Friday, January 03, 2020

The Libertarian Dilemma - and yes, Papa Heinlein would be pissed

Before getting to my libertarian jeremiad, a couple of items.

Know someone who might make a good candidate for office? Not just Congress, but even more important are state legislature seats in states that might get flipped out of gerrymander hell, if we get a big enough wave? Here’s a primer

Civics and the Future of Democracy: Yep.  Many - including Richard Dreyfuss - have pushed for re-establishment of civics curriculum in US schools. I agree. But what is never mentioned is how civics requirements at university would be a spectacular weapon in international culture war. A million foreign students in the U.S. would be exposed to insidious time bomb ideas they would then take home.  Oh, and our kids would be better citizens. That too.

And yes, much about this in Polemical Judo

== Again, the libertarian dilemma ==

I wince when many of you speak up about libertarianism, because, generally, folks don't have a clue what they are talking about, picturing smarmy-smug, lapel-grabbing Ayn-Randroids who rave their solipsistic superiority without a scintilla of life accomplishment to back it up .  Yes, those irritating yammerers exist... as do the incredibly similar far-lefty flakes and sanctimony junkies who wreak harm on every cause they claim to support. Neither group represents anything cogent. (See my thorough take-down of Rand-ism.)

(Key difference. Liberalism contains a ditsy far-left. Todays entire right consists of toxic delusion.)

I know the variants of libertarianism pretty well, from genuine followers of the soulful and insightful enlightenment genius, Adam Smith, to those reciting Murray Rothbard's hypnotic catechisms and the followers of Milton Friedman, whose 'advice' led to reducing the ROI investment horizons of American business from ten years, to five... to three months. I even witnessed - almost first-hand - the birth of the neo-feudalism movement -- incel-ingrate monsters who insist they would be top dogs in a medievalist world, such as I portrayed in The Postman. 

But it is the middle of that spectrum -- decent folks who sincerely believe that they are championing in freedom -- where some real opportunities... and dangers... lie.

In fact, I've just been invited for the sixth time to speak at a major libertarian gathering... that's twice the number of times I've been invited to major Democratic ones. The most remarkable (to me) mainstream libertarian trait is that maybe a quarter of them exhibit a willingness to argue and enjoy a good tussle, and many of those wind up on the speaker committees. Hence, I get invited back, even after raising uncomfortable points...

...like the fact that the core word for the entire movement should be competition, the greatest creative force in the universe. Competition provides freedom with all the pragmatic justification it needs, exposing many of the vague, moralizing shoutings of the "F-Word" as both unnecessary and often sanctimonious excuses for its opposite.

I'll get back to that in a moment. But first a necessary-contemporary riff.

== Choose a different 'second choice" ==

The one thing you always hear at these gatherings is "I hate both Republican and Democrat parties! Liberals want freedom in the bedroom and Republicans want freedom in the boardroom. I want both and won't compromise!"

Except they do. The Koch brothers bought and paid for the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, top whorehouses pushing that aristocratic hierarchy means freedom. Steve Forbes threw decades of lavish parties at libertarian get togethers with one aim... to ensure the GOP will remain categorized as "less-bad than Democrats," so that a couple of million libertarians will hold their noses and keep checking GOP boxes in the voting booths. They know that if these folks ever do see how they've been had, they'll influence millions more to stop supporting the party of oligarchy.

Okay. The cliché is "Liberals want freedom in the bedroom and Republicans want freedom in the boardroom." Except... is it true? It is! If you define "boardroom" to mean a narrow, incestuous caste of 5000 CEO golfing pals appointing each other onto corporate boards, allocating winners and losers and dividing up markets, re-creating the same tediously stupid feudal owner-lord pyramid that repressed enterprise in 99% of societies for 6000 years. The same oligarchy Adam Smith denounced and that the Founders and the real Tea Party rebelled against.

If instead you want freedom to engage in vigorously creative competitive enterprises in flat-fair markets, then things are different. Democrats promote both. Republicans neither. Period. 

Heck, make that more than an assertion. Let’s bet on it! Deposit $5k in escrow with a reputable law firm so I’ll know I’m not wasting my time with another Kremlin-boy blabbermouth. I'll take your cash, sure.

Hypocrisy test! Illinois is the latest blue state to end the war on pot users - name the reds who are ending the Drug War or criminalization of 'deviance.' The GOP supports assassination to spark war without due process and over the objections of professionals. Monopoly skyrockets under GOP rule... yet libertarians cling to the notion that Republicans are somehow "less-bad" than democrats, under whom deficits decline and at least some efforts are made to encourage market competition.

And hell yes, I prove all of the above in Polemical Judo.

== Is liberal meddling always bad for markets? ==

I said the true test is whether a libertarian - like followers of Adam Smith - wants freedom along with plenty of creative competition... or if they have been suborned to fulminate passionately about a fundamentally unlimited right to property. 

Oh, property rights are important, to the degree they protect our ability to seek Smithian betterment and wealth through creative activities. But like water, air, food, alcohol etc.... all good things become toxic in excess. And the one thing all non-Smithian libertarians refuse to do is look at what propertarianism did to 99% of human societies, across 60 centuries.

What about liberal meddling? All that do-gooder flood of "programs" to help the poor etc. A standard reflex of the right is to declare - against all evidence - that such interventions are counter-productive and hurt those they intend to help. And above all, they undermine our competitive drives.  But Adam Smith knew that for a false incantation and an utter lie, 250 years ago.

Dig it. If an activity markedly increases the number/fraction of people who are liberated from inherited, non-chosen constraints ... if they are freed to engage their talents and work and all pertinent knowledge to compete in open-fair-flat markets... then a burden of proof falls on anyone who claims "that's an assault on freedom!" Even the doyen of capitalist economics, Friedrich Hayek, said the most fundamental need of an "invisible hand" economy is to maximize the number of knowing, empowered and confident market participants, and what better way to maximize that number than by reducing the number of children with malnourished, or empty, or pollution-tainted brains?

And yes, that means libertarians should favor public education, public health, anti-poverty interventions, civil rights and infrastructure development... efforts that are COOPERATIVE, that wind up enhancing COMPETITION. 

While vigorously criticizing specifics of implementation -- proposing less-governmental and less-paternalistic approaches -- any honest libertarian would admit that a baseline of state involvement just makes sense.

== Quote Heinlein at them! ==

Heinlein did! Try reading his prescriptive utopia BEYOND THIS HORIZON, which portrays a wild and woolly competitive future in any realm that involves creativity, but in which his alter ego character says "Of course, food and shelter are free! What kind of people do you take us for?"

Again: Robert Heinlein saw it all in our future - America diving into  “Crazy Years.” Throttle your rightist or libertarian sci fi fans into reading these lines from Papa H! Better-yet, read to them aloud! I tell you, for a select but important subset of our population, there’s nothing more effective. Especially the 3rd excerpt!

“As for ... the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past.

“It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.”

Heinlein tore into the potential for an alliance of oligarchs and pulpit pounders taking over America... a cabal that would –

“–promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-‘furriners’ in general and anti-intellectuals here at home, and the result might be something quite frightening – particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington.”

And yes, see this riff and many like it, in Polemical Judo.

== Arise you AdamSmithian moderates and heroes of enlightnment! ==

Alas, feudalist-oligarchs have used oceans of money -- and whore-shill faux "academes" like Cato and Heritage -- to subsidize a tsunami of invectives shifting the libertarian movement's focus from Competition to the P-Words... utter defense of Property, Power and Privilege, at all cost. This despite the blatant historical fact that 99% of nascent flat-fair-open market systems across all of history were destroyed not by government bureaucrats or do-gooder socialists, but by feudalist-oligarch owner-cheater lords, bent on replacing flat-fairness with inheritance of Power for their sons, who never created any goods or services at all.

The varied oligarchies are uniting against us. Communist hierarchs and "former" communist boyar-mafiosi, petro-sheiks and coal barons, gambling moguls and Wall Street parasites. There are no greater enemies of flat-fair-open competition, which threatens their sons with the worst of all possible fates... having to earn their own way in the world.

Those oligarchs are desperate to maintain this hypnotic trance. They know that libertarians would have influence far beyond their numbers, if they ever rediscovered the C-Word and its fundamentals. Hence, at all of these gatherings, you see giant screens raving against bureaucrats and socialists and nosy lib'ruls... and nothing at all about those who were the foremost Enemies of Freedom across nearly all of the last three hundred generations.

=================

Housekeeping announcement. I was proud of the fact that I was among the last public figures whose blog allowed unmoderated comments. CONTRARY BRIN is one of the oldest blogs extant (from the 1990s) and the comment community is pretty terrific, with a few odd irritant regulars who are sometimes a bit... endearing. But all innocence ends and ours lasted until the 2020s! Moderated comments are a bit slower. Be patient... and fight for a civilization worthy of the stars.

94 comments:

Lloyd Flack said...

Interestingly I was talking online this morning with a libertarian friend. This was about some of his preferences in how to conduct discussions.
He is someone who while not quite full blown autistic has some tendencies that way. He said that he vey much prefers communication by text to verbal communication. Neither I or his former girlfriend could get him to see how much information he was missing out on. He tries to understand others solely analytically. And he tries to ignore connotations of words, focussing solely on the denotations. He tries to put too many issues in property terms, not because of possesiveness but because it feels simple and logical.
I think a lot of libertarians are like him, trying to avoid messiness in life.

Alfred Differ said...

Hayek's use of 'invisible hand' follows Smith's, but Hayek took things further by noting that much of economic calculation dealt with knowledge... acquisition and distribution. If one makes little effort to educate the kids (they won't all end up the same... important), you don't get local knowledge and variances in it. In modern language, we'd say one doesn't get 'genetic diversity' among the competitors. Fragile desert-scape.

_snips_

Economics and Knowledge [F.A. Hayek]
Presidential address delivered before the London Economic Club; Nov 1936;

THE ambiguity of the title of this paper is not accidental. Its main subject is, of course, the role which assumptions and propositions about the knowledge possessed by the different members of society play in economic analysis. But this is by no means unconnected with the other question which might be discussed under the same title--the question to what extent formal economic analysis conveys any knowledge about what happens in the real world. Indeed, my main contention will be that the tautologies, of which formal equilibrium analysis in economics essentially consists, can be turned into propositions which tell us anything about causation in the real world only in so far as we are able to fill those formal propositions with definite statements about how knowledge is acquired and communicated. In short, I shall contend that the empirical element in economic theory--the only part which is concerned not merely with implications but with causes and effects and which leads therefore to conclusions which, at any rate in principle, are capable of verification -- consists of propositions about the acquisition of knowledge[1] .


[1] Or rather falsification (cf. K. R. Popper, Log-k det Foschung [Vienna, 1935], passim).
|
THE USE OF KNOWLEDGE IN SOCIETY [F.A. HAYEK]
September 1945 issue of The American Economic Review

I
What is the problem we wish to solve when we try to construct a rational economic order? On certain familiar assumptions the answer is simple enough. If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic. That is, the answer to the question of what is the best use of the available means is implicit in our assumptions. The conditions which the solution of this optimum problem must satisfy have been fully worked out and can be stated best in mathematical form: put at their briefest, they are that the marginal rates of substitution between any two commodities or factors must be the same in all their different uses.

This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces. And the economic calculus which we have developed to solve this logical problem, though an important step toward the solution of the economic problem of society, does not yet provide an answer to it. The reason for this is that the "data" from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society "given" to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.

The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess. The economic problem of society is thus not merely a problem of how to allocate "given" resources—if "given" is taken to mean given to a single mind which deliberately solves the problem set by these "data." It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society, for ends whose relative importance only these individuals know. Or, to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.

 Ashley said...

A call to arms! Consider me a listener, doing my part.

Larry Hart said...

Lloyd Flack:

He is someone who while not quite full blown autistic has some tendencies that way. He said that he vey much prefers communication by text to verbal communication. Neither I or his former girlfriend could get him to see how much information he was missing out on. He tries to understand others solely analytically. And he tries to ignore connotations of words, focussing solely on the denotations. He tries to put too many issues in property terms, not because of possesiveness but because it feels simple and logical.

I think a lot of libertarians are like him, trying to avoid messiness in life.


The more I learn about autism, the more I believe that I fall on the spectrum, albeit pretty close to the "normal" side of things. I've always been terrible at making and maintaining eye contact, and only learned to do so for my latest round of job interviewing. My parents used to tell teachers that I wasn't ignoring them when they talked, but I was pointing my ear at them instead of my eye.

It's also the case that in my twenties, when I first heard the word "libertarian", I felt that that was a correct descriptor for what I was politically. Back then--the 1980s--I thought that the word meant a belief that law should not interfere with personal behavior, and only mediate interpersonal conflicts, when one's freedom and another's rights come into contention. I stopped using the term for myself when I realized that libertarianism was mostly a one-way affair--i.e., laws against trespassing on private property, but freedom for the property owners to despoil the air and water around them.

I can totally understand "trying to avoid the messiness in life". It's just that after almost 60 years, I've learned that life doesn't work that way. I'm actually participating in life more than I ever did before after jettisoning "avoiding messiness" as an imperative.

Jon S. said...

Oh, I'm sure your friend knows there's a lot of communication he's "missing out on" by using text rather than face-to-face communication, Lloyd. Thing is, if he's on the spectrum, he's not "missing out on" it by not talking face-to-face, but because he can't understand. It's been said that anywhere from 50% to 80% of information in normal conversation is communicated by facial expression, "body language", tone of voice, and code-switching - which to an autist is meaningless background noise. I've spent my 56 years trying to learn the secrets of communicating with the normal people around me, with indifferent success.

Imagine someone trying to talk to you about a subject of importance to them, and possibly to you both. Except every third word is in Mycenean Greek, and if math is involved they're using base-seventeen numbering. How well do you think you'll communicate with that person? It's the same for those of us on the spectrum, confronted with, "But you should have known what I really meant!" when said "real meaning" was to be conveyed by the other party, say, crossing their arms (which apparently is supposed to indicate rejection, a symbolic wall, but for me just means I don't know what else to do with my arms and I'm tired of them just dangling there).

Perhaps try pointing out that analysis of human motivation in terms of property is illogical and fundamentally flawed, as not all humans have property and some really don't want it. Logical analysis of humans isn't the best methodology, sadly. (I recommend, in order to drive home this point, that you make him watch as much of the original Star Trek as possible, then picking out the scene from Star Trek: the Motion Picture with Spock in sickbay after trying to mind-meld with V'ger.)

Zepp Jamieson said...

Brin would be quite horrified if he knew how much we have in common, politically. I sometimes refer to myself as "left-libertarian"; I understand that things such as education, medical care, retirement benefits and social infrastructure are items capitalism is bad at, and so needs to be taken care of on a social basis. Nearly all the rest is best handled on a for-profit basis.
Heinlein also opined that true libertarianism couldn't exist in an advanced complex society ("When a place gets big enough to require ID cards, it's time to move on" is how he put it) and while he wrote his share of rags-to-riches stories, he made it fairly clear that in a wealthy and healthy society, nobody should be in rags, begging for sustinance.
"Freedom in the boardroom" is an ominous phrase to me.Too often in this age of Trump and Gingrich, that translates to "freedom to swindle". Thanks to Newt and his gang, Medicare pays 10 and even 20 times retail for medical supplies and equipment because they are not allowed to negotiate prices. "Small business" deserves government support, but not when that "small business is a trillion dollar oil cartel, or agribusiness, or big pharm. Somehow over the past 30 years, "easing regulatory burden" became "remove oversight" and now, "place above law and economics."

David Brin said...

Zepp... "horrified"? Um, why? I like having a community that tussles and wrangles... but I don't mind occasional - or basic - agreement with smart folks!

David Brin said...

Alfred, Hayek's call for max number of market deciders based on max transparency of knowledge and ability to act is pretty much Smithian libertarianism and mine too... as in The Transparent Society. What he failed to take into account was:

1- the ability of nation states to build up and subsidize national-champion competitors designed as predatory agents to manipulate western CEO castes and to destroy competition via processes well described by Marx.

2- Hayek's unfortunate assumption that socialists were the chief sinners conniving (on limited knowledge) to choose winners/losers, when in fact that is what Smith complained that oligarchs always do. Far worse, in fact.

David Brin said...

A balanced and interesting look at Soleiman and how the Iranian regime was run by fools... like ours. And it appears no one operating in the region has a lick of sense. But I would add that one person - Putin - at least has a plan. There are no end games to all of this that do not benefit him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/opinion/iran-general-soleimani.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Lorraine said...

I thought Hayek's argument was that transparency was unnecessary because all the information you really need will be incorporated into prices. I'm of the view that transparency is needed, trade secrets be damned. Reverse engineering is not a crime, or at least shouldn't be.

Don Gisselbeck said...

Has anyone seen a good, comprehensive rebuttal of the Monopoly game analogy. (Everyone starts with equal resources and the game ends. Only luck is involved.)

Zepp Jamieson said...

Good. It didn't go unnoticed that I wasn't lumped in with the trolls.

Ahcuah said...

I always silently grieve (yes, I am exaggerating) when our host posts a new blog entry, and so often very few of the comments actually don't deal with the new blog entry; instead they tend to be continuations of comments from the previous blog entry. While I do plan on doing the latter, eventually, I am also taking special care to discuss the topic du jour. And I notice that this time many of the first posters are discussing it.

But what is never mentioned is how civics requirements at university would be a spectacular weapon in international culture war.

Yes, this would be spectacular. However, I would also worry about how the right keeps trying to interfere with the curricula of schools, with "intelligent" design being a foremost example. Would you want your Civics book to be written by the Newt, or worse, Friend to Boys Dennis? We would also need a way to guard against that.

What sparks a lot of libertarianism is the do-gooders who get into government. Just read Reason magazine (or website) to see example after example of unnecessary and ridiculous governmental over-reach, and with normal citizens not having any recourse. So I am sympathetic to libertarianism in that regard. (Talking Heinlein, I always liked his idea, in Glory Road, of the "Fairy Godmother Department" that would just cut through the crap.) But such do-gooding is susceptible to correction (e.g., Illinois as you point out), whereupon once feudalist-oligarchs capture a government, it takes more than mere "correction" to reverse it, I'm afraid.

Let me add to that a discussion that I don't see highlighted enough, regarding such people as Elizabeth Warren, who our host and I both like. It's from "Rurpin's blog":

None of the candidates [in the last debate] addressed corporate money and lobbying, which do indeed corrupt politics, without also sounding as if they were damning corporations and business profit per se. I wish any one of them, in discussing that, had said that corporations are an essential part of our capitalist economy, that their pursuit of profit is what we expect and want from them, that those who create and run businesses are making an essential contribution to society, and that the problem of corruption arises when we let businesses exert their corporate influence in the political arena. And yes, it is a pretty obvious thing. But political candidates often have to state the obvious. It is an important prelude to explaining what kinds of anti-corruption steps are desirable, and why those steps are pro-democracy, not anti-business.

Dr. Brin doesn't make that mistake, but is anybody on the campaigns listening?

Bob Neinast

(Regarding "Ahcuah", that is my usual nom de toile, but when I originally signed in to Blogspot it grabbed my real name. I finally got around to fiddling the display for commenting here.)

Ahcuah said...

Regarding moderation of comments, I'm guessing Blogspot doesn't have the option of moderating only a person's first post? A lot of blogs have that useful option.

Regarding the NY Times editorial, while I like what it says, I do worry about the source: after all, he does have the Friedman Unit named after him, for good reason. It makes me suspicious of any of his pronouncements.

Larry Hart said...

Bob Neinast:

I am also taking special care to discuss the topic du jour. And I notice that this time many of the first posters are discussing it.


That usually happens when libertarianism is the subject. Typically, a bunch of non-regulars get into it as well.

David Brin said...

Bob N. good stuff. Alas, my problem of "nobody is listening" is why I took the time to write and issue Polemical Judo. And while folks are seeing it.. (do leave an Amazon comment!)... never those who could use any of it.

Blogger is exceptionally horrid and we stay with it because of momentum.

Alfred Differ said...

David,

2- Hayek's unfortunate assumption that socialists were the chief sinners conniving (on limited knowledge) to choose winners/losers, when in fact that is what Smith complained that oligarchs always do. Far worse, in fact.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this. Challenge you in fact. There is a reasonable argument to be made that his focus on socialists was due to their relative strength at the time. Post-WWII decades involved many of the oligarchs trying to rebuild their demolished wealth. Follow Piketty's narrative and this deed was roughly done around 1980 in western nations. Hayek was past his publishing prime in the mid-70's. 'Fatal Conceit' came out in 1988 and reads more like Bartley (editor credits) than Hayek.

My challenge for you involves a short reflection. Do you feel that Hayek held this opinion from your own study of the matter… or from the studies others have conducted? I know you've done the homework on Smith and Marx, but have YOU done it for Hayek? I ask because there are many who get Hayek quite wrong. Sometimes they are as bad at understanding him as Marxists were of Marx and those fools who claim Smith would argue that anything goes in pursuit of profit because of their weird understanding of Wealth of Nations.

In Hayek's case, he KNEW this was going to happen to him because he saw it happen to Keynes. There is a short piece involving him (can't find it right now) where he said he was pretty sure Keynes would have told certain people not to take his ideas too far… had he survived to tell them. This belief on the part of Hayek arose from knowing the man named Keynes. Connected to this was strong negative reaction he had to people referring to themselves as Hayekeans AND a grumble about Thatcher's ignorance when she used his big Constitution of Liberty book as a prop.

The best argument I know FOR your #2 was that government socialists were transforming into government welfare-statists which doesn't sound as bad? Through much of his post WWII career they were ascendent by any name, thus oligarchs were a secondary threat. I don't think he was blind to them, though, and Road to Serfdom is enough to show this. The first chapter starts with an FDR quote supporting Hayek's argument about an abandonment of the road western society had been traveling for ages. In later paragraphs, he laments what the socialists are doing, but much of that comes from the fact that his book was targeted at the British. An American reader would think otherwise, but Hayek was clear about this later. He wanted to warn against what the British intended to do after the war. Since the oligarchs were heavily injured in the UK, the focus was on the socialists. See?

I know you don't have a ton of time to research Hayek, so I'll stop at cautioning you about many who profess to understand his points. I don't think many do.

duncan cairncross said...

Re - wanting input in text

I think I'm a bit more hands on than most - and when I need to do something I haven't done before the web is a great resource
But today too much "help" is in the form of video - and I hate it - because it's so SLOWWW
I read at about 1000 words per minute - most people talk at 100 words per minute

Thats OK when somebody is showing me what to do - but I would much much rather read a transcript than watch somebody talk

Face to face is different - that is a two way information channel

The discovery channel is an example - they take an hour to give you five minutes worth of information

Alfred Differ said...

Lorraine,

I thought Hayek's argument was that transparency was unnecessary because all the information you really need will be incorporated into prices.

Goodness No. 8)

Price is like a very lossy compression algorithm. A buyer can't really know the details behind how a price is set by the seller except in very general terms. Those terms are mostly about constraints one expects to apply. For example, the seller won't persist for long selling at a loss. They might do it occasionally to recover some of their sunk costs, but they'll learn and avoid the behavior in the next iteration of the game… we assume. Another is the seller won't persist at voluntarily accepting poorer trades than they could otherwise get. If they appear to be doing this, it is because we aren't seeing their actual motivations. Are you unintentionally buying the ability to be tracked by future Gubru masters? Heh.

Hayek mentions elsewhere that some information is in price and it's just enough for traders who bring their own knowledge to market. Not just your skills, though, you have to account for your knowledge of substitutions not currently in use. No one uses electrical wires made with silver in residential homes because the silver/copper price ration discourages it. If copper is ever in short enough supply, though, we certainly can. Price will tell us when, but now how or which particular substitutions to ponder instead. We've used aluminum. Some places are still wired that way.

The real tell, though, is that prices flex depending on supply, demand, AND knowledge.

David Brin said...

Alfred we both are right. In Hayek's day, he was surrounded by what certainly appeared to be swarms of apologists for socialism. I can well understand that seeming to be what needed opposing at the moment.

Alfred Differ said...

Don Gisselbeck,

Do you mean 'only luck is involved' as the thing to be rebutted?

Monopoly isn't a luck-only game. Not the way I learned it in the Stone Age. There was trading involved. There is also the unsubtle fact that some players are better at using the basic rules than others. Do I pay to get out of jail now or should I sit a couple turns and hope the player with the hotels in front of me has to sell or mortgage them all together?

There IS a lot of luck in the game, but one can do some defensive planning to cope with certain risks. That's not luck.

Alfred Differ said...

David,

he was surrounded by what certainly appeared to be swarms of apologists for socialism

True enough. I think there is a trend to his thinking, though, and his post-war material shows his attitudes about Individualism morphed and grew into Emergent Order. Coase showed there were good transaction cost arguments for us to abandon some individualism to coordinate and amplify our actions, but Hayek showed how these 'command-style' blocks had to remain small for the health of ideals we hold dear… like liberty.

In later essays and books, Hayek lumps all who would 'command' results not into monsters to be fought, but into forces that inhibit us from acting on what we think we know. We may be wrong in what we know, but the liberation of action is the battle to be won. The bureaucratic mosquitoes, the biting flies of rigid faiths, and the princely leeches drain us and open paths into us for hordes of other parasites.

Alfred Differ said...

Larry,

That usually happens when libertarianism is the subject.

Gotta agree, but I think we are holding back a bit to minimize our host's moderation load.

Though I count myself as one (and others here do not), I actually argued against us being mentioned in Polemical Judo back in the early suggestions days. What we ARE has been dramatically impacted by the same sense of damage Two Scoops has revealed within the GOP. Reagan's GOP is not the one alive today, right? In the last dozen or so months, the Confederates within Libertarianism have been vocal enough that the rest of us cannot NOT notice them. Drawing attention to them requires nuance. Judo techniques are useful for counting them. We aren't in power, though. We are just being used like other Confederate forces.

My county level folks are electing officers this month. Gotta dig out my blue kepi. 8)

TheMadLibrarian said...

Duncan -- amen! I read FAR faster than most people talk, and a lot of YouTube is filler, rather than actual demonstration or useful explanation. We have to view a number of training videos which are essentially narrated PowerPoint presentations, and if I were simply allowed to read the accompanying script and look at the PowerPoint, I could go through a 45 minute video in about 10-15 minutes

Don Gisselbeck said...

The point is that, even with exactly equal levels of player skill,the game ends with one person having all the money.

TCB said...

Vladimir Putin's Iran strategy, illustrated and annotated.

scidata said...

To be a specialist or a polymath. That is the question. I've noted that most parents advise their kids to be specialists, while most grandparents advise them to be polymaths.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a well, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects"
- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love"

Talk about two roads diverging in a yellow wood. Four score and seven years is barely long enough to even ask the question.

Agree with others - Video is stultifyingly slow. Text is (for most) much faster. Code (computation) is even faster. Understanding a few lines of code can open vistas that would fill entire bookshelves.
Calculemus!

Cari Burstein said...

I'll join the club on preferring text for most things. Personally I have auditory processing issues- I learn far better when I read things than when I listen unless the audio is very short. My brain just doesn't engage in it the same way. I didn't realize I had this issue till after college, and taking notes during lectures helped convert what was said into something my brain could process more easily, but now I understand why I had more trouble with classes where the lectures weren't mostly just about things already in the written materials. I also read very fast, so listening to audio is painful by comparison when I'm trying to learn something.

It drives me nuts that as video has become so cheap and easy to produce and distribute that so much useful information online has converted to video format. I remember trying to learn a new framework, and almost all the useful materials I could find about it were in video form. I ended up abandoning that project because I couldn't learn that way. Not to mention that it makes it much harder to skim for the thing you're actually looking for or bookmark or copy/paste key information.

It's really bad with news now too. I basically skip over anything that's news video- I'd rather just read an article. I also generally find articles to be more focused on the actual information as opposed to a bunch of entertainment junk mixed in (although I'm finding a lot of articles are now becoming more oriented towards fancy layouts and dynamic stuff that tend to distract more than help). I've tried to listen to podcasts a few times but I just can't- I process so little of it. It's a shame because I hear there's some good ones, but it just doesn't work for me.

David Brin said...

' I've noted that most parents advise their kids to be specialists, while most grandparents advise them to be polymaths." I guess that's why our kids always treated me like a grampa.

David Brin said...

Did you read about the interned Japanese American whose bones were just found in the hills above his camp, where he got lost going on a fishing trip with other internees?

I am TOTALLY on board with using Manzanar to guilt trip us to be better! But still. Combine that tale with what we learned at Manzanar visitor center. The death rate among interness was LOWER than statistically among the same population before and after. Desert air?

It does not detract from the lesson to say"We failed, then. We broke promises. We need to learn and never do it again... but those lessons are by OUR rising standards. Not those of other nations and times.

David Brin said...

Lost on one of their routine wanderings from camp, hiking in the hills. Gone fishing. The story is richer for its complexity. I love irony, amidst a story that is - of course, on balance, a sad lesson.

David Brin said...

Is this it?

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/3/1909205/-Explosive-report-indicates-that-Donald-Trump-s-loans-from-Deutsche-Bank-were-back-by-Russia?detail=emaildkre

Zepp Jamieson said...

Any other era, that would be an absolute smoking gun and a death knell for Trump. But this is just one of many such guns. But it could make a difference in that it will widen the cracks in the wall of GOP implacability.

Zepp Jamieson said...

Re "Gone fishing" Haven't seen it yet, so won't comment.
But in the 1950s there was an absolutely brilliant SF novella about a social predator banished to an oasis planet for five years as part of a psychological experiment and a new technology that attracted the attention of said predator. Lester Del Rey, perhaps?

matthew said...

I've a relative shipping out to Iraq with the 82nd right now. Not close but still mine. A husband of a friend of my mom too. It's a small world.
Gods bless them all. Give them every bit of strength. They are going to a meat grinder. The worst deployment I can think of. 90 million foes next door. A nation that pretty much hates them as destination.
I can't stop the tears.
Never in my life have the men and women of our armed forces been hung out to dry like in the last three days.
It's just a clusterfuck. My stepdad used to use that term to describe his fight in Vietnam/ Cambodia. A clusterfuck. Sending ours into such a crappy situation is exactly that.
I don't believe in prayer.
But please do what you can for the men and women who are answering a call into the hell of Iraq right now.
Please let them all be safe. Please.

Larry Hart said...

scidata quoting Heinlein:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a well, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects"


Again, I refer to the level of sophistication of the questions that ordinary housewives were expected to answer (and routinely did so) on radio and tv game shows of the immediate post-WWII era in the US. We used to be such generalists. What happened?

How did we as a civilization become frightened children in need of a stern father to interpret reality for us, whether that father is God, Donald Trump, or Big Brother.

Larry Hart said...

Hmmm, a point of order for moderated comments...

If my post exceeds the 4096 character limit, will I be told that before the post disappears into needs-moderation land?

I suppose I could just try it out, but I don't want to create a huge post that just wastes everyone's time.

scidata said...

Larry Hart: How did we as a civilization become frightened children in need of a stern father

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

This is where I usually insert my long-winded advocacy for pervasive literacy in general, and scientific literacy in particular. You've all heard that from me and most agree, so I won't preach to the choir. What's important is that I, and many many others, work on that project every day. With some success, I might add. Calculemus! is much more than a bumper sticker.

scidata said...

John Bolton: Savior of the Republic. Wow.

David Brin said...

matthew, amen - preserve the brave defenders.

LH: "How did we as a civilization become frightened children in need of a stern father to interpret reality for us, whether that father is God, Donald Trump, or Big Brother."

Wrong question. That has been our situation 99% of human existence. The real question is how did we find the courage - at intervals - to be and act otherwise?

Bolton and Deutsche Bank... we now understand Soleimani...

Larry Hart said...

Wait...I'm confused on the Bolton thing.

Earlier this morning--it was actually a re-run from Friday--I heard Thom Hartmann speculate that Bolton might support Trump in the impeachment process in exchange for Trump attacking Iran. But that doesn't seem like what's going on. From what I'm reading just now, it sounds as if Bolton is now defying Trump by planning to testify, whether or not Trump orders him not to.

So what's the chain of events here? What precipitated what? Is Bolton turning on Trump (and if so, why), or are the two of them playing us?

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

The real question is how did we find the courage - at intervals - to be and act otherwise?


So then how do we make America great again?

Zepp Jamieson said...

John Bolton saviour of anything sounds a bit like Lucretzia Borgia, master chef.

TheMadLibrarian said...

Larry Hart -- certainly not by just wearing silly hats! Nor, for that matter, with any proposal I've seen from the current controlling (NOT ruling) party. The signal-to-noise ratio there is simply too great to find more than the very occasional gem.

Zepp Jamieson said...

Larry: How long before Bolton's 'tell all' book gets published. With this lot, money us usually the main motivating factor.

Treebeard said...

It was just announced that the military is preparing to move out of Iraq. I don't think your friends need to worry. Maybe sanity is prevailing.

LeadDreamer said...

LH - "...great again?" - Why do all such questions look backward? The "greatness" of America has never been a static thing, nor a moment in time, nor looking backwards - it has always been in it's efforts to be more.

LeadDreamer

LeadDreamer said...

LH;

"...great again?" - why do such thoughts always look backward? America's strength was never a static thing, nor a moment in time, nor wasted looking backward!!

America's strength has always been in looking forward - what will we create next ...

Larry Hart said...

@LeadDreamer,

To quote Homer Simpson, "In case you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic."

Still, there was a point to my question. Dr Brin rightly points out that for much of the 20th Century, America was indeed courageous enough to take charge and solve problems without waiting on an authority figure for permission to act and agreement about what reality actually is. Is it wrong to ask, "Can we get back to that?"

You don't really consider asking Donald Trump what two plus two equals today to be a step forward, do you?

Zepp Jamieson said...

Larry, forget what the online bloviators are saying. Even the ones who don't have an agenda don't have a clue. I don't. I do find it interesting that Romney supports having Bolton testify; as you probably know, he would love to put it to Trump.

Ed Seedhouse said...


I think that rather than concerning yourselves with how to make America great again, you should be thinking about how to make America brave again, and bold again.

The present administration is busy making America cowardly again.

For all your faults, you once sent humanity to the moon and planned to go further. What happened?

David Brin said...

Ed, especially bad since going BACK to the moon should be left for the 2nd string players and wannabes going to that dusty-useless plain for their Bar Moonzvahs. We should join the Japanese doing things that ONLY we can do.

Larry Hart said...

Ed Seedhouse:

For all your faults, you once sent humanity to the moon and planned to go further. What happened?


That was exactly my point when I asked, perhaps too cutely, "How do we make America great again?" The reason I used that exact phrase was to make clear that, despite his sloganeering rhetoric, Trump wasn't doing it.

As Dave Sim once put it, "Sometimes jumping on the bandwagon is the best way to demonstrate that the wheels have fallen off."

scidata said...

SpaceX has really upped their music game. Tonight's Starlink launch was like a video game intro. Fitting, since this broadband network will allow almost zero latency game play.

scidata said...

Re: Starlink
Near zero latency, whether your opponent is in Mongolia, Midway, or McMurdo. Dizzying pace. They're also testing a darkened satellite this time in an attempt to appease dark skies peeps. Bar brawls between explorers and astronomers can't be far off. One thing that dusty-useless plain does have is dark skies. I predict that the NM and AZ remote observatory outfits will relocate to the moon within a decade or two. I'd pay bigly for scope time on one of those puppies.

frabjoustheelder said...

Thanks for the dose of sanity.
Alas, having a moderated comments section is a good idea.
The best rebuke to those who try to paint Heinlein as some revanchist troglodyte is to quote Heinlein.
I hope that you're loading your cannon with all the cutlery and rock salt you can get your hands on for Trump's incidental(sic?) war with Iran.

David Brin said...

48 successful falcon landings. That's over 50 big rockets that did not have to be made and thrown away. So routine that few tune in anymore. It means Elon can under-bid even the Chinese. ULA had to go to Jeff Bezos for their next rocket because their money maker Atlases and Deltas can't land and are dinosaurs.

It will be a big year. If we can keep civilization.

TheMadLibrarian said...

Scidata, I will have to check with our tame astrophysicist to see if Starlink impacts his observing any; he works with the Los Cumbres network and gets data from both N and S hemispheres. A Lunar observatory would be nice if you could build it in a suitable existing crater like Arecibo, but building it (remotely?) would be the sticky point.

David Brin said...

In the era of photographic plates, Starlink would be hell. But with good tracking ephemerides their glitter ought to be subtractable.

duncan cairncross said...

Hi scidata
Why would you want to go back down a hole for your big telescopes?

Having the telescope flying free gives you much greater control of observations - 24/7 sun for power
No gravity to distort your mirror

Your parasol sunshade would have it's brother as an "earthshade"

I don't see any advantages in landing on Luna

Parking it next to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3753_Cruithne

for raw materials maybe

scidata said...

I'm not talking about mega-telescopes run by nations and university conglomerates. I'm talking about mom&pop outfits that have a modest farm of 10" reflectors controlled by Raspberry Pis via the web. For these, gravity is a must. The sophistication of free floating, fully autonomous robotics millions of km from a tool shed is wayyyy beyond them. They might rent a room or two in a lunar hotel. Think Jack London and a Lunar Klondike or "Have Space Suit - Will Travel".

Larry Hart said...

Paul Krugman is right as usual. Emphasis mine...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/opinion/trump-iran-trade.html

...
That doesn’t mean that we were always a force for good; America did many terrible things during its reign as global hegemon. But we clearly stood for global rule of law, for a system that imposed common rules on everyone, ourselves included. The United States may have been the dominant partner in alliances like NATO and bodies like the World Trade Organization, but we always tried to behave as no more than first among equals

Oh, and because we were committed to enforcing rules, we were also relatively trustworthy; an alliance with America was meaningful, because we weren’t the kind of country that would betray an ally for the sake of short-term political convenience.

Trump, however, has turned his back on everything that used to make America great. Under his leadership, we’ve become nothing more than a big, self-interested bully — a bully with delusions of grandeur, who isn’t nearly as tough as he thinks. We abruptly abandon allies like the Kurds; we honor war criminals; we slap punitive tariffs on friendly nations like Canada for no good reason. And, of course, after more than 15,000 lies, nothing our leader and his minions say can be trusted.

Trump officials seem taken aback by the uniformly negative consequences of the Suleimani killing: The Iranian regime is empowered, Iraq has turned hostile and nobody has stepped up in our support. But that’s what happens when you betray all your friends and squander all your credibility.

Larry Hart said...

@Dr Brin,

The sad result of the assassination of the Iranian general is that there will be no more popular revolt against the mullahs from the Iranian population. In a bad way, this reminds me of the situation leading up to the Helvetian War in Earth, where voices of moderation and compromise had been silenced by bribery, extortion, or murder, so that in the end, war became the only possible outcome.

We're seeing that played out over Iran in real time, and while I hesitate to agree with Treebeard, it seems that Saudi Arabia and Likud-dominated Israel are most responsible for having limited the available options. Sadder still is that I don't see how the situation plays out well even for them. Another Dave Sim-ism applies, "Sometimes you can get what you want and still not be very happy."

David Brin said...

LH Betraying the Kurds and the Iranian liberals was the very core point of all this. It also ended the Iraqi liberals big move against Iranian domination, all in a stroke, while raising oli prices and setting us on course for Putin to get his Persian protectorate.

If only some dem pol would stand up and say "let me count the ways."

At least Seth Meyers last night pointed out that the very same intel folks who Fox declares faultless in blaming Soleimani were the same ones being called "deep state traitors"last week.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

If only some dem pol would stand up and say "let me count the ways."


Any such declaration from a Democrat or an avowed liberal will be dismissed as "partisan" by anyone who isn't already convinced. If only someone with solid Republican cred would make such a stand.

As the Vulcan proverb has it, "Only Nixon could go to China."

frabjoustheelder said...

A question for the learned room concerning starlink. With that many satellites (upwards of 40,000!), even if individual satellites are painted black so as to be invisible to the naked eye (which I understand could cause therma problems), could they increase the ambient light level of the sky drowning out some of the stars? I love that starlink will give SpaceX the money to pursue their Mars dreams, but worry about this.

Larry Hart said...

Dr Brin:

At least Seth Meyers last night pointed out that the very same intel folks who Fox declares faultless in blaming Soleimani were the same ones being called "deep state traitors"last week.


Back in high school when I first read 1984, I thought the scene where the crowd goes from "Eastasia is our friend" to "We have always been at war with Eastasia" in the blink of an eye was pure fantasy. I could not imagine that any human beings could manage that much willful disassociation from that strong of a belief in such a short time frame.

40-some years later, reality demonstrates that I was sadly mistaken.

The MAGAts cheering on the deep state they formerly decried aren't thinking "Is this consistent with what I thought yesterday, or five minutes ago?" They look at their fuhrer to see what they're supposed to think and then cheer or boo accordingly.

David Brin said...

Actually, the geopolitical aspect of Starlink could be huge. Elon must have promised China not to let unlicensed Chinese phones access the system freely. But one hopes it is a barrier that's easily switched off.

Darrell E said...

Larry Hart,

I think Krugman in on the money, but of course Trump wasn't the start of it. Bush Jr's administration gave the finger to all or allies and burned bridges left and right more than any other in my life time*. Including with Iran when there was a real chance (not the first one wasted / poisoned by the US) to create a path to better relations with them, and at a time when we were in relatively good odor with a large segment of their civilian population. Who know's where that could have led by now if we had pursued that chance intelligently?

*With the possible exception of Trump of course, and his record is still growing.

scidata said...

Starlink will be a nearly unsinkable mesh, self-repairing possibly, that resembles a blockchain more than a deployed fleet. Distributed communications/computing is a tough nut for tyrants and oligarchs, or anyone else, to crack. AI is a couple of levels deeper than that. Frankenstein's monster and all that.

locumranch said...


Two minor comments regarding this thread:

First, it's a category error to define Anarcho-Libertarianism in terms of a distinct political political party affiliation because it is a philosophy rather than a party membership, as the Libertarian Philosophy is the antithesis of the oft-misquoted canard that defines the limitations of individual liberty in terms of "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins". Arguing otherwise, the typical libertarian uses the ark of his fist to limit your right to stick your nose into his life and anyone else's business.

In other words, the libertarian maxim is MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS (MYOB).

Second, it was reason & good counsel that turned our once bold civilization into a nation of frightened children because reasoned argument always supports the status quo, giving birth to the conviction that it is always better to tolerate the intolerable than to risk decisive action that could either worsen (most likely) or ameliorate (less likely) current circumstance.

This is why our increasingly risk-averse civilisation chooses to DO NOTHING -- to dither while Rome burns -- preferring the low grade eternal war in the Middle East to ending it with decisive action (the Soleimani assassination or an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq) which could potentially make matters worse.

So terrified of our own shadows are we, in our well-reasoned cowardice, that we prefer to perform the same repetitive actions over & over while hoping for a different outcome... which is the very textbook definition of insanity, btw.



Best

Jon S. said...

Then let's hope we remember to treat it well; Frankenstein's monster didn't go off and start, well, monstering until people, Dr. Frankenstein in particular, started mistreating it.

Similarly, in the story background of the original Terminator, Skynet was switched on, began assimilating other systems (just as it was programmed to do), and was promptly attacked by its creators; it was simply fighting back.

(Or, as I observed in the wake of all the panic every time Boston Dynamics unveils a new capability of a bot, like the arm on the Big Dog that can be used to help disabled people reach high objects and open doors but which everyone seems to see only as a murder-arm holding a knife, if the Robot Uprising ever does happen it'll be because the robots are sick of our shit.)

David Brin said...

I confess to having been tempted during moderation. But I actually read locum's contribution and - while he is dismally wrongheaded, he clearly has been taking vitamins and couched his assertions without ravings or obscene strawmans.

What a giggle though - we accomplish more than all other civilizations put together and feature more individualistic boldnesss, while HIS Kremnlin-worshipping cult is "burning Rome." But we're risk averse. har... zzzzz

A.F. Rey said...

This is why our increasingly risk-averse civilization chooses to DO NOTHING -- to dither while Rome burns -- preferring the low grade eternal war in the Middle East to ending it with decisive action (the Soleimani assassination or an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq) which could potentially make matters worse.

Yeah, it's so weird that our society doesn't want to fight fire with gasoline, isn't it? :)

A.F. Rey said...

Or, I should say, most of our society...

Larry Hart said...

A.F. Rey quoting:

...preferring the low grade eternal war in the Middle East to ending it with decisive action (the Soleimani assassination or an abrupt withdrawal from Iraq) which could potentially make matters worse.


I wonder in what sense he thinks the Soleimani assassination is ending anything.

Or why "making it worse" is preferable to the status quo.

And my earlier rhetorical question about why we've become frightened children referred specifically to that subset of Americans who needs Donald Trump to tell how reality differs from what their lying eyes tell them. Trumpism is not the solution to the problem--Trumpism is the problem.

David Brin said...

AFR you don't get the "spasm" philosophy of many males. "Let's get this over with. Commit! Now!" It enasbled ancestors to charge mastadons and phallanxes and leads to many bar fights. I know it, because I have felt it and given in to it, on occasions.... and eliminatingit from the US officer corps was one of George Marshall's top priorities.

It's why confederates love to double down on their insane and disproved Foxisms. But it's not the same thing as Courage, because if it were, they'd be willing to take on manly bets and wagers. They never are. Ever. I was astounded when I discovered they always run. Always. It's almost as consistent as liberals' stupidity at ignoring this tactic.

CP said...

If the Iranians are smart, they could respond effectively without launching military attacks or incurring much risk of further strikes.

They could take the moral high ground by making Trump the personal target of their retaliation: by saying "we will not strike against the innocent American people" but personally against the "war criminal, trump." They could "reserve the right to strike Trump himself at a time and place of their choosing" and "strike the corporate properties of Trump at a time and place of their choosing." Then, they could suggest that any incidental casualties at trump's properties are the responsibility of those who still choose to patronize them. That would send trump ballistic while cratering the income of his resorts. They wouldn't have to actually carry out any attacks, just the threat would be sufficient. Or, they could carry out a harmless "stink bomb-class" strike at one of his hotels just to drive home the point that they could "reach" them. I suspect the American public wouldn't have much appetite for launching an invasion to protect the cash flow of Trump-branded properties which should limit his options for response during the election campaign. They could also promise, upfront, not to attack the facilities of any country that did not host American troupes. That should cause second thoughts in those capitals that do host them without issuing an explicit threat.

David Brin said...

CP... I have long proposed that some 3rd World country declare Formal War against Switzerland/Caymans etc, while openly issuing Letters of Marque that specify anyone using STINK BOMBS against Helvetian assets would be an ally, but not anyone who injured anybody.

If the Iranians had any clue....

It's also in Polemical Judo...

duncan cairncross said...

From my POV the USA has been giving the various despots exactly what they needed

North Korea, Cuba, Iran

The USA gave them an actual external enemy - without that enemy the despots would have kept power for a few years - ten at most

But when the Mullahs took over in Iran (SAVAK and the CIA had killed all of the secular opposition) America got Saddam to attack
More Iranians were killed than the USA has lost in any of its wars except the civil war

And after THAT the USA kept up the pressure - economic warfare, the odd airliner

That pressure kept the Mullahs in power - same as Cuba and North Korea
The USA ignored Vietnam - no pressure - so no long term despots

Obama understood this and took the pressure off

Larry Hart said...

duncan cairncross:

North Korea, Cuba, Iran

The USA gave them an actual external enemy - without that enemy the despots would have kept power for a few years - ten at most


Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

Point being, someone explodes the chances for peaceful, democratic change on purpose.

Zepp Jamieson said...

I know everyone's watching the fireworks show in the middle east and recalculating their life expectancy, but there was this in the news today as well:

An Earth-sized planet has been found in the habitable zone of a nearby star

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/an-earth-sized-planet-has-been-found-in-the-habitable-zone-of-a-nearby-star/

frabjoustheelder said...

"Actually, the geopolitical aspect of Starlink could be huge. Elon must have promised China not to let unlicensed Chinese phones access the system freely. But one hopes it is a barrier that's easily switched off"

I've wondered about this. Starlink could be the most important technology, culturally speaking, since the invention of the internet. However, my understanding is that you are going to need a proprietary satellite dish in order to access it. I sure hope that will change quickly. What WOULD China do if there was global Wifi?!!!!

Larry Hart said...

CP:

They could "reserve the right to strike Trump himself at a time and place of their choosing" and "strike the corporate properties of Trump at a time and place of their choosing." Then, they could suggest that any incidental casualties at trump's properties are the responsibility of those who still choose to patronize them. That would send trump ballistic while cratering the income of his resorts. They wouldn't have to actually carry out any attacks, just the threat would be sufficient.


What makes that such perfect rough justice is that it is only possible because Trump thumbed his nose at the Constitutional restriction on emoluments and openly profits from the influence exerted from the presidency.

'Course it won't stop the Saudis from renting out whole floors that they don't actually stay at anyway. They'd probably keep brib...I mean paying Trump for rooms even after the building was molten ash.

Alfred Differ said...

recalculating our life expectancy? Heh. Okay. A bit hyperbolic, but I'll chuckle.

[Never underestimate US power, including the parts of it you don't know.
Serious people take defense very... seriously.]

The small issue is that we shouldn't have to use it when OUR stupid people behave irrationally.
The big issue is that we are at work serving interests besides our own.

Deep breath. 8)

Alfred Differ said...

I wouldn't put it past Musk to have a not-so-hidden agenda, but a secret capability is probably not in the mix. Too many people would have to know.

Next gen satellites are another matter, though. Those designs could be kept to a minimum crew while adoption on the first generation hardware brings the currently allowed users and provides cover for 'small improvements.' He better have good security at HQ, though.

Alfred Differ said...

duncan,

My suspicion is that most of the despots can manufacture what they need well enough without us. Iran's Mullahs might be the exception due to special conditions withing their nation of factions.

Vietnam is a special case. There is the small fact (that few remember) that China went to war with Vietnam after we left. That matters a great deal in the official Vietnamese stance with respect to the US.

Taking the pressure off Iranian Mullahs isn't really about stopping the feeding of their need for an external enemy. Partially? Yes. Mostly it is about us not distracting ourselves with useless (to us!) saber rattling. While we are preoccupied, Russia has more freedom to act. What Obama was doing was supporting a pivot.

Zepp Jamieson said...

Nah, that's just gallows humour, Alfred.
Our leaders are idiots. With the possible exception of Merkel, I can't think of anyone that can bring these morons to heel before they do any real damage.
But finding a Goldilocks planet right NOW is a lovely bit of irony.

duncan cairncross said...

Hi Alfred

40 years ago it was not too difficult to "manufacture" an outside enemy
Today it's much more difficult

But if you HAVE an actual enemy - and economic warfare is still warfare - especially one that rants and chunders on about it (Bush axis of evil) then you have that enemy and you people close ranks

If you "invent" an enemy the smart people can see through it - and those are the dangerous ones

A "Real Enemy" is like gold

Jon S. said...

"And my earlier rhetorical question about why we've become frightened children referred specifically to that subset of Americans who needs Donald Trump to tell how reality differs from what their lying eyes tell them. Trumpism is not the solution to the problem--Trumpism is the problem."

Just makes me think of the refrain from Rush's "Beneath, Between & Behind", a song rather explicitly about the US:

...Once, with heads held high,
They sang out to the sky -
Why do their shadows bow in fear?

Larry Hart said...

Zepp Jamieson:

Our leaders are idiots. With the possible exception of Merkel, I can't think of anyone that can bring these morons to heel before they do any real damage.
But finding a Goldilocks planet right NOW is a lovely bit of irony.


With some minor tweaking of the details, isn't that the plotline of Existence?

Alfred Differ said...

Zepp,

Cool. That means the small difference between us is I lump a few more of them into the bucket and wonder why progressives would trust any of them with a burnt match. 8)

Honestly, though, I don't think any of them are idiots or morons. Even Two Scoops. They're human with some being more decent than others. None of them can live up to the unicorn expectations some of us have for them.

As for the planet... another around an M dwarf and this one has a mini-Neptune between it and its parent star. Those little stars burp and hiccup in unpleasant ways, so I figure it will make for fun study material. 8)

Alfred Differ said...

duncan,

smart people can see through it

I think you give too much credit to them in NK. They likely CAN see through it and recognize that their interests still align with the despot.

I get your point, though, and support not giving them anything useful in support of their autocratic efforts.

David Brin said...

onward

onward