdly, it defies the entire purpose of being multiple people if one person controls another- you'd be better off with one person with twice the brain size. IE, a well designed economy must fulfill the role of providing the benefits of each person's action to the person who takes those actions. That said, a economy is a designed construct. There is no natural economy, and a failure to design an economy will only result in a randomly constructed economy. It's like building a house by putting stones on top of each-other rather than relying on brick and mortar.
So, once again, what makes a well designed economy? The short answer is one that provides results- one wherein everyone is as rich as possible. One wherein people can do jobs and actually produce products and services. One wherein jobs are done by those most fit to carry them out. That of course leads to the question of what economic model actually achieves these goals.
The answer there is somewhat difficult, and there's no real way to declare that some system or other is the peak of economic reasoning. That'd be like declaring that we've reached the end of physics and there's nothing more to learn. However, there is one thing for certain- systems of economics that have been tried and have failed will not succeed. Economic designs that don't compile won't work. Amongst these economic designs there are certain ones that repeatedly pop up, and receive vast support regardless of how many times they've failed.
Number 1- declaring oneself rich. It looks good on paper and is certainly the methodology that will get everyone the most money fastest. The problem is, without a link between money and wealth, money loses its value. Money is just a measurement. Trying to generate wealth by printing money is like trying to heat a room by increasing the mercury content of your thermostat. Of course, printing money is not the only way we generate imaginary wealth- Conjuring wealth in the present with some imaginary connection to production in the future is still just conjuring up wealth. You cannot be in debt to yourself. It is physically impossible. You cannot lend more than you have, nor can you lend the same wealth to multiple people. Wealth is a finite resource. Only one person can have it at a time. Any time one tries to defy the laws of physics with his economic policies, the only things he will change are the measurements produced by his devices. A physicist can easily simulate a process that reaches any result from any starting condition by controlling the rules of the simulation, but only by adhering rigidly to the rules based on reality can such a physicist build a plane that functions within reality.
Breaking the tools by which we view the economy will not spare the economy underneath. If we cannot tell who owns what, than resources will be quickly be consumed by the overwhelming masses of people who could somehow take some advantage of the resources, regardless of how small the advantage would be- not to mention masses of idiots who are simply too stupid to understand how to use the resources properly. If we cannot tell who produces what than we cannot discern between valuable workers who do their job and useless junk that should be routed to a better location where they can do more or dropped from the workforce altogether. We can't tell what services are necessary in the modern age and what services are obsolete refuse of the past.
Number 2- Relying on measurements besides those given to us by the economy. In essence, an economy is a set of variables used to measure the activities of wealth. They are your measurements. When they don't give you the results you want, you can't just use some other tool. It's like a scientist who turns away from his top of the line electron microscope and uses a obsolete microscope instead because the results given by that microscope coincide better with his theory. This is why the economy cannot be improved by redistribution of wealth. If a economic activity is useful, a well designed economy will tell us so. If something looks useful on the surface but the economy tells us it isn't, then it's not. When you walk into a room that looks safe, and your geiger counter tells you there's a lethal level of radiation, you leave. Fast. The same is true of a business that tanks. The economy is telling us that that business isn't working. Sure we can prop it up with subsidies and other nonsense, but it still will not make the business actually work. That said, economic success is not everything. For example, polluting the hell out of the environment may well lead to economic success (as demonstrated during the industrial revolution) but it will lead to a decreased quality of life. For this reason it is sometimes a good idea to redistribute wealth- But those who do so must always accept that they're hurting the economy. To gain a benefit, you must pay the price.
Number 3- Allowing economic exploits to replace economic activity. The fact of the matter is, no matter how fancy your telescopes are or how advanced your radiation detector is, instruments fail. Optical illusions and mechanical failure plague us all, and identifying these failures is a constant struggle. However, in economics we often find it attractive to cover up our instrument failures because the results given by the broken instrument are favorable to some group or look better in terms of long term results. The thing to remember about faulty data is the expected results will not happen. As such the instruments must be replaced or repaired as soon as possible whenever they break, lest they lure us deeper into miasma. We cannot allow a company to succeed just by shuffling money around (not to be confused with companies that invest cleverly and give important guidance to those of us around them.) A company that sells insurance and then uses technicalities of the agreement to avoid ever having to pay their customers is not an asset, even though it may succeed within the market. A company that patents as much random crap as it can lay its hands on and then acts like it was somehow involved in the production of various technologies that are related to these patents is not an asset. Worst of all, is when companies start popping up that sell services such as advising companies on how to avoid touching other's copyrights- It's not that such a company is a bad thing in and of itself, but that when a problem is so bad that you have to support both the problem and an anti-problem, then that problem is taking up a geometrically large part of your economy. (For instance, to get medical advice you must pay a doctor, who then gives part of his money to a insurer, who then takes a portion and gives it various lawyers and law firms that argue out various nonsense. We have to support 4 times the amount of people than the ones who actually do the job, not including taxes and other connecting expenses. Also note that the lawyers are powerful and smart, they're not just random people off the street. They're easily as capable as the doctors, and in a different environment would probably be doctors themselves.)
Number 4- Fearing the orders our economies give us. When a useful economic activity presents itself, the economy will jump on it, and there will be a boom. Inevitably, if replacing copper wire with optical fiber, the economy will surge while all the copper is replaced with optical fiber, and when the copper is finished being replaced the surge will end. When people have nothing to spend on they will invest, and as their investments bear fruit, the investors will spend on that fruit. (saving is a form of investment. From a larger perspective, if a person produces wealth, but does not consume an equivalent asset, than they are increasing the available pool of resources for everyone else in return for a future claim on the production thereof.) When work becomes useless people will stop doing it, and as the pool of available workers increases new and risky business enterprises grow more viable. Inevitably, some of these enterprises succeed and grow while most of them fail. The successful enterprises expand and pick up the resources made available by their failing siblings and then grow until their purpose is also rendered unnecessary. Just because incomes, spending or even production are decreasing should not lead to the inference that the economy is somehow failing. An economy is failing when potentially productive individuals are doing worthless jobs. An economy is failing when resources are squandered on overly expensive projects that give no results. An economy is failing when corruption out competes their non corrupt compatriots. There are danger signs of a failing economy- they're just not the indicators people are used to looking at. When you see bridges to nowhere and total incompetents on top of authority structures, that is the sign of a ailing economy.
In short, the economy is a set of measurements, an instrument through which to see the world. Not using these instruments is like trying to win a war without using guns or bombs. As such, what we should aim for is not precisely a free market- all markets are controlled in complete form by government/society, but a pure market. A market is like a radio, and will prosper when the signal to noise ratio is favorable and will fail when the noise grows so loud that the signals no longer make sense. As such a well designed economy is a clean one- one where the rules do not stop investors and entrepreneurs from finding capital and employees while the corrupt and manipulative do not out compete the honest and productive. In essence, a economy where we can see the true nature of our leaders and providers, and can as leaders see our followers and resources.
It can be expected that a person's efforts should support his own vision. First off, people are unlikely to try hard to make someone else's dream a reality. Second off, it is practically infeasible to manually control everyone's activities such that they fulfill a utilitarian greater good. Thirdly, it defies the entire purpose of being multiple people if one person controls another- you'd be better off with one person with twice the brain size. IE, a well designed economy must fulfill the role of providing the benefits of each person's action to the person who takes those actions. That said, a economy is a designed construct. There is no natural economy, and a failure to design an economy will only result in a randomly constructed economy. It's like building a house by putting stones on top of each-other rather than relying on brick and mortar.
So, once again, what makes a well designed economy? The short answer is one that provides results- one wherein everyone is as rich as possible. One wherein people can do jobs and actually produce products and services. One wherein jobs are done by those most fit to carry them out. That of course leads to the question of what economic model actually achieves these goals.
The answer there is somewhat difficult, and there's no real way to declare that some system or other is the peak of economic reasoning. That'd be like declaring that we've reached the end of physics and there's nothing more to learn. However, there is one thing for certain- systems of economics that have been tried and have failed will not succeed. Economic designs that don't compile won't work. Amongst these economic designs there are certain ones that repeatedly pop up, and receive vast support regardless of how many times they've failed.
Number 1- declaring oneself rich. It looks good on paper and is certainly the methodology that will get everyone the most money fastest. The problem is, without a link between money and wealth, money loses its value. Money is just a measurement. Trying to generate wealth by printing money is like trying to heat a room by increasing the mercury content of your thermostat. Of course, printing money is not the only way we generate imaginary wealth- Conjuring wealth in the present with some imaginary connection to production in the future is still just conjuring up wealth. You cannot be in debt to yourself. It is physically impossible. You cannot lend more than you have, nor can you lend the same wealth to multiple people. Wealth is a finite resource. Only one person can have it at a time. Any time one tries to defy the laws of physics with his economic policies, the only things he will change are the measurements produced by his devices. A physicist can easily simulate a process that reaches any result from any starting condition by controlling the rules of the simulation, but only by adhering rigidly to the rules based on reality can such a physicist build a plane that functions within reality.
Breaking the tools by which we view the economy will not spare the economy underneath. If we cannot tell who owns what, than resources will be quickly be consumed by the overwhelming masses of people who could somehow take some advantage of the resources, regardless of how small the advantage would be- not to mention masses of idiots who are simply too stupid to understand how to use the resources properly. If we cannot tell who produces what than we cannot discern between valuable workers who do their job and useless junk that should be routed to a better location where they can do more or dropped from the workforce altogether. We can't tell what services are necessary in the modern age and what services are obsolete refuse of the past.
Number 2- Relying on measurements besides those given to us by the economy. In essence, an economy is a set of variables used to measure the activities of wealth. They are your measurements. When they don't give you the results you want, you can't just use some other tool. It's like a scientist who turns away from his top of the line electron microscope and uses a obsolete microscope instead because the results given by that microscope coincide better with his theory. This is why the economy cannot be improved by redistribution of wealth. If a economic activity is useful, a well designed economy will tell us so. If something looks useful on the surface but the economy tells us it isn't, then it's not. When you walk into a room that looks safe, and your geiger counter tells you there's a lethal level of radiation, you leave. Fast. The same is true of a business that tanks. The economy is telling us that that business isn't working. Sure we can prop it up with subsidies and other nonsense, but it still will not make the business actually work. That said, economic success is not everything. For example, polluting the hell out of the environment may well lead to economic success (as demonstrated during the industrial revolution) but it will lead to a decreased quality of life. For this reason it is sometimes a good idea to redistribute wealth- But those who do so must always accept that they're hurting the economy. To gain a benefit, you must pay the price.
Number 3- Allowing economic exploits to replace economic activity. The fact of the matter is, no matter how fancy your telescopes are or how advanced your radiation detector is, instruments fail. Optical illusions and mechanical failure plague us all, and identifying these failures is a constant struggle. However, in economics we often find it attractive to cover up our instrument failures because the results given by the broken instrument are favorable to some group or look better in terms of long term results. The thing to remember about faulty data is the expected results will not happen. As such the instruments must be replaced or repaired as soon as possible whenever they break, lest they lure us deeper into miasma. We cannot allow a company to succeed just by shuffling money around (not to be confused with companies that invest cleverly and give important guidance to those of us around them.) A company that sells insurance and then uses technicalities of the agreement to avoid ever having to pay their customers is not an asset, even though it may succeed within the market. A company that patents as much random crap as it can lay its hands on and then acts like it was somehow involved in the production of various technologies that are related to these patents is not an asset. Worst of all, is when companies start popping up that sell services such as advising companies on how to avoid touching other's copyrights- It's not that such a company is a bad thing in and of itself, but that when a problem is so bad that you have to support both the problem and an anti-problem, then that problem is taking up a geometrically large part of your economy. (For instance, to get medical advice you must pay a doctor, who then gives part of his money to a insurer, who then takes a portion and gives it various lawyers and law firms that argue out various nonsense. We have to support 4 times the amount of people than the ones who actually do the job, not including taxes and other connecting expenses. Also note that the lawyers are powerful and smart, they're not just random people off the street. They're easily as capable as the doctors, and in a different environment would probably be doctors themselves.)
Number 4- Fearing the orders our economies give us. When a useful economic activity presents itself, the economy will jump on it, and there will be a boom. Inevitably, if replacing copper wire with optical fiber, the economy will surge while all the copper is replaced with optical fiber, and when the copper is finished being replaced the surge will end. When people have nothing to spend on they will invest, and as their investments bear fruit, the investors will spend on that fruit. (saving is a form of investment. From a larger perspective, if a person produces wealth, but does not consume an equivalent asset, than they are increasing the available pool of resources for everyone else in return for a future claim on the production thereof.) When work becomes useless people will stop doing it, and as the pool of available workers increases new and risky business enterprises grow more viable. Inevitably, some of these enterprises succeed and grow while most of them fail. The successful enterprises expand and pick up the resources made available by their failing siblings and then grow until their purpose is also rendered unnecessary. Just because incomes, spending or even production are decreasing should not lead to the inference that the economy is somehow failing. An economy is failing when potentially productive individuals are doing worthless jobs. An economy is failing when resources are squandered on overly expensive projects that give no results. An economy is failing when corruption out competes their non corrupt compatriots. There are danger signs of a failing economy- they're just not the indicators people are used to looking at. When you see bridges to nowhere and total incompetents on top of authority structures, that is the sign of a ailing economy.
In short, the economy is a set of measurements, an instrument through which to see the world. Not using these instruments is like trying to win a war without using guns or bombs. As such, what we should aim for is not precisely a free market- all markets are controlled in complete form by government/society, but a pure market. A market is like a radio, and will prosper when the signal to noise ratio is favorable and will fail when the noise grows so loud that the signals no longer make sense. As such a well designed economy is a clean one- one where the rules do not stop investors and entrepreneurs from finding capital and employees while the corrupt and manipulative do not out compete the honest and productive. In essence, a economy where we can see the true nature of our leaders and providers, and can as leaders see our followers and resources.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Nature of Objectivism
I hereby define objectivism as using all available information. To reach the best, most powerful conclusions it should be expected that you must use everything available to you. Finding out the truth is no different than designing a building or winning a war- To bridge the longest gap one must take the strongest materials and put them together in the most advanced ways. To defeat a powerful enemy one must use his best strategies and forces, and find a path wherein victory is possible. In bridges and war anyone can tell that if one side uses superior weapons or materials it will come out ahead. It is surprising then, that people think they can get by in philosophy without using the best possible equipment.
During a game of chess you can't afford to grow lazy and stop analyzing the board for new threats and opportunities. However, people have grown lazy about philosophy- after all, whatever philosophy one takes, the primary effects are averaged into the "pool" and dealt with communally. Environmentalists still get to use the electricity they would end up destroying, and communists still get to use the economy they would wreck. These are the looters- those who leech off of the philosophic input of others while tearing down the world around them with their foolish ideas. They often think they are productive citizens, that whatever goods or services they supply will somehow make up for whatever costs they inflict on those around them. However, the truth is not so easy. Under a good philosophy, a company, a nation, a world, will succeed, almost completely ignoring extraneous factors. Under a bad philosophy the same will fail, completely ignoring extraneous factors. The largest impact a person has on his nation is that of his philosophy.
Some people are under the miss-impression that certain information is "dangerous" or "radical" and should not be used. Information is information. Like chess pieces, information can be stronger or weaker, but every piece aids in eventual victory. First off, "dangerous" information- this is a long running debate, and it centers around the idea that some things are evil and anything that supports them should be eliminated. Things are not evil. Things are empty until given a space time location. This is relativity- that reality is based on what surrounds it, both in the third and fourth dimension. Although I would hesitate to ask the American government to use torture for practical reasons, their is no reason not to torture a terrorist if this torture would save a US troop from a worse fate. Such is math, that no matter how terrible X may be, if increasing it in one place lowers it somewhere else, there is no loss. It is obvious that an ideal world would not contain death or pain. This does not allow us to pretend we are in such a world- there is death, there is pain. Ignoring it will only make it worse. America's founders understood this- that is why they created the first amendment. It's also why it's the first amendment.
The general lack of understanding when it comes to "radical" information comes down to the lack of understanding of two principles- Probability and Change. Information that has a 99% chance of being false is still valuable. Say a scientist declared that a giant meteor had a 1% chance of blowing up the Earth unless we act immediately. It's pretty obvious that we should act on this information, weak as it is. Why then, when these same scientists say that their is a 1% chance that the government blew up the World Trade Center do we ignore them? It doesn't require that we treat a 1% chance of a evil government conspiracy the same as a 100% chance of said conspiracy. We're constantly given a false either or, and end up doing nothing. When presented with a 1% chance of a conspiracy, we should do things like- Set up laws that give the government a higher level transparency. Allow more room for independent investigation, and more access to important evidence by third parties. If everything the government knew about the world trade center was released, and a policy put in place banning the scrapping of possible evidence then we'd be in a much better position when faced with future possible conspiracies. Such is probability, that even the improbable is possible, and must be acted upon.
Change however is a even more curious principle. Another way of putting it is this- All throughout history we have held beliefs, the vast majority of which are now understood to be absurd. However, a multitude of people today think that beliefs held in the modern day are solid and cannot be overturned.
Already holes are being bored through such fundamental ideas such as preservation of mass/energy and the lightspeed limitations. Scientists will either have to patch up their theories or invent new ones- and they work every day to do so, and come up with better answers than their competition. And yet, when holes show up in philosophic issues people often think they can just ignore them, that over time they'll just go away. When a scientist presents a claim that contradicts commonly held scientific principles there is a scramble to replicate his experiments and to pull his data into the lattice of scientific principles. However, when a philosophic claim is made, it is ridiculed, ignored and ostracized. While people should be seeking verification they resort to vilification.
The current age was not handed down to us by god, and our current beliefs are no more precious than the ones we discarded hundreds of years ago. Just because certain information goes against the tides doesn't mean that it is not information. However, some information isn't going with or against the tide- It sits out in the darkness, alone.
In a given situation, we must use what we have- even if it's very little. Issues don't go away if we don't address them. People often complain about prejudging immigrants upon whom we lack proper information. Yes, it would be nice to know more about illegal immigrant X, but right now, all we know is that he is a Mexican. Knowing that he is a Mexican, and that if we flood ourselves with Mexicans that we will be like unto Mexico, our best plan of action is to reject him. The possibility that he is a 150 IQ genius that will do vast good for us is a possibility, but if we accept him without truly knowing his nature, than we will have to accept with him 100 pathetic average Mexicans. Hindsight is all well and good, but the fact that we should have accepted a random African here and Arabian there does not infer that we should accept anyone about whom the only knowledge we have is that he is a African/Arabian/etc. Seeking more information and acting on a more solid foundation is always a good idea, but while we lack such knowledge issues still present themselves about important topics, and we must still give answers.
During a game of chess you can't afford to grow lazy and stop analyzing the board for new threats and opportunities. However, people have grown lazy about philosophy- after all, whatever philosophy one takes, the primary effects are averaged into the "pool" and dealt with communally. Environmentalists still get to use the electricity they would end up destroying, and communists still get to use the economy they would wreck. These are the looters- those who leech off of the philosophic input of others while tearing down the world around them with their foolish ideas. They often think they are productive citizens, that whatever goods or services they supply will somehow make up for whatever costs they inflict on those around them. However, the truth is not so easy. Under a good philosophy, a company, a nation, a world, will succeed, almost completely ignoring extraneous factors. Under a bad philosophy the same will fail, completely ignoring extraneous factors. The largest impact a person has on his nation is that of his philosophy.
Some people are under the miss-impression that certain information is "dangerous" or "radical" and should not be used. Information is information. Like chess pieces, information can be stronger or weaker, but every piece aids in eventual victory. First off, "dangerous" information- this is a long running debate, and it centers around the idea that some things are evil and anything that supports them should be eliminated. Things are not evil. Things are empty until given a space time location. This is relativity- that reality is based on what surrounds it, both in the third and fourth dimension. Although I would hesitate to ask the American government to use torture for practical reasons, their is no reason not to torture a terrorist if this torture would save a US troop from a worse fate. Such is math, that no matter how terrible X may be, if increasing it in one place lowers it somewhere else, there is no loss. It is obvious that an ideal world would not contain death or pain. This does not allow us to pretend we are in such a world- there is death, there is pain. Ignoring it will only make it worse. America's founders understood this- that is why they created the first amendment. It's also why it's the first amendment.
The general lack of understanding when it comes to "radical" information comes down to the lack of understanding of two principles- Probability and Change. Information that has a 99% chance of being false is still valuable. Say a scientist declared that a giant meteor had a 1% chance of blowing up the Earth unless we act immediately. It's pretty obvious that we should act on this information, weak as it is. Why then, when these same scientists say that their is a 1% chance that the government blew up the World Trade Center do we ignore them? It doesn't require that we treat a 1% chance of a evil government conspiracy the same as a 100% chance of said conspiracy. We're constantly given a false either or, and end up doing nothing. When presented with a 1% chance of a conspiracy, we should do things like- Set up laws that give the government a higher level transparency. Allow more room for independent investigation, and more access to important evidence by third parties. If everything the government knew about the world trade center was released, and a policy put in place banning the scrapping of possible evidence then we'd be in a much better position when faced with future possible conspiracies. Such is probability, that even the improbable is possible, and must be acted upon.
Change however is a even more curious principle. Another way of putting it is this- All throughout history we have held beliefs, the vast majority of which are now understood to be absurd. However, a multitude of people today think that beliefs held in the modern day are solid and cannot be overturned.
Already holes are being bored through such fundamental ideas such as preservation of mass/energy and the lightspeed limitations. Scientists will either have to patch up their theories or invent new ones- and they work every day to do so, and come up with better answers than their competition. And yet, when holes show up in philosophic issues people often think they can just ignore them, that over time they'll just go away. When a scientist presents a claim that contradicts commonly held scientific principles there is a scramble to replicate his experiments and to pull his data into the lattice of scientific principles. However, when a philosophic claim is made, it is ridiculed, ignored and ostracized. While people should be seeking verification they resort to vilification.
The current age was not handed down to us by god, and our current beliefs are no more precious than the ones we discarded hundreds of years ago. Just because certain information goes against the tides doesn't mean that it is not information. However, some information isn't going with or against the tide- It sits out in the darkness, alone.
In a given situation, we must use what we have- even if it's very little. Issues don't go away if we don't address them. People often complain about prejudging immigrants upon whom we lack proper information. Yes, it would be nice to know more about illegal immigrant X, but right now, all we know is that he is a Mexican. Knowing that he is a Mexican, and that if we flood ourselves with Mexicans that we will be like unto Mexico, our best plan of action is to reject him. The possibility that he is a 150 IQ genius that will do vast good for us is a possibility, but if we accept him without truly knowing his nature, than we will have to accept with him 100 pathetic average Mexicans. Hindsight is all well and good, but the fact that we should have accepted a random African here and Arabian there does not infer that we should accept anyone about whom the only knowledge we have is that he is a African/Arabian/etc. Seeking more information and acting on a more solid foundation is always a good idea, but while we lack such knowledge issues still present themselves about important topics, and we must still give answers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)