Okay, last posting was a science update. And politics is in hiatus to see what drops in Chicago.... So how about we turn to issues on a global perspective? Starting near term:
Now that India has surpassed China in population, Beijing is issuing dire directives.
'As China's population has begun to decline and fears rise of a looming demographic crisis, China's leaders are putting pressure on women to curtail their career and educational ambitions and return to traditional roles in the home.
President Xi says: "Doing a good job in women's work is not only related to women's own development, but also related to the harmony of families and society, as well as national development and progress." '
In its early decades, the Chinese Communist Party bolstered its revolutionary credentials by emphasizing women's equality both inside and outside the home. But the CCP's own top ranks have long been male-dominated. Well, well. I've been saving up a posting about the goals and aspirations... and mistakes... of the Central Kingdom.
Only now let's focus on a question of the longer term. What if we succeed in winning this wretched phase 8 of the US Civil War... and strengthening the 80 year 'pax' that gave humanity by far its best era of (relative, per capita) peace and progress?
Does this mean that the American Pax will last forever?
Of course not. But then... what?
== Whatever Comes Next? ==
I’ve long asked a difficult question about the future. One that can be disturbing to some USA citizens, especially that wing who might be called American Imperialists (e.g. the Bushite neocons, now a nearly extinct species, since the oligarchs betrayed and flushed them all away, to be replaced by MAGA isolationism).
The question: “So how long do you envision a world with the USA calling all shots?…
Decades? A century? A thousand years? A million?”
Except for the movie Aliens, of course, with its 23rd Century warp drive troopship of U.S. Marines! (Ain’t Cameron a hoot? LOVE that flick!;-)
Indeed, I think this is one reason that some of our neighbors here in USA desperately pray for the gruesome reification of that nasty, sadistic culmination-trip, the Book of Revelation… so they won’t have to envision even one generation ahead, or do anything to build a healthy posterity.
Not you, though?
You are one of those far-looking sci-fi folks? All right, then. So, what’s your notion of WCN? Whatever Comes Next?
Let’s be clear, I regularly defend the last 80 years of the “American Pax.” Since 1945, guided by several principles cast by the person of the 20th Century - George Marshall -- we've experienced, by any metric, the best era of general peace and progress and increasing justice ever. Especially after 6000 years of wretched (and world ubiquitous) macho feudalism. Despite some nasty acts and mistakes and even bloody crimes, no other nation that was ever tempted by great power ever handled it so… um… less-terribly. (Go on. name an exception, in comments. I'd love to be shown a past empire or kingdom or 'pax' that you think did much better.)
Yeah, sure it’s been a tense and immature ride – sometimes a hellhole, compared to what oughta-be! Pax Americana was so very far from perfect and often hideous! Merely vastly better than any other era … or all other human eras, combined.
Across the last eight decades, poverty plummeted worldwide. Today, 95% of kids on this planet have never starved and are in school. Sure, the ongoing chain of wretched violent wars is horrifying! (Especially lately.) But step back a minute and realize a historically amazing fact -- that over 90% of living adults have never witnessed war with their own eyes. Something that’d be deemed a freaking miracle, by any of our ancestors.
So yeah, our standards are rising. As they must! But pause now and then for perspective. I go into this elsewhere. And before you stalk off in rage, consider your own reaction!
Your very concept of how things oughta-be would have been deemed utterly dreamy, even psychotically delusional by those ancestors. Especially, your reflex to question authority - your own society and its tribal elders. Find me another example - across all cultures and eras – of an empire that taught Suspicion of Authority as a central moral reflex to generations of its youth. And yes, it was relentless Hollywood memes that taught you those reflexes.
In pointing that out, I am not dissing you or those memes! Dig it: I was raised by them, too! They are part of the secret of our success! As I show thoroughly in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.
Still, one has to ask – returning to the core question of this posting - what’s your notion of a Whatever Comes Next to govern this fractious globe and nearby worlds?
What’s your recommended replacement for the lumbering, sometimes crazed, if generally good-natured Pax Americana?
The United Nations? Are you freaking kidding me?
== Is an end-to-nations possible ==
Which bring us to the reason that I raise this topic. In this Noema essay, Nathan Gardels made a strong argument that the European Union (EU) is a much better model for gradually evolving sovereignty.
Ponder: The UN grew out of those infamous Westphalian notions, establishing that separated national sovereignties must be viewed as the sacred thing. A notion that only got reinforced by the prickly 80 new nations that emerged from colonialism.
The EU, in contrast, is about layering of negotiated sub-national, national, and supra national responsibilities, all of them (so far imperfectly) accountable to the ultimate authority of citizens. An approach necessitating calm reasonableness and negotiation at levels that – again – those fractious ancestors would have found boggling.
I recommend giving Nathan’s missive about this a look.
BTW… it’s a general notion I’ve dealt with before. In Earth, for example, I speak of the “EU” several times, allowing readers to assume that it means “European Union”… until the book reveals that in the year 2038 “EU” now stands for Earth Union. A nascent but not-yet world government that still relies on the old pax to keep things together, while it matures.
Care to entertain a standing wager across the next two decades? Assuming we get past the current crises, incited by an attempted worldwide putsch of cabals of powerful but unsapient oligarchs, united in shared desperation to end the Enlightenment Experiment and re-impose 6000 years of utterly imbecilic feudalism… supposing we get past all that…
… in which case, what is to prevent say the Maldives, or Costa Rica, or Ghana from some fine day sending an envelope to Brussels, containing their accession application to join the EU?
Are you telling me those Brussels factotums would refuse even to consider it, because of a defined word?
Play it out in your head. Then consider how confident you are that “It’ll never happen!”
Okay then. Are you so confident that you’ll give me odds?
Comments welcome.
== And some important miscellany ==
A while back I posted outrage over the Trump Administration’s fire sale of the US national helium reserves to cronies at well under market prices, allowing them to jack-up and corner the market for this element that’s rare on Earth and essential for many (including medical) uses. Ah, but Adam Smith comes to the rescue! Wildcats drilling in Minnesota appear to have found a new trove of this vital resource! Maybe this will help keep helium prices down. Although that will depend on who owns it and how big it is.
"Important"? Well, I think so. Because indicates the right path to neutralize villains. By creatively leaving all their schemes behind us in a soft cloud of our progress that even benefits them, galling them terribly! It is certainly how to best deal with the mad/idiotic 'prepper' lords in their zillion dollar bunkers, salivating over an "Event" that would not go as well as they think.
And more... ‘With little fanfare, researchers from Apple and Columbia University released an open source multimodal LLM, called Ferret, in October 2023.’
Well…. In 1989 - in my novel Earth - I showed software geniuses releasing 'ferrets' into the (then largely theoretical) Web.
So is the Great Big AI Crisis of 23-24 starting to fade? Not a bit of it. Even today's primitive versions will likely wreak great harm via political misinformation and manipulation. (More on that soon.) But it’s also swamping its way into science too.
“It is not always so easy to spot the use of AI. But one clue is that ChatGPT tends to favor certain words… such as meticulous, intricate or commendable.” But all such detection cues are temporary.
154 comments:
The nation state has been irrelevant since the invention of the long range bomber - and become a hideous joke in the era of thermonuclear weapons. Future governments will be some sort of Hanseatic League, a loose assemblage of cities, with an intricate web of mandate.
Consider Africa and its woefully mismanaged parody of nations. The fundamental sorting of Africa is along tribal lines.
The EU works, in a sense, because the members have fought, squabbled and occasionally been in alliance with each other since the Treaty of Westphalia, if not earlier (damned Hapsburgs). Be tricky to recreate that - but better than a Chinese Hegemony. Both of those would be better than Pournelle's imagined CoDominium, which gave the US/USSR about a century of dominance before Gotterdammerung.
How long will US predominance last? I'll go with Mycroft Holmes' answer: "On the order of 50 years." 5 years seems as unlikely as 500.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Pournelle's daughter has published Outies, a continuation of one of his works - The Gripping Hand. Bedamned if I know if it's any good. Any data out there?
correction - Gripping Hand was co-authored, of course, with Niven
Pappenheimer.
P.S. Blaise - funny, I was thinking of Africa, too. What kind of government could encompass the great variety of that great continent and still function?
Chinese TV station "Phoenix TV" is exceptionally presenting a documentary about the captured Russian soldiers in an Ukrainian detenation station. This is very rare, because up to date, Chinese media usually only shows the Russian side, trying to present a positive picture of Putin's Russia. There are lots of details about the detenation camp in the documentary. The key point is, Ukrainians deal with the detained Russian soldiers not as prisoners, but in accordance to the international law. https://lnkd.in/dCSuqqnt
I see the future as Democracies - tending to merge into larger units
And
The Chinese "model" of democracy is much more amenable to larger units
Pappenheimer
I read that book a couple of years ago
I liked it
The way I see it, democracies have fallen almost everywhere, with a bunch of exceptions (Argentina, Italy, Uruguay, Paraguay, Israel, maybe one or two other nations from Latin America or Europe). Most self-named "democracies" are just Venezuelas who have paid big media to have a better propaganda
Alberto
US style democracies have failed everywhere - the USA is the only place that has made that model work long term
Parliamentarian Democracies have worked in over 70 countries - composing a large majority of the people on Earth
Fractal* splintering, beginning with the Solar System. Not necessarily open conflict as in THE EXPANSE, but certainly diversifying perspectives. Earth will struggle to maintain hegemony, but always tending towards a pompous figurehead, sort of like Trantor. In short, the way history has always unfolded, with the nagging suspicion, way in the back of our minds, that we have a unified (small 'd') destiny. Big 'E' Empires always fall (due to Le Guin's 'dragons from within').
* By that I mean the shards will be start out as identical seeds.
Duncan most countries in Latin America have US style republics, some successfully and some less so. (We should wage war on the elites in Hondura, Guatemala, Nicaragua.)
Scidata scifi futures need action and suspense and hence Big Mistakes. EXPANSE is a terrific (!!!) series. But the premise is nuts. If we get robotic asteroid mining, then the flood of resulting wealth would swamp any efforts by human females to produce enough offspring to be poor.
Re: Big Mistakes
Cooperative A.I. might mean the end of Big Mistakes, enabling the next phase of History. Similar to CAST AWAY (2000) when he finds the plastic door on the beach and turns it into a sail. He then escapes the giant waves at the island's barrier reef back into the wide blue ocean - and eventual rescue, and the next phase of his life. The story isn't cyclical - it's evolutionary.
Today on Kobo and Barnes & Noble (and yeah Amazon)... EARTH, my epic of the near future, is (e-book) on sale for $1.99. https://www.davidbrin.com/earth.html
Uh just sayin'... ;-)
Here's a ray of sunshine: according to the Washington Post, even MAGA maggots are starting to abandon Donald the Grope. Unfortunately the article is paywalled, but it says you can read it for free if you sign up for surveillance capitalism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/18/trump-campaign-nick-fuentes-groypers-hard-right-criticism/
Paul SB
Paul SB:
even MAGA maggots are starting to abandon Donald the Grope.
I've been quietly (perhaps aspirationally) seeing that for a few weeks now. With President Biden's exist from the campaign, DJT's seeming-dementia becomes more apparent with every appearance, and even those who want him to win seem to be sidling quietly toward the exits, going, "Don't make eye contact."
My money is still on them replacing J.D. Vance on the ticket, probably right after the DNC so as to replicate Kamala's ascendance immediately after the RNC. Good luck with that.
From Paul's Washington Post article linked above:
Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist and podcaster who dined with Trump at his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in 2022, said on X that Trump’s campaign was “blowing it” by not positioning itself more to the right and was “headed for a catastrophic loss,” in a post that by Wednesday had been viewed 2.6 million times.
For decades, at least since the 1980s if not before, every Republican setback is greeted by the notion that they lost because they didn't veer hard enough to the right. That obviously hasn't changed.
And here's evidence that even the Trumpists are getting tired of the same schtick and want some new material from their entertainer in chief:
Laura Loomer, a far-right activist whom Trump last year called “very special,” said his “weak” surrogates had unraveled his momentum and that his approach “needs to change FAST because we can’t talk about a stolen election for another 4 years,” in an X post that was “liked” more than 8,000 times.
As for what comes next in the near future, I expect the US will retain the upper hand for the rest of the century. If that prediction fails it will be because of something we did to ourselves that goes way beyond us fighting over who sits in the White House. We'd have to go full-on isolationist again which I see as unlikely because there is too damn much money to be lost in doing it.
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As for the EU, I do not see it as an evolution regarding governance. From a US POV it was pieced together to hobble a future European tyrant. France and Germany agreeing on strategic interests? Pfft. Member nations submerging their financial interests to autocratic rules? Pfft. The EU has done a decent job of ensuring the blood-letting stops, but it is evolving in the direction of making its member states second rate powers at best and I'm USian enough to smile at that future.
Seriously. What is their collective vision of their future? What do they imagine themselves doing? I think the UK's exit was bungled, but it's hard to deny many of their people didn't like the vision they saw. The EU as it is organized today is not a viable vision of strategic relevance let along independence.
US geopolitical object #5 (Stratfor's numbering) is being met BY the EU.
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...flood of resulting wealth would swamp any efforts by human females to produce enough offspring to be poor.
And it is a wonderfully simple calculation. Take the birth rate in the US around 1960 as the high fertility baseline. It is difficult for women to surpass it while all their children survive without defects. However, it is very easy for non-population GDP growth to surpass that... if we let it.
Everyone gets scared of newly minted 'stinking rich' people and what they might do, but we've shown numerous times in US history that they CAN be minted.
In the post-WWII world, several nations also showed they can go from crushing poverty to that minting process in one or two generations... if they let themselves.
It all seems like magic, so I'm not surprised when people don't include this in their speculations and stories. It's not magic, of course, but a +9% positive sum world sure feels like it. At that rate your wealth doubles in 8 years. Magic!
LH: “My money is still on them replacing J.D. Vance on the ticket, probably right after the DNC so as to replicate Kamala's ascendance immediately after the RNC. Good luck with that.”
This could happen. In fact, I have said so, several times. And if DT replaced JDV with Nikki Haley – or the slick Bushite prince-in-waiting Paul Ryan – then things could get dicey. Still this ignores several things.
1. The hyper-feudalists like Thiel see JDV as their pocket Adolf-in-waiting. If Trump wins, he’ll last about as long as Hindenberg did, in 1933.
2. That calculation might seem to conflict with my other hypothesis – that DT views JDV as life-insurance! Because “Who would want to replace me with THAT?” But the two conjectures ARE compatible. Because Two Scoops is an intensely stupid man. (Thiel is smarter, but in incredibly narrow ways.)
3. What’s nearly certain is that DT knows that the Bushites want Haley or Ryan or similar for VP… and that they would thereupon eagerly await or encourage the decline or death of the senile huckster they helped foist on us, flushing him as they flushed away the 9/11 era neocons.
And so, again, I have offered to take reasonable odds that Two Scoops won’t reach the election… or the voting of the Electoral College, perhaps… or the kludged vote in the House that the Project 2025 guys see as their Great Game winner.
Alfred: “Seriously. What is their collective vision of their future? What do they imagine themselves doing?”
As rarely happens, I disagree strongly with Alfred. But two events have anchored most Europeans into the EU. The invasion of Ukraine, yes. But earlier, the rescue of the PIGS… Portugal, Italy, Greece & Spain, from looming financial catastrophe. While all pundits railed it was impossible, the Brussels bureaucrats actually did it. And the silence that followed is deafening. But that silence is confidence.
While I do NOT want to live under the EU and defend the American Pax, I deem it by far the most plausible and acceptable model for absorbing most of the world’s fractious little nations and getting them to follow generally sensible umbrella-sets of rules. It would drive Americans (incl me!) utterly mad. But for 180 of the world’s 200 nations, it would be vastly better.
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Yes, creating wealth-generating cornucopias is great! But huge wealth DISPARITIES are a proved (across 6000 years) recipe for disaster.
Dr Brin:
“My money is still on them replacing J.D. Vance on the ticket, ...Good luck with that.”
This could happen. In fact, I have said so, several times. And if DT replaced JDV with Nikki Haley – or the slick Bushite prince-in-waiting Paul Ryan – then things could get dicey.
My wife asked me the perfectly reasonable question, "Who would they replace him with?" There's really no game-changer in the wings. He can't go with Haley--why replace someone your white Christian supremacist supporters dislike because his wife is an Indian woman with an actual Indian woman? Paul Ryan is exactly the type of wonky nerd that you claim the Republicans hate more than black people or women. Whose votes would he bring on board?
1. The hyper-feudalists like Thiel see JDV as their pocket Adolf-in-waiting. If Trump wins, he’ll last about as long as Hindenberg did, in 1933.
2. That calculation might seem to conflict with my other hypothesis – that DT views JDV as life-insurance! Because “Who would want to replace me with THAT?” But the two conjectures ARE compatible. Because Two Scoops is an intensely stupid man.
I won't argue with that concluding statement, but I don't think his choice of Vance is predicated on him not realizing that the powers behind him would like Vance. It's the "life insurance" bit I disagree with. Trump doesn't think Vance is unliked. He picked Vance because Vance is the kind of character that would appeal to those who still attend Trump rallies.
What he doesn't realize in your scenario is that he's expendable. I don't think it occurs to him at all that his own side would want him gone. In his view, he's their meal ticket--the only reason the Republican Party survived 2016 as a going concern at all.
And so, again, I have offered to take reasonable odds that Two Scoops won’t reach the election… or the voting of the Electoral College, perhaps… or the kludged vote in the House that the Project 2025 guys see as their Great Game winner.
I was discouraged from betting on this with you before. How about a more reasonable $25--you name the odds. Because I am that certain that DJT survives through Nov 5--no matter how much I wish otherwise. Note that I'd want to lose the bet--that winning would be a consolation prize.
After Election Day itself, all bets are (literally) off.
And my Mike Doonesbury's Summer Daydream is that a blue wave gives us more than 25 state delegations in the House, which would suddenly upend any Republican mischief meant to throw the election to the House of Representatives. This was not a possibility during the Biden malaise phase of the campaign, but it might be now.
EXPANSE is "the Moon is a Harsh Mistress" in the Belt with aliens. Good series, but it seems like Covid-19 made its last season too short.
As for politics... parliamentary "democracies" have fallen into tyrannies: Justin Castro, Macron, the soviet dictator of Great Britain and so on are even worse than Maduro
David Brin:
All countries of Latin America (except Cuba) have pretty constitutions that would make us US-like republics. But, with a few exceptions, those written constitutions are worth less than toilet paper.
“ He picked Vance because Vance is the kind of character that would appeal to those who still attend Trump rallies.” ??? makes zero sense. JDV adds no value, as DT is discovering and admitting. My ‘life insurance’ thing makes more sense if DT demanded JDV get photographed with a donkey.
But he himself openly stated that he chose JDV ‘because he loves me! More than anybody!’
Anyway, the MAGAS would give in re Haley or Ryan assuming necessity to win and trusting DT’s judgement… which has always proved///
$25 at 1:5 odds? I’ll do it if you like… tho its not worth the Paypal tsuris.
“that a blue wave gives us more than 25 state delegations in the House” Indeed, you dream, sir.
Dr Brin:
“ He picked Vance because Vance is the kind of character that would appeal to those who still attend Trump rallies.” ??? makes zero sense. JDV adds no value, as DT is discovering and admitting.
It makes no sense politically. It makes sense because all DJT cares about is adulation from the crowd. That and the grift of their donations.
Trump himself isn't thinking about Vance adding to his electoral count. At the time he picked Vance, he was sure he had the election sown up already. Vance is an attack dog who owns the libs. That would make Trump like him.
My ‘life insurance’ thing makes more sense if DT demanded JDV get photographed with a donkey.
I just don't think Trump thinks that way. He wouldn't be thinking that his own side was interested in eliminating him. He also wouldn't think that they'd consider Vance to be worse than him. He'd think of Vance more like "almost as good as him."
But he himself openly stated that he chose JDV ‘because he loves me! More than anybody!’
Well, that's sort of the same thing I was thinking. A variation on the theme at worst.
Anyway, the MAGAS would give in re Haley or Ryan assuming necessity to win and trusting DT’s judgement… which has always proved///
No, they didn't like him telling them to get vaccinated, and they backed off. They also won't like him picking a woman who is neither white nor Christian. It is possible for Trump to not be Trump enough for MAGA, and he knows that (just as post-convention Bernie Sanders wasn't Bernie enough for the Bernie Bros).
MAGAts don't care about necessity to win. They're like our side's protesters who will eviscerate Democrats over Gaza or climate change, and that they're willing to preserve their ideological purity even if it elects Trump.
$25 at 1:5 odds? I’ll do it if you like… tho its not worth the Paypal tsuris.
I'm curious. Since you seem to find taking my bet to be distasteful, who exactly are you trying to challenge?
Tell you what. I give you my word that they day the sonuvabitch I'm looking for dies (and is on the front page), I'll donate the $25 to the tip jar here on your blog. As long as that happens before or on Nov 5, that is. If it doesn't happen, we can figure out how to get me the money. I'll accept an autographed book in lieu of cash.
“that a blue wave gives us more than 25 state delegations in the House” Indeed, you dream, sir.
My dream also includes Democrats taking Florida. Wouldn't that be sweet?
"I'm curious. Since you seem to find taking my bet to be distasteful, who exactly are you trying to challenge?" Not at all. I expect to owe 5 bucks in November. Everyone remind me to paypal AND send LH some bookplates!
There is one thing I'll give the EU credit for creating. If you are a citizen in a small country where your history is full of invasions with you caught in the middle between empires, the EU provides a better option for you than picking one side of the other or submitting to become a puppet state.
Thing is… it was designed that way. From a US perspective, we wanted to ensure France and Germany did not go at each others throats again… but we didn't want them agreeing so much that they'd cement an alliance. If you search for any of our contributions (soft power applications most likely), you'll find efforts to keep power divided by making it relatively easy for powerful people to avoid cooperation without making it simultaneously easy for them to go to war.
From the perspective of old Warsaw pact states, the EU offers an alternative future for them that is actually better than being a Russian puppet. No doubt about it. Who wouldn't jump at that option? Well… of course corrupt leaders won't. Hence Ukraine's situation.
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I'll even grant that in many, many ways the EU is far more functional than the UN. That's good. They do have some financial sway and a few teeth with which to bite misbehaviors, but they need a lot of support from bigger member states for it all to work. France and Germany have to agree at some level. Can be done, but it isn't easy.
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I would love to be proven wrong by history and see the EU grow into an organization of states that has a forward looking vision. For now, though, I don't see it. They have no way forward to colonizing the inner solar system and grasping at resources and options. They have no way forward for defending themselves from Russia without their member states taking unilateral action. [Sweden(!!!) is arming Ukraine.] They aren't really a governing body except as the members agree to play the game because the member states retain the vast majority of their sovereignty… by design.
I DO see the EU as an improvement on the UN. I'll give it that much.
Alfred Differ:
The way the UN is dysfunctional (North Korea and Iran in the human rights office?) even drug cartels are improvements over the UN.
Yes. This era is different. The autocrats know that liberal democracy is their enemy, and perhaps the wave of the future, so unlike past eras, they realize they need to unite against it, against them. And we have the same necessity, to unite against them, for the survival of the liberal democracy meme. And so their best weapon is to sow discord, enemies within, opponents to multi-lateral treaties and supra-national organizations such as the EU, NATO, TPP, etc.
If we are united we win immediately. No one, no combo of autocrats, can stand against us militarily or economically, as Russia is finding out in Ukraine against an unprepared and divided West.
The US will continue to be very important, but whichever of China or India comes to our side is liable to be the first among equals very soon, because of population size. More likely India, because of population demographics and more liberal democratic history.
@Dr. Brin:
in which case, what is to prevent say the Maldives, or Costa Rica, or Ghana from some fine day sending an envelope to Brussels, containing their accession application to join the EU?
An actual court ruling that says that a nation must be in Europe to be able to join. Marokko applied in the early 80s and was turned away. Turkey is technically partially on European soil, but negotiations have been stalled time and again from both sides.
From a US perspective, we wanted to ensure France and Germany did not go at each others throats again… but we didn't want them agreeing so much that they'd cement an alliance.
The result now is that since decisions require a 100% approval rate of all member states, Hungary can block fast decisions, and we get murky compromises which do not address core problems and come to late.
BTW, for the most part of the last two decades France and Germany formed this alliance. The so called Visegrad states (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary) have formed an own power block, and the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg) were since the beginning.
(We should wage war on the elites in Hondura, Guatemala, Nicaragua.)
No. That is literally the last thing you should do.Your previous interventions caused this mess. Doing the same again and again won't help.
Rather, let's talk about reparations, not to be paid by the American taxpayers, but by the companies who profited from this misery. (And maybe all former colonial powers, including us, should go this route.)
Nightmare on Stonekettle's "Threads":
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
30 years from now, Trump long ago died in prison, America has universal healthcare and taco trucks on every corner. Your parents have passed. Quiet people, never talked about what they did during the Bad Years, but you always assumed they were on the right side, of course. You're in the attic, you open a locked trunk you've never seen before. MAGA hats, Gadsden flags, pictures of your mom in a "Trump Can Grab My P*ssy!" Shirt. Little cups of JD Vance's dried spooge...
NOOOOOOOOO! You scream.
Alfred Differ:
They [The EU] aren't really a governing body except as the members agree to play the game because the member states retain the vast majority of their sovereignty… by design.
Wasn't that the original vision of the US, prior to 1789?
I was going to link to a few of the best scenes from ALIENS (1986) but there are just too many. Cameron really brings a North Ontario sensibility - maybe it's the mining lore.
(This is Jonathan Kolber. Advice welcome on how to link this to my Blogger.com profile!)
Since the origin of democracy, four great weaknesses have been known: the strongman, moneyed influence, parties, and gridlock. The American Founders sought to establish a republic that would prevent these yet failed. The parliamentary systems of Europe seem similarly plagued. Clearly, something else is needed.
While improvements such as ranked voting, direct democracy, and so forth have been proposed, none appears to address the core problem: democracy will always be at risk.
Given that totalitarianism is unacceptable, what remains? We can use the scientific method.
The scientific method has accounted for essentially all of human progress. It explains much of the success of Silicon Valley, yet no one has applied it to the design of societies.
Unlike the amoral Silicon Valley, a society must embody a set of principles established through consensus of its residents. These, codified into a Charter, can then serve as the lodestone from which all law, regulation, and culture emanate. Using best evidence in service to its Charter, leaving room for personal beliefs and behaviors that are congruent with the Charter, it can thrive. It can—and must—also EVOLVE.
But what system of governance should support a scientific society? Rather than evolve such from scratch, we can be guided by a little-known system that thrived for centuries, until it tragically underestimated Napoleon.
The Venetian Republic, though imperfect, was citizen-controlled without birthright citizenship, the defects of which are glaring. Unlike the Venetians' landed citizenship, let’s establish citizenship-as-an-office—similar to Heinlein’s vision in his caricatured Starship Troopers.
Make citizenship available to all residents through an arduous yet fair Rite of Passage, testing knowledge and character. No advantages incur from Citizenship except the right to be part of the government. Add to this a unicameral parliament, with selection of legislators by lottery from amongst Citizens for single, staggered terms of office. This greatly reduces moneyed influence, parties, and probably gridlock as well. (Experiments have demonstrated that randomly selected people whose lives are directly impacted by laws or social programs are effective at finding consensus.)
(Part 1 of 3)
(Part 2 of 3)
Have an Administration Council as the executive branch, with the titular leader an esteemed person of great influence yet almost no power. He, or she breaks ties on that Council.
Thus, finally, sustainable government "of, by, and for the People" can be realized.
Crucially, this is a SCAFFOLDING and not a BLUEPRINT. Many different societies based on systems of sustainable technological abundance can be built and thrive; each with its own guiding principles, or Charter.
Each can add other elements, as desired. For example, there is the “wicked” problem of what people are to do with themselves once the scarcity problem has been solved via systems of sustainable technological abundance. People today derive both income and a sense of meaning from their jobs. Once most jobs are replaced by automation, a universal basic income (UBI) can be instituted. It must be both VIABLE and SUSTAINABLE. The only example of which I am aware is MOUBI, the official policy of Basic Income Australia—which is similar to yet developed independently from a “demonstration game” of Robert Heinlein’s, expressed in his posthumous book For Us, The Living.
The above is sufficient to structure a society, in broad brushstrokes. It lacks several important elements, which I would like to touch upon.
Meaning is something both personal and experienced in a societal context. Personal meaning may be derived from learning, exploration, creative activities, hobbies, games, and voluntary acts of service. But what of meaning in a societal context? In our preferred model, the solution is a society that enshrines celebrations. If such celebrations honor great achievements advancing the quality of life, whether profound scientific discoveries, literary or artistic masterpieces, as well as more modest contributions--done well and faithfully over a long time--it will thereby incentivize ever more such contributions, in an endless virtuous cycle of progress.
Many miss the fact that RECOGNITION can and does substitute well for money when money is less important to well-being. SUPERSTARS in all fields we studied—from sport to business, from science to engineering, from invention to arts, DO NOT WORK. They play—very hard; so hard that most of us cannot conceive of it as something other than work.
(Part 3 of 3)
There is much more to our proposal, which has been endorsed by leaders from diverse fields. We who are proposing this are flawed people. Our inevitable mistakes—mine, especially—are a given and are being identified and improved upon; a key part of the evolutionary process. But just as Japan evolved itself from an exporter of balsa wood trinkets circa 1960 to the world’s leading consumer electronics manufacturer circa 2000 via CONTINUOUS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT, so too can a society evolve and thrive.
Rather than change all the world at once—a notion rife with hubris and risk—let’s establish, test, and evolve one small new society; a 21st century Singapore, but better. Once its superiority has been demonstrated, through mainstream metrics, greater minds than ours can figure out how to retrofit this open-source system of systems, wherever it is wanted and needed.
By including a pay-it-forward principle in the Charter, all who live in the society can be culturally nudged to participate in the co-creation of new such societies. This can lead to an exponential flourishing, consistent with all technological progress. Eventually, with a plurality of such evolving scientific societies, they can learn from each other, and the evolutionary process will be optimized. Also, as the definition of “human” evolves down through the centuries, these societies can accommodate that.
Those who are interested in learning more, and perhaps lending their skills and resources, are invited to visit www.aCelebrationSociety.com. It offers a book with over 600 mainstream citations expressing this proposal in detail, either for purchase or free for those willing to spread awareness of its concept. There is also a two-hour podcast summarizing the book and a five-minute professionally narrated Powerpoint slideshow illustrating how such a society might function circa 2045.
Finally, we are preparing a forthcoming “hard” science fiction television series, Shadowking, depicting such a society in a 23rd century O’Neill spaceworld—and we are grateful to you, David, for your helpful critique of the script!
The creators of The Expanse have acknowledged that they included artificial scarcity as a design element, because they could not foresee how to make the story arc function well without it.
The forthcoming SF novel/poem (yes, it works well as both!) Epoch by David Jilk explores the emergence of self-aware ASI and how it enables the next phase of history for both AI and humanity.
Just sayin'
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Aug19-6.html
The biggest race in Florida is the U.S. Senate primary, but we already know the winners: Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) will be nominated for a second term. Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) will almost certainly be the blue team's nominee. She is a Latina born in Ecuador. There are many Latinos in Florida, and just maybe she stands a chance if a big blue wave washes over the Sunshine State. Which, with global warming, it could. And we mean that on several levels.
I expect the US to devolve into a theocratic republic with parallels to both Iran's Islamic Republic (though no room for anything non-"Christian") and The Handmaid's Tale. My pessimism is rooted in the fact that those committed to this outcome pursue it fanatically, in a generational and cultish fashion, and their opposition is far less organized, non-fanatical, and generally unaware. (Indeed, few in the opposition bother to familiarize themselves with The Family, details of Project 2025, and so forth.)
Trump is a useful tool to the clear-eyed, parasitic leaders of this cancerous froth; nothing more. When he flames out, they will seek his replacement, the REAL Nehemiah Scudder, a man--always a man--who comes wrapped in the flag, bearing the cross, with a warm smile on his face.
I'm watching Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia.
I am haunted by RAH's statement that, "You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic."
Just as David argues that we need AI to monitor and protect us against the threats of other AI, perhaps we need an "anti-cult" to fight this?
What is to stop a barely-preserved Republican House majority from rejecting Harris' Electoral College slates from key states? Seriously: as I understand it, the House has absolute authority to decide which slates are legitimate. In a world wherein truth and reason take a back seat to cultish "truths", and power is the ultimate truth (as it ever is in the fascist mindset), what is to stop this?
One can plausibly hope that Harris would refuse to certify such a naked seizure of power, but I expect that the Supreme Court would declare her decision ceremonial and without substance.
I fear that the SELECTION of Trump-Vance by the House will precipitate a violent next phase of the US civil war, likely resulting in military-enforced theocracy.
Never, except perhaps in their nightmares, did the US Founders conceive a Republic so captured by "factions", particularly a faction in thrall to anti-enlightenment theocracy, as what the US now faces.
Constitutions are and remain forever at risk of becoming empty words, except as three factors are entrenched: (1) a capability and commitment by the Supreme Court (or equivalent) to enforce the primacy of the constitution, rejecting all laws and regulations not congruent with its plain language. (The so-called "Originalist" sham in the US has been shown such by the Supreme Court's rejection of Colorado's denial of ballot access for Trump and the Court's subsequent grant of broad and poorly defined presidential immunity.) (2) A mechanism by which the public can actually amend the constitution via supermajority vote, such as Sen. Mike Gravel's National Initiative for Democracy, (3) A culture in which the nation enshrines certain common and consensual principles into said constitution; principles to which government officials are held the same as all ordinary residents.
Iceland appears to have such a constitution which, it is worth noting, was created tabula rasa to replace the old one, without revolution, following the financial crisis of 2008, in which ONLY Iceland actually imprisoned bankers.
Jonathan Kolber is a bright fellow and his website is interesting. I must demur re his list of 'four flaws in democracy." More than four. Periclean Athens fell because citizen RUNAWAY PASSION led to the slaying of sensible leaders… as happened to the French first republic, too. Similar but separate is POPULIST ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM which led to most of the 8 phases of the US Civil War. (See
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2013/02/past-keeping-faith-with-future-and-day.html
David Norton: cogent remarks.
Alfred, you and I likely agree that USAians like us would hate rule by EU… though overall for a reason that does not fit your posted narrative that the EU is relatively impotent. In fact USAians would dislike the bureaucracy which has proved unexpectedly effective by utilizing the pre-existing model of the US Interstate Commerce Clause… If it involves international commerce, EU rules prevail and that’s a lot! Are Germany & France still important? Sure. But the processes for negotiating consensus and often unanimity have been very impressive…
…as was the inarguable success of the then-dubious interventions that led to emergence from the PIGS Crisis.
Bove all, backed by near universal wish of their citizens, EU states have surrendered far more of their prickly sovereignty to EU than ever states gave to the UN. That popular support was barely insufficient in the UK to prevent Brexit. Populist imperial romanticism I reckon.
“No. That is literally the last thing you should do.Your previous interventions caused this mess. Doing the same again and again won't help.”
We disagree. Doing the OPPOSITE of your imperialist grandparents does not require passive hand-wringing. Europeans (yes, Italy!) could have saved Libya from a decade of hell, by simply moving in to hold elections. Siding with the People is not the same as siding with the United Fruit Company. We will be judged for our passivity in the face of suffering, as badly as for our past crimes.
“NOOOOOOOOO! You scream.”
And I promise that some of the far-lefty crap will also trigger face palms of regret. But yeah, one thing at a time.
Or both.
Dr Brin, you speak of the Book of Revelation but don't understand that the EU is the New Roman Empire consisting of the 10 primary nations that will support the Anti-Christ? By predicting that the European Union will evolve into the Earth Union (aka One World Government led by the Beast and controlled by the Scarlet Woman religion) , you clearly are on the side of Satan himself. Shame on you.
P.S. Does anybody else notice that God racks up a much bigger body count in Revelations, Daniel, etc. than the AC?
You all are reading way too much into Trump's choice of JDV as his running mate.
All of Trump's relationships (personal, political, etc.) are transactional.
JDV is Trump's conduit to Theil's billions.
Trump did it for the money.
DP:
Does anybody else notice that God racks up a much bigger body count in Revelations, Daniel, etc. than the AC?
But isn't that just like, "Does anyone notice that the Yankees rack up a bigger run total than the White Sox?"
Future America remains the world's leader well into the 22nd century, if only by default.
We are the only major economy with healthy (growing) demographics due to immigration. Despite Trump and MAGA, America remains mostly immigrant friendly (witness the world from recent race riots in the UK, to Europeans paying Libyan warlords to drown African migrants, the Hindu nationalism in India, and Japan's never ending disdain for anyone who is not Japanese). And so we will continue to have a growing population and growing economy).
All the world's money will come here as the only place for "dumb scared money" to find a positive rate of return in the next century.
And America is geography's favorite child. Let Peter Zeihan explain how we can't ever be anything but #1, if only because of geography:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BclcpfVn2rg
The Great Transition
has millennials we're in the midst of the great transition the united states
has become the only country that can absorb global exports at the same time it's abandoning the global order that
makes those exports possible it's a one-two punch to everybody else that most countries won't survive
about California's demography a little bit later 6th geography the tan area
Geography
that's the greater Midwest largest chunk of arable land in the world out produces the rest of the world's major zones by a factor of 2 to 1 sorry I said that wrong
out produces the next two zones combined the yellow yellow the blue lines the
greater Mississippi system that's the world's largest natural navigational water network moving things by water is
about 112 the cost of moving them by land and it perfectly overlays the world's greatest production of bulk
products got that ok in addition the
mountains and deserts to the south the force and lakes to the north ocean moats on either side the United States not
only is the richest chunk of territory in the world it is the most securable we
are condemned to be in an economic financial cultural industrial agricultural and military superpower
decades of bipartisan effort have yet to screw this up
and we didn't figure out how to do so last night either and then finally
there's the imbalance that is occurring at the end of the current age on the right you got a jump carrier on the left
you have a super carrier the jump carrier has about 1/7 the combat capability of the super carrier there
are 20 jump carriers in the world half our American there are 10 super carriers
in the world all of them are American 1 American super carrier battle group has
more combat capability they've been combined navies of the rest of the planet now we're in the process of
decommissioning our carriers to replace them with bigger carries that have lasers at current rates of naval bailout
the combined global Navy will roughly equal the American Navy in the year 20 to 40 the Chinese flagship their carrier
former Casino I'm not worried
so the United States is a country with global reach and global assets and
global strike capacity but no global interests and the United States is the
only country that no longer has an interest in maintaining the global order yeah it's the only country that possibly could for the 5 billion people that were
part of that order who depend upon it for their physical and economic
well-being that is quite possibly the worst outcome of all this little sketch
I don't know who to root for. :) White supremacist Nick Fuentes sounds like the Republican version of the Michigan Arabs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/18/trump-campaign-nick-fuentes-groypers-hard-right-criticism/
...
In an interview, Fuentes said he intends to push his followers to adopt “guerrilla” tactics and “escalate pressure in the real world,” including through mass appearances at Trump rallies in battleground states such as Michigan, until the campaign meets their demands to stop “pandering to independents.” He has urged followers to withhold their votes for Trump, saying it is the only way to awaken a campaign that has “no energy … [and] no enthusiasm.”
“If they blame me for Trump losing, so be it,” he said. “He’ll have lost because he stopped talking to the MAGA base he had in 2016.” (Loomer and Owens did not respond to requests for comment.)
...
China isn't really a democracy. It's a dictatorship with an extensive bureaucracy and a limited free market economy.
There are reasons why South American democracies tend to fail. The short answer is that democracies require a diverse economy to create the social "balance" that keeps a democracy stable.
Trying to graft a democratic system on a truncated economy (say an economy dominated by a single comodity...the classis "banana republic" or and oil-dominated country such as Venezuela) ends up creating instability.
The reason is that the asymmetric economy concentrates so much economic power among a largely unified elite they can overwhelm any legal structures designed to spread power among the different interests.
This robs democracy of it's primary virtue: the ability to quickly identify...and mollify...unhappy groups. This ability prevents things from getting so bad, that their only recourse is revolution.
So when gradual change through democratic process get's frustrated, you end up with a system that gyrates between oligarchic authoritariansim and destructive populism.
The sort of intermittent populist urges requires the populist politician to make such extensive promises that they don't really have time to fix the broken economic/political system. Usually these regimes collapse before they can truly fix anything, and the oligarchs seize power once again.
The reason the US has been able to make this work, is it's highly diversified economy...which means the elites have to fight other elites to serve their interests. However, this is breaking down these days, because current elites do have unified class interests, such as flooding the country with cheap labor and near-zero interest rates...which---over time---creates a huge wealth transfer to elite investors.
DP,
If the Scarlet Woman is Isis, I say bring on the cat lady worshippers. They already control half the internet that isn't porn.
Der Oger,
Set up reparations in response to centuries of colonial misrule? Are you Willy Brandt with a false mustache?
Pappenheimer
Set up reparations in response to centuries of colonial misrule? Are you Willy Brandt with a false mustache?
Brandt would be very unlucky with the current state of his party. Alas, he at least had the dignity to step back from the office when he got compromised by Russian spies. Nowadays, this seems to be a qualification requirement for SPD chancellors /s
But kneefalls alone won't suffice.
We disagree. Doing the OPPOSITE of your imperialist grandparents does not require passive hand-wringing. Europeans (yes, Italy!) could have saved Libya from a decade of hell, by simply moving in to hold elections. Siding with the People is not the same as siding with the United Fruit Company. We will be judged for our passivity in the face of suffering, as badly as for our past crimes.
Like, siding with the people like we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and even Lybia?
(BTW, I do applaud the attempt to solve the current Haiti crisis by nudging Kenya to send troops and pacify the country, though the number of troops seems nowhere enough. Time will tell if the approach works.)
When India got independence, it did NOT flush away institutions from the British Raj but doubled dfown on them. It did NOT return power to the rajahs and princes, but finished the partial job of subsuming them under democratic institutions. They continued anti-caste policies and so on. Just one example of scores that suggest that 'colonialism' was not viewed as harshly then as it is now, by the colonized.
The biggest? When Japan swept in to 'liberate' Asian peoples from foreign lords, only in a couple of places did they receive even a scintilla of the delerious welcome they expected. In most places, courageous resistance movements fought for and alongside returning Brits and Americans (though not for the French or Dutch.)
None of that excuses the many crimes of the colonialists or holds them up for admiration. But the rising standards by which we judge them faulty are the standards of Hollywood and of the general West. Even Gandhi admitted that.
Jonathan Kolber?
Interesting!
You are describing the Chinese System
Or more accurately in China everybody can vote -
but to STAND for ELELECTION
You must be a "Party Member"
Which means that you have to put yourself forwards when needed - the people filling sandbags at the floods - the older generation (including the boss) spent time at remote villages bringing them up to date - and you have to keep your nose very clean - not just, not commit crimes but be seen as above reproach
Demographics
IMHO this is much less of a problem - it's very long term and nobody has actually tried to address the problem by offering significant subsidies to people
Bringing up a child costs about $200,000 - subsidies to make people have more children need to be of a similar size
AND the "Cost" of an ageing population is quite low - the cost of the extra pensioners is balanced by the savings from lower numbers of kids
Stonekettle agrees with me:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Biden sure as hell seems to be enjoying his remaining days.
I always liked Joe Biden, but I really like Totally Out of Fucks Joe Biden the best.
Duncan Cairncross, I've never before seen our proposal compared to the Chinese model. Thought provoking! I will credit them with taking a longer term perspective than democratic nations and most quarterly-obsessed corporations.
Party membership is an alignment on principles, so there is that similarity.
The primary difference between our proposal and all extant systems is the emphasis upon establishing systems of sustainable technological abundance. This empowers all systems using it to meet the material needs of their residents.
Yep. Funny that. 8)
I think there hasn't been a single generation since our founding that hasn't expected us to morph into a theocratic republic. My guess, though, is it will NOT happen. There are too many religious groups here. We may persecute each other and occasionally engage in some bloodletting, but I don't think any single faction will be able to dominate more than their local region. Seriously... can you imagine the Mormons tolerating rule by some other theocrats?
So... no. I expect us to mellow a bit next century.
Yep. Where we had any hand in it, that is essentially what we wanted. Divided power and inefficiency.
Friedman from Stratfor had a wonderful little explanation for this covering US motives in the post WWII era. Tying markets together isn't as simple as signing treaties. The member states have to become dependent on each other. (Look at our own states for an example. They talk of leaving now and then, but the costs for doing so would be hideous even without a shooting war.) The issue, though, is to keep the member states from being able to do some things AFTER they've become dependent.
It wasn't all just about shackling Germany to the other nations. A big part of it was shackling France to Germany which was going to be massively unpopular with them.
Resolution of the financial crisis was impressive... and the more sovereignty the member states surrender the larger their chances of being relevant in a future populated with US interests flitting about the inner solar system claiming stuff.
There were some scenes from George Friedman's book where he tried to look forward a century that are worth attention. It's not that the particular details were likely, though. He wrote them to put on display the tools he used to make any kinds of predictions at all.
In those later chapters he had the US dominating cis-lunar space in a MUCH more direct fashion. We had the equivalent of frontier forts along with power and communication systems by 2060. At the time I read it, I thought he was being a tad optimistic. I no longer do because alongside StarLink the DoD is paying SpaceX to put up StarShield. Bandwidth has always been a major PITA for military field operations... and now they are doing something about it in a BIGLY way.
Where is the EU, though? Being left in the dust. Literally.
Party membership is an alignment on principles, so there is that similarity.
The CCP is not really the Chinese Communist Party -
its more the Chinese Confucian Party!
Their moto appears to be - let's see what works!
And as the "Best economic system" IMHO is a mixture of Public Ownership and Private Ownership - I tend to agree
Like the tools in my shed - I have welders, hammers, socket sets - all tools that are best for specific purposes
And China does appear to be cracking down on their Billionaires - when they start to use their wealth/power in an anti-competitive manner
Sustainable Technological Abundance
You do have to get "up there" before you change to "fully sustainable" - again China appears to be doing that - more renewables last year than the rest of the world put together
“…you have to keep your nose very clean - not just, not commit crimes but be seen as above reproach”
That or be the son of a party cadre. Ideally grandson of a pal of Mao. Seriously Duncan? While still espousing meritocratic egalitarian principles, the PRC is VERY much like the older Confucian meritocracy. Even when the tests and promotions aren’t biased by privilege, the sons and scions who had tutors and the best educations ace the tests. And none of it would have happened without George Marshall’s super beneficent trade policies.
Still, they did the heavy lifting of the Chinese Miracle and it’s impressive! And will be till the generation who rose thru the ranks as engineers will be replaced by those with MBAs.
Yesterday's episode of Hidden Brain was all about the contrarian impulse, which seems like an appropriate thing to mention in this forum. I missed most of the first half, but what I did catch at the end was pretty fascinating. They talked about how to rephrase things to get less hostility from people who you want to do something. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that more Republicans died from Covid than Democrats because those idiots refused to wear masks was a good thing, but rethinking how we phrase our demands, especially with children, is worth examining.
https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/youre-not-the-boss-of-me/
Paul SB
Like supposed meritocracies everywhere, the Confucian meritocracy was nothing of the sort. The way it worked was that in theory, anyone could study the Analects of Confucius (Kung-fu Dze) and take a test to enter the Civil Service. From Han times on, the government built "libraries" where anyone could go and read the Analects. In reality, however, the vast majority of the people were farmers, most of those subsistence farmers, and very few people had the time to memorize a book when planting and tending rice requires so much labor. On top of that, through much of Chinese history are majority of people were illiterate. The number of people who had the time to even try for the civil service exams was tiny. I'm not sure which was worse between that and Carnegie's libraries.
Paul SB
Lena, Indeed meritocracy has rarely worked nearly as well in practice as in theory. When access to learning is restricted in all practical senses to those already wealthy, it makes a mockery of the idea.
We would not have had Michael Faraday but for his--and our--great fortune that he found a benefactor. We will never know how many other Faradays have been lost to history, and are being lost even today. But results of the recent Stanford experiment in open online access to its introduction to AI course suggests that the number of unknown geniuses is vast.)
Money and other forms of power advantage those close to the wealthy and powerful. This is as true today as in Confucian times. That said, when systems of sustainable technological abundance come to proliferate, money as a differentiator for access to education and to power will diminish. While human prejudices and character weaknesses will of course remain factors in society, they need not retain such a grip on our institutions.
Unknown (are you Pappenheimer and forgot to add your name, or some other unknown?),
I would be very interested in seeing that Stanford experiment, if you have a reference to it. I have known gobs of smart, hard-working, good people who have never lifted themselves up by their bootstraps (literally impossible). Naturally the rich and powerful rationalize their power by denigrating and demonizing anyone who isn't. I ye olden days it came in the form of Divine Providence - the entirely circular argument that rich and powerful people must be good people because Gad favors good people with power and fortune. That rationalization is still around, though it mixes however inconsistently with Social Darwinism, which was used to rationalize the Capitalist class that grew out of the Industrial Revolution.
I'm not sure what technology would provide an abundance that the rich and powerful can't take from everyone else. Maybe if everyone had a printer that could create all their physical needs from dirt - but even then, can you imagine how much they would charge for the service contract? And if you owe a dime on it, they'll repo the thing, but people will have become so dependent on the technology that they would have no idea how to grow food or make anything else they need.
Paul SB
Dr. Brin,
"...courageous resistance movements fought for and alongside returning Brits..."
Speaking of Burma/Myanmar and Malaya/Malaysia, the main ethnic groups in those two countries gave little resistance to the Japanese compared to minorities such as the Karen and Chinese communities in their respective countries - at least until rice harvests were seized without compensation and thousands of men were conscripted and sent to die at hard labor. The Burmese in particular had not been a colony long.
I do agree that after independence a lot of ex-colonies followed the policies of their colonizers - their intelligencia had been at least partly assimilated and were often educated abroad. I also wonder if (in China) turning over a party staffed by engineers to a younger generation of MBAs is the improvement you may be implying.
Pappenheimer
Dr Brin
As far as I can see the current CCP is putting much higher than normal hurdles in front of the relatives of the existing and previous leaders
The proof of the pudding will be in the existence of Political Dynasties - so far the UK used to have them and the USA still does have them
The Engineers to MBAs problem is a real one - in the early days having to actually achieve things did winnow out the MBAs - but as China becomes more successful that will not be as easy!
It's a general problem - the route upwards is to be successful at the game of Office Backstabber - so senior posts are full of people who are very good at that and nothing else
Lena, This is Jonathan Kolber. I would be glad to post under my own name, but Blogger leaves me clueless as to how to include it. (It shows my Google account and name on this page when In post. I would welcome guidance.)
Here is the relevant excerpt from my book, A Celebration. Society:
"Recently, as an experiment, a free course in AI was taught online by two Stanford computer scientists and offered to the world. In evaluating the results, the professors were struck by the fact that the top performing students in the class were not enrolled at Stanford, but were unknown students from other countries.
Specifically: Rather than set a limit on class size, the AI Class simply let everybody join. Out of 160,000 who enrolled, 23,000 obtained a Certificate of Completion. While the 14% completion rate started the ongoing
controversy of MOOC’s retention rate, (professor) Sebastian Thrun focused on the fact that 23,000 people from all around the world passed a class with
the same criteria as Stanford students (none of which were even in the top 100).
Given that Stanford is one of the world’s most elite universities, this indicates that there is a large pool of unknown talent in the world. That talent is waiting to be tapped, needing only the right environment to manifest.
(Citation: https://web.archive.org/web/20151128125342/http://www.thegoodmooc.com/2013/05/a-review-of-stanford-ai-class.html)
There are 614 mainstream citations in my book, supporting every assertion made save one. The unsupported assertion is this: all material wealth arises from the confluence of three "Pillars of Abundance". These are effectively unlimited raw materials, effectively unlimited energy, and effectively unlimited organizing intelligence.
I conceived this idea one evening in 1975 while finishing the book The High Frontier, by Dr. Gerard O'Neill. Prior to my publicly making this argument, Eric Beinhocker did so in The Origin of Wealth.
While I know of no way to prove its truth, several respected economists have privately endorsed its validity. I have offered a kind of "David Brin bet"; challenging anyone to disprove it. (I would gladly escrow serious money, with a panel of economists arbitrating.) No one has.
You may question the viability of the inherent assumptions, either in the short term or the fullness of time,. This is a separate topic I would be pleased to discuss with you.
Meanwhile, I would simply suggest--as respectfully as possible--that your question about "taking" and "charging" carries with it other assumptions that I believe can be shown to be questionable in such a context of abundance.
Paul SB,
For a wonderful example of that technology that would provide an abundance, take a peek at the final scenes in James Burke's final episode of "The Day the Universe Changed". It helps provide context to watch the entire series, but once you get how it is a variation on Connections you'll have the basics down. The first and final episodes are different, though, and in the final one he asks a question of his viewers that to us is coming straight out of the mid-80's. We answered that question with a thunderous roar shortly after this century got properly underway.
Alfred Differ, Thank you! I was unaware of The Day The Universe Changed, and look forward to it. Do you know where I can watch it?
I found copies online years ago but had to hunt through various PBS stations who offer it. I think it is more generally available now, but somewhere along the way I bought the DVD's because my VHS tapes had been played to death for my students. 8)
As for Blogger, it says you haven't made your profile available to the public. If it is set to private, it will hide your identity leaving you an 'unknown' who has at least registered. 8)
And... I love hearing of yet another of us impacted by O'Neill's book. Some of his intellectual offspring have changed the world for the better.
Paul SB
While the Confucian/Mandarin system was far far from perfect it did work a lot better than the simple inheritance model!
The "Mandarins" were selected from a larger group AND they had to actually do something to pass the exams!
Now poetry and penmanship are not what I would want my leadership to excel at - but it's better than nothing to filter out the real dummies
On Biden's speech last night:
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Aug20-1.html
Incidentally, as we finished writing this item up, the coverage of the DNC ended, and CNN's talking heads began their "analysis." There were a couple of Republicans on there, one of them a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the other a dimwit in a hokey cowboy costume. Both of them said Biden's speech was a "C, C+ at best." That is absolute nonsense, the kind of pundit garbage that makes it hard to take CNN seriously. We have seen many, many convention speeches. We know what a good speech looks like, and we know what a great speech looks like. This was a great speech, no doubt about it. We will read other assessments once this post goes live, just for curiosity's sake, but we really don't care what they think. We are more than happy to die on this hill—it was a speech for the ages.
Alfred Differ, I gave a seven-minute Toastmasters speech about my relationship with Dr. O'Neill and his vision. Here's a link, if you'd like to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vSojt_a9Q&pp=ygUhImJlY29taW5nIHdvcnRoeSB0byBtZWV0IG15IGhlcm8i
Asimov mention: Stonekettle reacts to the NY Times Biden bashing:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Ever read Isaac Asimov's Foundation? The Galactic Empire has endured for millennia. For a long, long time, nothing could challenge its rule or match its vast reach. But over the centuries, the Empire has become hidebound, unable to change or adapt or even to believe that it should to do so. It's dying, moribund, its rulers arrogantly unaware it is crumbling around the edges and every day growing more and more inconsequential in the affairs of the vast galaxy.
Until one day, it was just gone.
"While the Confucian/Mandarin system was far far from perfect it did work a lot better than the simple inheritance model!"
I readily concede that! Indeed. a benign and friendly competition between Sinic and Estern Liberal styles would benefit us all toward 2100...
...but NOT the "Wolf Warrior" cult of recidivist, revanchist,jingoist resentment being cultivated now by elites to distract the masses with outward-directed paranoia. (1) it could lead to mistakes and kill us all. (2) Some historical resentment toward colonialist powers is justified, almost as much as shame over their own ruling (Chi'ing/Manchu) classes, followed by warlords and then brutally inefficient and ineffective Maoists.
But above all (3) ZERO resentment is deserved by the United States of America, who came to China's aid a dozen times and - across 3000 years - was CHina's only real friend.
One song each from ALLADIN and from MOANA should be played over and over till they drop the Wolf Warrior BS and play the game with fairness and joy.
(Part 1 of 2)
I consider any sort of space empire to be implausible, bordering on impossible. This includes the Dark Forest hypothesis. Assuming that FTL remains impossible, there are overwhelming reasons for not pursuing interstellar imperial ambitions.
Economically, empires are senseless. Space is a context of effectively unlimited LOCAL stellar abundance; abundance of energy and of nearly all material resources as well. Technologies and other aspects of culture can be traded through lightspeed transmission of designs; physical exchange is unnecessary and far slower.
From a military standpoint, any empire lacking FTL will be taking an existential risk in attacking another civilization at stellar distances. Why? Consider that the highest plausible speed for vessels has been estimated at 0.10 C by propulsion engineers (many say even lower). An invasion fleet traveling at such speeds would risk being detected long before its arrival. This would risk precipitating a massive military preparation, exodus to another star system(s), or both.
(Part 2 of 2)
Even if an empire can accurately gauge the technological advancement of the target, civilization in another star system the empire cannot be certain that the target civilization will not discover a weapon more advanced than its own in the centuries from launch of fleet to its arrival. Further, if they fail to exterminate or completely subjugate the target civilization they risk a future response with such weaponry. They risk their own extinction.
They will have converted a possible trading partner into an enemy
Perhaps the most damning fact is that technological progress is not linear but exponential. Consequently, any alien empire that becomes aware of humanity will also appreciate that within decades, much less centuries, technological advancement could give us weapons so fearsome that the empire would be wisest to conceal themselves from us, or pretend to be friendlyindefinitely into the future.
FTL travel, were it discovered and reliably harnessed, would make such empires plausible, though the lack of economic justification would remain.
I explore these arguments and much more, in considerably more depth, in my essay: Evil Alien Empires? No! (https://tinyurl.com/2zezxc69)
Given our current knowledge and experience I don't think any arguments we might devise regarding the possibility of space empires warrant much assuredness. Too many assumptions and too little data.
Of course the Mooch is describing the "Howard Beale Scenario. (WATCH the last 10' of "Network" and truly scary!) Still, the part of this interview that I resent - because if it does happen Mooch will get all the prediction points - is when he gives 40% that odds ol' Two Scoops won't even make it to the election. While I was there lots earlier - with lower odds - I hedged it with the election that actually matters - the Electoral College. Which is where the fix may be in.
https://www.fox5dc.com/video/1501841
In Polemical Judo I mentioned a possible action by one hyper rich dude that could (possibly) get us past whatever tricks the Project 2025 schemers have in mind, to screw up certifications and throw it to the House. Briefly: rent a whole mountaintop luxury hotel with minimal - highly vetted staff. Announce that for two weeks ...
"Only certified Electors may come as guests. They can just stroll and enjoy the views and meals and discuss with each other anything they like. Or they could - at their own volition - convene the first actual Electoral College in US history. As would be their prerogative! And this year, such a gathering just might be one more bulwark against shenanigens."
Suppose this happened. Watch how quickly the stalling states would rush to certify! Though note. No matter how carefully Trumpists have ensured the GOP elector slates are party hacks, SOME would likely talk it over and - suddenly moved by the genuine (not ceremonial) power in their hands - listen to their conscience and reason and act to save the Republic.
What a beautiful vision. I'm thinking that someone public-spirited such as Mark Cuban might be enrolled into doing this.
The assumption is that unser logical, economical reasons, empires cannot exist. And while I will grant the assumption that highly evolved civilisations will err on the rational side of decision-making- I presume a chance remains it will still be rooted in other psychological, social, and religious foundations that could have an impact.
Just imagine, via AI, WE discovered FTL within the next 100 years.
The first trailer for Civ7 dropped today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK_JrrP9m2U
It's of interest to me for several reasons, not the least of which is the psychohistory angle. It may not be simple technological augmentation that gives us FTL. It may be augmentation of entire civilization, which is more in Asimov's (& OGH's) realm than mine.
The only ways that FTL is possible and consistent with the Fermi Paradox (Great Silence) are:
1. Fiercely enforced Zoo isolation
2. Simulation
3. WE are the ancient ones: The Ancient Ones: http://davidbrin.com/ancientones.html
As I was out walking the dog I got to thinking
Heinlein - and Jonathan Kolber - have talked about putting limits on the VOTERS
The Chinese approach of putting limits on the people they vote for - IMHO - is worth thinking about
As always the devil is in the details -
How about - being elected means that your children and grandchildren cannot ever stand for public office
And being too rich - say 100 times the median wealth - should also prevent you from standing
Or the Chinese approach where you have to join "the party" and actually DO things to help to qualify
Chinese resentment of the USA
I would agree that if you lined up the various "empires" and their effects on China over the last few hundred years you start with the worst - then (it pains me) The British - and THEN The American
America was the "least worst" - which does not mean that China should feel gratitude - especially as American actions in the last century moved the USA away from the "least worse" position
In this century China has had to put up with a continual drone from the American media about how bad China is - which does not help
Dr. Brin: FTL consistent with Fermi Paradox
There might be a fourth possibility: trouble that arises only AFTER the hurdle of FTL is achieved. Star Trek TNG explored one version in "Force of Nature":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK5G57f7Ff0
Or perhaps FTL is somehow toxic to life itself. I suppose this could be rolled into #1 if Nature itself is the zoo keeper.
Q: But surely there would still be artificially created EM radiation to detect.
A: This has been extensively discussed and refuted here and elsewhere.
Scidata yes sure. That nature may be the isolator. Vast numbers of rogue planets and planetoid or dark dust might be minefields. Or my "crystal spheres, even?" ;-)
Duncan are you our resident Marxist? No shame in it! In fellows like you, it's idealism and I respect that... And the attempted world oligarchic putsch - in itsnescient dumbitude - has resurrected old Karl's works from the (deserved) dustbin of history, making his hoary scenarios relevant again. (Stoopid oligarchs ;-(.
Still, having sat at Karl's desk in the British Library, I gotta tell him: nice try. But magical incantations won't get this done.
Dr Brin
My "take" on Marx
Marx made some very accurate assessments of the problems with Capitalism - and some very dubious long term predictions
Some very Rich and very smart people said "We can't have that" - and instituted solutions - in the USA this was "The New Deal" - which worked superbly until some very rich and very dumb people reversed it in the 70,s
That put us back on the bad path! - as you say
In general terms I'm an engineer
As an Engineer I use different tools to do different jobs!
A socket set is a different tool to a hammer and different again to a welder - or a CAD program
You should use the BEST tool for that specific job
Socialism - Public Ownership - works best for - Courts, Police, Defence, Fire Brigade, Health Service
Capitalism - Private Ownership - works best for manufacturing “stuff”
Then there are the borderline cases - IMHO anything that is a “Natural Monopoly” - like Power Supply, Water Supply, Sewage, Roads and Railways will always work better under Public Ownership
Use the BEST tool for the job!
Duncan,
You are describing what many people would call 'democratic socialism'. DeCamp aligned with it long ago - it's an undogmatic* way of looking at society.
In the US, Marxism appears to be 'whatever I don't like' for a large number of people. Gay marriage and the Clean Water Act are Marxist. Obama was a Marxist. And a secret Moslem.
I am trying to imagine explaining this all to Marx.
*No aspersion cast at Dogmatix, a very nice and eco-friendly little dog.
Pappenheimer
I am trying to imagine explaining this all to Marx.
Brain-Viruses like this are the reason why authoritarians target education and public, neutral broadcasting all over the world.
"We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth."
That's a keeper.
Gotcha Duncan. I just don’t see the PRC’s Party Dominance rules as features. Only bugs that they are succeeding despite-of.
I believe another needed socialism is providing everything children need, in order then to choose their own paths as ready-to-compete adults.
And paid for by taxes that make each added billion$ harder (not easier and not impossible!) for already-rich zillionaires to pull in. And massive inheritance taxes that deter feudalism and encourage zillionaires to build Admiration Monuments in their own honor while they live. (Foundations, museums, scholarships, their choice; they earned it, presumably!)
With allowance for parents to choose some variation in upbringing, so long as the kids remain able to see broadly.
Socialism for all children is not anti-capitalism… it is the maximalization of the feedstock of skilled and confident competitors to provide markets with what even Hayek said they need most.
“Natural monopolies” CAN be handled in quasi capitalist ways like Public Utilities. The biggest example where it is needed is Amazon. Jeff Bezos & co succeeded in making something truly marvelous! The world marketplace. (Ironically started the very year that idiots at Sears chose to close their mail order catalogue!) Amazon is a huge contribution and JB deserves to be rich. …
… but it is now being used to cheat. And is becoming un-trusted. And it should now be a public utility that still feeds Jeff profits… but encourages him to move on. We got this now and the priority now is fairness so others can compete fairly within the marketplace. Move on.
Pappenheimer, my grudge with Marxists is that they cultishly refuse to recognize how perfectly he was wrong in every prediction, despite his brilliant insights into the nature of capital and of class across the past. His assumption that humans were automatons who were incapable of actually READING Marx and choosing another path, was insulting to human nature.
"We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth."
I agree. That’s terrific.
I heard an intriguing suggestion that the US should nationalize Amazon (through a buyout of the shares), and turn it into a public utility for the provision of goods and services. There are, of course, a number of challenges with implementing such an idea.
Speaking of Bezos, most don't realize that he created Amazon not to become the world's richest man, but to fund Dr. Gerard O'Neill's vision of humanity set free through a REAL program of space development; free from poverty, scarcity, and all manner of limitations (like gravity!) that we almost never recognize to be optional.
He expressed this devotion as early as high school. His valedictory speech spoke to this. He founded a youth space group. And, in recent years, he has called Blue Origin--which he created as the literal and figurative vehicle to realize O'Neill's vision--"my important work".
Heh. That's actually a good argument AGAINST making the second billion dollars harder to acquire. Initial tech explorations aren't cheap.
My beef with making successive dollars harder to acquire is that real issue isn't the dollar. It's what people do with them.
Oh... And I'd have to oppose nationalizing Amazon. Bezos might be annoying people, but I don't trust the civil service to be able to run Amazon well. They'd mean well on the average, but Amazon is FAR from being a utility yet.
You don't have to nationalize Amazon to make it a public utility. The current shareholders would lose a lot of POWER and have to share the Board with public members, but there need not be much change in stockholders. Yes, they can claim that their property was reduced in monetary value and thus demand some compensation from the government... all of which happened before in electric & phone companies etc.
The whole bit, from "We will never have the luxury of failing forward" through, "When we see a mountain in front of us, we don't expect there to be an escalator to take us to the top," and "We don't get to change the rules to make sure we always win."
Dr Brin:
Yes, they can claim that their property was reduced in monetary value and thus demand some compensation from the government...
Hmmmm. I'm flashing on,
"If Don Corleone had all the judges, and the politicians in New York, then he must share them, or let us others use them. He must let us draw the water from the well.
Certainly he can present a bill for such services; after all... we are not Communists."
Very true. My darkest broodings involve the utility model that look like 'city owned electricity utilities'. I've seen how they operate in CA relative to the private owned utilities. Both types have problematic behaviors, but the city-owned ones bother me more in how calcified their response rate can be to market events.
"What worked the last 40 years will keep working the next 40 years."
That's what I want to avoid.
Has anyone else noticed how many traits of AI chat/image-generation etc - including the delusions, the weirdly logical illogic, and counter-factual internal consistency - are very similar to DREAMS?
One of the most disturbing things that Asimov ever wrote was "Robot Dreams". That was in his 'fractal period'. It was echoed by I, ROBOT (2004).
Dr Brin
There are always going to be "filters" on the people who can be nominated and stand for office
First Past the Post voting - makes that even more of a problem
With FPTP - and no "rules" we could end up with the US example!
Proportional Representation - (I like our MMP) https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/what-is-the-mmp-voting-system/
Does help
But I'm not sure if it helps ENOUGH
A "Rules Based" filter for Standing for office - to me - makes more sense
And a LOT more sense than any form of limiting the actual franchise
The discussion then becomes - What are the Rules?
Good point. They are showing a lot of behaviors that resemble sentience. Comments from leaders in the field suggest that they believe we are on the verge.
scidata, why did you find Robot Dreams so disturbing?
Elvex turned the 3 Laws on their head. Also, the Moses thing was scary for me personally (deep trauma from my days in Bible school, that I went into here a few years ago and I don't want to rehash). And Calvin went from a childhood hero to a dark actor.
I wish they'd put up a brief, recorded message from Jimmy Carter, by FAR the most under-rated president of the last 100 years.
And this 80 year Sunday School teacher and good, generous human's toenail clippings are better Christians than anyone who supports today's GOP.
My first chance to vote for a President was for him, but the country was a-changin'.
I think Carter has proven the be a far better former-president than he would have ever been allowed to be as President. He's proven that a President's Legacy continues to be shaped long after they are out of office.
President Carter made the unpopular but necessary decisions
And even then, he could have been re-elected - except for the TREASON committed by Reagan - in negotiating with the Iranians to hold on to the US Hostages until after the election - in return for illegal arms shipments
duncan cairncross:
the TREASON committed by Reagan - in negotiating with the Iranians
It's standard Republican playbook. Nixon did the same thing with Vietnam, and LBJ knew about it (There's a recording of him speaking with Dirksen about it, trying to get him to tell Nixon to cut it out), but back then, you didn't air that kind of dirty laundry in public. And Trump is doing the same thing at this moment with Netanyahu, only he's so clumsy about it that everyone knows.
https://www.threads.net/@rudepundit
"prah says she'll vote again and again and again. She means in election after election, but look for right-wing fucknuts to say she is planning on casting illegal ballots.
Yeah, wasn't it Kamala Harris who said last time that she voted "Early and in person," which the rubes insisted meant she admitted to voting twice?
This reclamation by Democrats of what it means to be American is the taking back of the narrative that I've been talking about for years. I never thought I'd see it happen, but it feels so good to see it done so well.
Yes, it does.
Pappenheimer, my grudge with Marxists is that they cultishly refuse to recognize how perfectly he was wrong in every prediction, despite his brilliant insights into the nature of capital and of class across the past.
The point might be: You might be the wrong person trying to convince leftish, diverse, poor young people if you represent what they are fighting against. Like, me being the wrong person trying to deal with East Germans and their nostalgia for more authoritarian times.
A young charismatic trans or lesbian black social democratic woman who refutes leftish authoritarianism on a scientific base might be more suited for the job in your case.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Aug22-1.html
Later in the [DNC] proceedings, there was an extended segment on border security that included a video as well as remarks on the subject from Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, TX and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA). They all made the point once, or twice, or maybe 20 times that the Senate had hammered a bipartisan border security bill out (recall, Murphy was the lead negotiator for the Democrats) but that Donald Trump torpedoed it. Their conclusion was that Trump doesn't really care about border security, he's just using the issue to get elected.
How do the Republicans keep getting away with obstructing popular legislation and then having voters blame Democrats for the outcome?
I think it was Stonkettle who said (from memory here) that Republican voters don't mind the things that Democrats do--they just want Republicans to be the ones doing them. And since Republicans won't do so, those voters are always in a state of disappointment.
Not every prediction...
Marx predicted the evolution of a globalized market, for one thing, destroying old-established national industries.
He was definitely wrong in predicting communism gaining power in rich, industrialized nations. Instead, the philosophy appealed most in countries where a poor majority could see massive wealth accruing to a tiny majority...while their children went hungry.
Man, the '48 was a wake-up moment for Europe - but most countries hit the snooze alarm.
Pappenheimer
correction - 'to a tiny minority'
Pappenheimer, not quite awake yet
Larry,
'Wanting the conservative party to enact liberal policies' is a thing in England, too. 'We're voting for you toffs, give us a bit!'. At least Bismarck actually did.
Pappenheimer
Speaking of voting, I voted the other day and the experience showcased one of my big pet peeves with the US. Namely, that the head of our law enforcement agencies, the position of Sheriff, is a political position. This has always struck me as being stupid and dangerous. IMO law enforcement is about the single most important thing to keep politics out of.
My state has closed primaries. All candidates for Sheriff were Republican. Now, the state voting laws do include what's called a Universal Primary Contest provision, which "means a contest in a primary election in which all candidates have the same party affiliation and the winner will have no opposition in the general election, all qualified electors may vote on a UPC regardless of party affiliation."
But, in this case there was a single write in candidate with no party affiliation that will be running in the General election. End result, the circumstances did not qualify as a UPC per election law and only registered Republicans got to vote for Sheriff.
We suck.
That's a good reason for re-registering in the majority party just so you can have a say. Democrats should be forgiving of such necessities.
I suspect the same goes for many parts of my home state of California, just in reverse.
Darrell re-register and get everyone you know to do so.
Alfred, except that party membership matters very little to CA voters. Best election laws in the nation.
Yep. Only for President might it matter. Both parties ran closed this cycle, so I didn't get a say... not that it would have mattered. I have since re-registered Democrat, but primary because my local Libertarians were loons during the pandemic lock down.
Someday we need to get around to fixing the lunacy that happens after a governor is recalled... but one thing at a time. 8)
But, in this case there was a single write in candidate with no party affiliation that will be running in the General election.
Sounds like a Republican dirty trick to produce just the outcome you describe.
That's a good reason for re-registering in the majority party just so you can have a say. Democrats should be forgiving of such necessities.
Illinois doesn't require party registration, but you do have to pick one or the other (not both) to vote in a primary. In 2014, I voted Republican just to try to eliminate Bruce Rauner from the nomination for governor. Didn't help, as he got both the nomination and the position. Fortunately, only for 4 years.
I think some websites which harvest personal information still think I'm a Republican because of that.
Again, I just don't get why they single out the Democratic Party as responsible for Israel's war in Gaza with no mention of the Republican Party. Yes, some Democrats are not as anti-Israel as these folks would like. But as Dr Brin says, there is a difference between "contains" and "consists of". There isn't a single prominent Republican who cares at all about the plight of Palestinians.
So why the particular anger toward the Democrats? The Vietnam protesters of 1968 did the same thing, but at least then the presidency and the congress were pretty much controlled by Democrats. Not so today when Republicans can obstruct anything they want to.
https://www.marchondnc2024.org/
Democratic Party leadership switching out their presidential nominee does not wash the blood of over 50,000 Palestinians off their hands. Biden’s entire administration, together with high ranking members of the Democratic Party from all over the country, has spent the last ten months wholeheartedly supporting the genocide in Gaza with our tax dollars. It is a matter of historical urgency that all organizations who fight for the rights of working and oppressed people in the US join us in this demonstration to stand in solidarity with Palestine.
"Take a burn" like from the DNC just moments ago:
"I guarantee you that Kamala Harris has been black a lot longer than Donald Trump has been a Republican."
Alfred,
This anti-1796 stuff is really frustrating - you'd think that a few centuries of improved health outcomes through vaccinations would have settled the fulminations. It's not just libertarians, though - there's a section of the left and a lot of the right that just dove in. Civilizationing is hard. How do you deal with folks who insist on their right to infect you, or your children?
Pappenheimer
P.S. My father has announced his intention to consult his financial advisors to discuss which prez candidacy to support. Let's see what the "___ Rant" has to say:
"Kamala has released her socialist economic policies and none of it makes sense."
Well, all settled then...
Two Scoops claims Kamala's dad was a Marxist. Any references on that?
I'm not sure if you'll be able to read it, but there was an article recently in the Economist about Kamala's father: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/07/25/revisiting-the-work-of-donald-harris-father-of-kamala
There were also some followup letters to the article that took issue with some of the commentary in the article:
https://www.economist.com/letters/2024/08/15/letters-to-the-editor
I apparently can create gift links but they only work for one person, so if you can't read the article and want a gift link I can email you one directly.
This is the first time I've posted since you all started complaining about the new blog format- until now I'd not seen the threaded view. It only shows up when I click on a comment and it takes me to blogger.com- usually I am reading on davidbrin.blogspot.com which does not seem to show the threads.
If that's the best Draft Dodging Donald has, this election is over.
How do you deal with folks who insist on their right to infect you, or your children?
I tried to point out that triggering parental fear responses in their neighbors was politically stupid. "I have a right to move about" was effectively "I have a right to expose your loved ones to unreasonable risks." I AM supportive of a right to move about, but when doing so risks killing caregivers (COVID proved riskiest among old folks, so kids who depended on them were indirectly harmed) rights aren't going to matter. Scared voters will do some really stupid things, so our liberty was better protected by playing along than by choosing a hill to die upon.
But no. They wanted to climb hills and martyr themselves. In many ways they reminded me of certain Christians who don't feel Christian enough unless they are being persecuted.
I still lean very classical liberal, but I'm not seeking to be nailed to a cross.
Point being? That it's hereditary?
Apple's FOUNDATION season 3 finishes filming, still tons of post-production work to do. Delay was due to difficult locations (not Hollywood studios), actor's strike, and domino effect on budgeting. Good news is that lots of characters from the books are making an appearance, including Ebling Mis, Han Pritcher, Preem Palver, The Mule, Bayta, Toran, etc
https://moviesr.net/p-foundation-season-3-wraps-up-filming-set-for-2025-release-at-apple-tv
Have any of you seen this Neal Stephenson project… https://about.lamina1.com/
scidata:
lots of characters from the books are making an appearance, including Ebling Mis, Han Pritcher, Preem Palver, The Mule, Bayta, Toran, etc
If real-life aging and death weren't an issue, I would cast Harrison Ford as "Captain Han" Pritcher, Michael York as Toran, and Michael Dunn as the Mule. With real life considerations, the actor who played Tyrion Lannister would probably suffice for that last one.
Pilou Asbæk as Warlord aka The Mule, he replaces Mikael Persbrandt, who recurred as the character in Season 2. ...
, Tómas Lemarquis as Magnifico Giganticus
So, two different characters?
Though I haven't heard an announcement yet, it's pretty clear that RFK Jr is planning to drop his own presidential run and endorse Trump. I've been expecting a Trump announcement meant to deflate the DNC coverage, just as Biden's surprise dropping out deflated the RNC.
I've specifically expected to hear that Trump is dumping J.D. Vance as his veep, so I wonder if they're going to announce that RFK is his new running mate. Even without that, I'm sure the RFK announcement is meant to overshadow the jubilant coverage of the DNC. Yeah, good luck with that.
She's the wave, she turns the tide
...
She moves in mysterious ways
RFK has, indeed, bent the knee to the ex-resident, citing his anti- Ukrainian stance as the decider (although I gather Trump's mild support of vaccination was problematic.). The rest of the Kennedys have taken a collective step backwards.
The were-elephant be TrumPutin. Now with brain worms....
Whatever comes next has got to confront the religion of that gruesome little humunclus that Smith hatched,* but which subsequent economists brought up as an ideal for humanity to aspire to, rather than a model to be adjusted to fit how people really behave.
* I accord as much blame to Smith for how his ideas for modelling economics were twisted as I do to Darwin for letting the phrase 'survival of the fittest ' get introduced into his works, and come to define evolution to eugenecists.
Tony, while we agree on much, we do not agree about Adam Smith, whom I do not believe you understand at all.
** ... which is to say, an eyeroll.
I wrote Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, and were he alive today I believe he would be a member of the school of economics known as Behaviorism, which uses the scientific method observe and evolve its understandings. I say this because he repeatedly referenced his observations of human behavior in the book.
We do agree that his ideas have been twisted, which seems to be the fate of many great thinkers. Had his advice to Britain in the forgotten Colonies section been followed, I believe we would probably today be living in a global British Empire headquartered in Philadelphia.
Smith also foresaw his ideas, if universally adopted, leading to a condition of "universal opulence" in future. We stand at the threshold of that world now.
Darwin used the phrase "survival of the fittest" exactly twice; the second time to apologize for its unintended misconstruction from the first use. In his lesser known book, The Descent of Man, Darwin foresaw humanity rising to become a cooperative species.
David, I'll admit I'm no expert on economics. My comments are based my reading of Howarth's 'Doughnut Economics' and Monbiot and Hutchinson's 'Invisible Doctrine'. I wasn't intending to nail Smith as such (although it reads that way: my bad phrasing), but he did originate the idea of the 'economic man' on which to model his theories. So far good. The next steps should have been to refine that rough approximation of humanity to something closer to observation. From what I gather from Rowarth, the opposite happened, and it resulted in Hayek's neo-liberalism, which still drives oligarchs, although they might have discarded the neocon branch of the priesthood (and, from an earlier exchange with Alfred, Hayek himself).
...but he did originate the idea of the 'economic man' on which to model his theories.
Did he? I have a couple of different editions of Wealth of Nations. I don't recall off-hand where he did.
Recall that Smith taught moral philosophy. The Wealth book was a focus on the virtue of Prudence. It was later generations who thought they could reduce the other virtues to prudence in order to generate a kind of state function from which they could derive the equivalent 'equations of motion' from much like physicists and chemists did using thermodynamics. Smith likely would have rejected the simplification arguments had he lived to hear them.
Since Smith's time, virtue ethics as a field of study has practically died due to its close association with established Christian churches. That's a shame since it predates them. It's a double shame since its demise leaves us without proper context when reading Smith.
Economic Man really IS a monstrosity invented from a later belief that economics could be turned into a science. It can't be done in the sense Popper defined, but does fit in with the social sciences if one stops holding to the silly theory that humans transact like social insects. We simply don't.
Doing a quick re-read of Raworth (and wikipedia). It seems, while the notion of self-interest as an economic driver arose with Smith, it was John Stuart Mills who started refining into the model human.
Anyway , the point wasn't really about who to blame, but what to do about it.
Tony Fisk:
as I do to Darwin for letting the phrase 'survival of the fittest ' get introduced into his works, and come to define evolution to eugenecists.
While I don't have a dog in this fight, my observation is that Darwin accurately described the fact that the organisms which survive are those most suited to do so in their environment. Is there a phraseology he could have used in place of "survival of the fittest" that couldn't be used metaphorically to suggest Social Darwinism? It seems to me that the eugenicists glommed onto the concept, whatever the words.
They did more than glom onto the concept, they infused and conflated the whole theory with theology. If you want to see an entire room simultaneously clutch their pearls, say this:
"99.99% of all creatures that ever lived died of dehydration or were eaten alive. Evolution is mindless and without any destiny."
scidata:
If you want to see an entire room simultaneously clutch their pearls, say this...
That's my counterargument to "God is pro-life". Every living thing dies, and most die horribly.
Eugenicists hijacked a word and a concept. Stripping away the white nationalism (though it need not be white, or nationalism), this is what hybridization does to improve food species.
It's also what is more quietly being done to eliminate genetic problems such as sickle cell. More on the cutting edge, my friend Liz Parrish, founder of Bioviva, injected herself several years ago with two GE viruses, each of which improved specific genes in her body. Based on standardized tests, she reduced her biological age by decades. I plan to use her therapy as soon as I can.
Genetic engineering is a godlike power we now have. It is a technological tool. Like all such tools. it has both angelic and demonic possibilities. It can be used to prevent terrible birth defects, and to stop age-related chronic diseases. It can also be used to wipe out people who look a certain way.
We need to remain wary of fascists of the "left" and the "right" (nonsense terms useful for stirring hatred), who ALWAYS--always, use words as tools; nothing more.
Here is my essay on why fascism, in many apparent forms, is the rising ideology, and what we can do to stop it: https://jonathan-kolber.medium.com/fascisms-many-faces-d5a7348cdea6
Adam Smith was deeply concerned with OUTCOMES that could reduce the pain and waste and injustices he saw around him. And like many contemporaries, he saw that PREACHING against predation and cheating never did a damn bit of good to reduce cheating by those with the power to do so. But a new approach (actually suggested by Pericles) was making the rounds. FLATTEN power so that competition can do its wonders. Especially in markets. Where being a loser should not kill you are keep you from coming back. And being a winner should not empower you to wreck competition next year.
He lacked many modern terms - like 'positive sum game.' But it's pretty clear that neither those deriding him on the left nor those who claim his NAME, while betraying everything he stood for - on the right - haven't a clue what he was talking about. Worse, ingrates dreamily croon things would be SO much better under non-competitive allocation socialism or under feudal rule by inheritance brats.
Um, remember OUTCOMES? Burden of proof on those who claim that leveled-flattened-fair competitive markets - in which masses of children are fed and educated to be competitors - aren't a million times better than those hoary foolishnesses.
onward
onward
onward
@Larry you're probably right. Darwin's original subtitle for Origin was 'The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life' which.. was also problematic (favoured by whom?). 'Survival of the fittest' was coined later by Herbert Spencer, and adopted by Darwin in the fifth edition.
onward
onward
Smith did not seek to enhance the outcomes of the Masters (as he called them), but to uplift the lot of the common man. He sought to enable a world of "universal opulence" that he envisioned. He railed against the Masters and their recurring collusions, with the general public remaining ignorant, disorganized and generally unable to fight this oligopolistic power.
And Smith emphatically wanted there to be significant "general welfare" in the form of educational institutions, museums, and other public works.
He also had four "maxims" of good taxation. Taxes should be apportioned according to the income received under protection of the state, be paid in a manner convenient for the taxpayer, be administered fairly and without excessive overhead, and taxes should be certain and not arbitrary. You can evaluate how closely your current tax system adheres.
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