tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post7686754158703931519..comments2024-03-28T15:48:48.514-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Orwell and WritingDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger67125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11365035404313350132018-10-26T08:31:53.505-07:002018-10-26T08:31:53.505-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.siskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07076079736141144027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82653376337366752952015-04-05T12:53:15.750-07:002015-04-05T12:53:15.750-07:00Locumranch wrote:
This is our Sacred Task: To le...Locumranch wrote:<br /><br /><br /><i>This is our Sacred Task: To let it die so we can replace it with something young, vital & built from scratch, keeping only the very best of the old while discarding the rest ...</i><br /><br />Systems engineers have long noted that there are very, very few <i>successful</i> large systems that were "built from scratch" -- every successful large system has evolved from a successful small system. "Start from zero" political and economic systems tend to turn into disasters and tyrannies. The American Revolution kept a large proportion of the previous system, including most of English Common Law. The French Revolution tried to start from zero, and the results were markedly less benign. And then there's Cambodia and Jonestown ...Mike G in Corvallisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-31041137996241566852015-04-04T15:13:37.344-07:002015-04-04T15:13:37.344-07:00Alex, Alfred
The 70's
The reasons for the stri...Alex, Alfred<br />The 70's<br />The reasons for the strikes were never the reasons that were in the papers<br />You are mixing cause and effect<br />The "cause" was the employers trying to kill the unions,<br />This was done by making massive changes in working conditions and refusing to negotiate<br />The only way the unions had to respond was by strike action.<br /><br />And they lost!<br /><br />But it was never the unions getting out of control it was the employers deliberately breaking the power of the working manDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43916045897675442432015-04-04T11:38:08.314-07:002015-04-04T11:38:08.314-07:00onward!onward!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-38094526378754473212015-04-04T11:14:58.482-07:002015-04-04T11:14:58.482-07:00Alfred Differ:
Regarding the stark choice...
My ...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />Regarding the stark choice...<br /><br />My own experience tells me there are people who go way beyond 40 hours in a week, but they choose to do so. If that's how they want to add value and earn twice as much as I make, I have no qualms stepping aside and letting them do it. Personally, I'd rather see my son grow up.<br /></i><br /><br />The people I know who work long hours are not getting paid overtime for it, or even getting paid anything extra for it. It's not a question of working harder for more money--it's working harder because the company fires the rest of your team, and if you won't do the work of three or four people, they'll replace you with someone who will.<br /><br />That's where the whole "freedom and liberty" thing gets muddied for me. How "free" are you if you must compete with slave labor for your livelihood?LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-27598183681541037642015-04-04T11:08:43.397-07:002015-04-04T11:08:43.397-07:00onwardonwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88005575414505152642015-04-04T11:08:35.477-07:002015-04-04T11:08:35.477-07:00Alex, thanks for the reminder that the left is per...Alex, thanks for the reminder that the left is perfectly capable of being destructive-cheating-silly. It was bloody awful in Britain… and it led to bloody awful Maggie.<br />“This is our Sacred Task: To let it die so we can replace it with something young, vital & built from scratch…”<br /><br />Oooooh… can it be? Could he actually be about to offer … proposals? Suggested better ways that are young and vital…<br /><br />Ooops. False alarm. Zero substance or courage. Just snark snark snark snark snark snark snark snark snark snark … sounds like Mork laughing at such silliness.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-32625374492951906442015-04-04T10:37:09.854-07:002015-04-04T10:37:09.854-07:00When Heinlein griped about people being unwilling ...<br />When Heinlein griped about people being unwilling to work and (purportedly) said that 'some jobs are only worth so much', he was making a subjective value judgment that was as correct and true as any of Brin's moral statements, the problem being that these sorts of value-judgments need not be (are not) universal.<br /><br />Could it be then that Civilisation and all things blue, progressive & sacrosanct are 'only worth so much' ??<br /><br />And, so it is with cheating, fairness, liberty and justice. Some value it highly and are willing to die & kill for it; some barter it away in pieces & bits for '3 hots & a cot'; and still others (appeasers; optimists) are quick to trade it for a promise, a prayer or a lie.<br /><br />As for me, I say let it die. Like the vomit of a greedy dog, this cobbled mess is composed of false compromise, rotten dreams, stale desire, bits of string and well-chewed lies, and it has both over-stayed its welcome and over-lived its usefulness. <br /><br />This is our Sacred Task: To let it die so we can replace it with something young, vital & built from scratch, keeping only the very best of the old while discarding the rest; to let the old dreams go so the future may flourish; and, for the present to embrace the US Declaration as its Advanced Directive.<br /><br /><br />Let it go, let it go<br />Can't hold it back anymore<br />Let it go, let it go<br />Turn away and slam the door!<br /><br />(And so on & so forth)<br /><br /><br />Bestlocumranchnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-11093314178778738352015-04-04T10:11:33.812-07:002015-04-04T10:11:33.812-07:00As regards cheating.
As game theorist Robert Axel...As regards cheating.<br /><br />As game theorist Robert Axelrod has shown. if cheating isn't controlled, then it spreads. We know that graft in some countries has become endemic, because cheating wasn't controlled. Some institutions in the US have gone the same way, e.g. some local police department graft.<br /><br />However, the rules and conditions also need to be set. Increasing incentives to cheat, e.g. unrestrained remuneration, lower taxes, lack of punishment, also need to be set. We've just seen a number Atlanta teachers being jailed for cheating, yet not a single banker has been tried, let alone jailed, for the proven cheating and lying over the instruments leading to the 2008 financial collapse. Banks are still cheating yet never receive more than fines. Why should bankers worry when they profit if their cheating works, but the shareholders lose if they get caught?<br /><br />While the presses and other large media companies are biased (mostly to the establishment), the rise of blogging has helped to mitigate that, as well as easy access to foreign media as counterbalance. This may not add up to much against Faux News, but it is a start, and will gain influence over the next generations as long as the internet remains free.<br /><br /> Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-22999953230569845222015-04-04T10:00:05.742-07:002015-04-04T10:00:05.742-07:00@Duncan re:"The Unions were out of control&qu...@Duncan re:<i>"The Unions were out of control"<br /></i><br /><br />I haven't forgotten the 1970's. Some unions, however reasonable their complaints, effectively shut down the country in 1973 and caused the collapse of the Conservative Heath government. The Republicans have threatened to do this in the US over fiscal issues, but the UK unions actually did it. The 3 day week due to the miner's strike over pay was egregious. However much we (when I was a student) sympathized with their grievances, the fact was that Australian coal was vastly cheaper than British coal. As the joke went" Australian coal individually wrapped in gold leaf would be cheaper. It was that action that Thatcher's government so brutally put down on an attempted repeat. North Sea oil effectively ended the power of coal miners.<br /><br />After the Heath government collapse, the Labor govt proved that they could not run the country, the unions collectively under the TUC, were doing so. People were sick and tired of the unions disrupting the country, and this ushered in the authoritarian Thatcher govt.<br /><br />A few years ago I was going through issues of the Daily Express (for our US readers, this is a conservative broadsheet newspaper aimed at the middle classes in England). What was so clear was that almost every front page was a headline about a strike or threatened strike. Now we know that inflation was raging, and that public sector workers like teachers and nur4ses were grossly underpaid, but the main disruption was from mining and transport workers, who could disrupt the country and did so in an organized manner. <br /><br />Meanwhile the rest of us, not in unions, were not only losing out to inflation, but having our lives disrupted too. Successful bargaining by unions only helped union workers, not the rest of the country.<br /><br />In the UK at least, businesses became very anti-union when Thatcher came to power, and I recall quite well how management intended to ensure non-union workplaces. Some of it was concessionary, some not so much.<br /><br />I do agree with you over the Falklands. Without that "war", Thatcher would have been out, but the press supported jingoistic warmongering. I have been sorely annoyed that the public release of information has been delayed. That war was almost certainly started deliberately, and the controversial sinking of the Argentine troop ship, "Belgrano" needs to be publicly exposed. I suspect it will turn out to be Britain's "Tonkin Incident".<br /><br />So bottom line, I think the unions were out of control in the 1970's, because I think they were vying for control of the country by dictating policy to the government. I find that no less obnoxious than bankers doing the same today.<br /><br />Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-83067771192557858982015-04-04T08:08:24.106-07:002015-04-04T08:08:24.106-07:00Larry, Alfred, Alex & Duncan,
This conversati...Larry, Alfred, Alex & Duncan,<br /><br />This conversation is making me think back to a time when the two political parties in the US essentially agreed on most thing, but disagreed on the extent to which each item on the agenda should be pursued. Republicans conceded to a certain level of social safety net but saw the government's role in defense as paramount, while Democrats placed much more emphasis on the social safety net but conceded the necessity of paying for a formidable military.<br /><br />Larry pointed out that he and Alfred were more in agreement than disagreement, and it looks to me like the same is true of Alex and Duncan. Likewise myself - I distrust all sources of power, and think it is vital that we stomp on the cheaters. I also agree that power has shifted dramatically in favor of enormous businesses, and that much of the government institutions are in cahoots with them. And yes, the press is comprised of big businesses for which telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is not in their financial interest. Thus we are all on the clueless side with regard to what is really happening in the world.<br /><br />But looking at this long term (I was trained to think about the long term - its kind of the nature of archaeology) what we are seeing with this lobotomized Left/Right axis since the Reagan era is an intensification of propaganda, which seems to be accompanying an intensification of the economy, growing wealth disparity, increased factionalism, etc. The whole social system seems to be intensifying, and both history and prehistory have shown that this level of intensification tends to precipitate civilizational collapse.<br /><br />Now I am not saying this is inevitable. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (thus I think watchdogs may be better than waiting for cheaters to do damage, stomp them for it, and still have to fix the damage they did). Civilizations can rejuvenate themselves, but they can't do it by doing the same things they have always done but harder. We are going to have to get more creative than that (with or without adjectives).Paul Shen-Brownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85371664229837030682015-04-04T04:40:36.667-07:002015-04-04T04:40:36.667-07:00I recall Heinlein getting his drawers in a knot ov...I recall Heinlein getting his drawers in a knot over wages. He'd tried to hire someone for some yard work, and couldn't find anyone. He griped about people unwilling to work, and made a most interesting comment: that some jobs are only worth so much.<br />At that point I thought he'd missed the point of his own experience: that he hadn't offered enough on the free market. And that his idea that some jobs are only worth so much was his view, not a universality. So he was being a cheapskate and blaming others for it.Jumperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11794110173836133321noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18429677321302876742015-04-04T01:39:19.179-07:002015-04-04T01:39:19.179-07:00Hi Alfred
"Used their money"
This is th...Hi Alfred<br />"Used their money"<br /><br />This is the issue - exactly what Adam Smith warned about<br /><br />They were buying an advantage in the market,<br />They already had a huge advantage in the negotiations that the unions only partially balanced <br />Then they bought the regulation<br /><br />I'm sorry that is cheating - simple anti competitive cheating<br /><br />I agree there is a potential for all power centers (including unions) to cheat<br />But at the moment the main cheaters are the aristocrats of capital<br /><br />At some future time I could rail against the bureaucrats or the unions<br />But at the moment they ARE NOT the ones doing the cheating<br /><br /><br />Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20177942477526218822015-04-03T22:20:27.584-07:002015-04-03T22:20:27.584-07:00@Duncan: My father's side of the family left S...@Duncan: My father's side of the family left Scotland for the US in 1928. My mother left London in 1961. Her opinion of Thatcher sounds a bit like yours, so I won't doubt your perspective.<br /><br />That doesn't mean I'll stomp people who used their money to fight trade unions. You'd have to convince me that they actually cheated. From what I've seen, the unions established themselves as competitors in the labor market. Getting beaten means they couldn't compete and/or someone twisted the rules of that market to make them non-competitive. The former is allowed. The latter is cheating.<br /><br />I'm still unwilling to focus on the asymmetry symptom as the technique for dealing with the underlying disease. Reliance upon government for equalizing an asymmetry is dangerous. Civil servants can be suborned much the same way as trade union leadership. I'm much more willing to empower government to address the cheating, but not in a way where I abdicate my duty to detect and stomp too. Anyone with power can choose to cheat. That's why I like David's reciprocal accountability argument so much.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-76034428125782901082015-04-03T21:15:17.999-07:002015-04-03T21:15:17.999-07:00I'm going to talk about this idea that "T...I'm going to talk about this idea that "The Unions were out of control"<br /><br />I was brought up in a working class family in Scotland<br /><br />Despite that as a teenager growing up I "knew" that the Unions had too much power and were "out of control"<br />At university (Glasgow) we all knew that the unions had too much power and abused that power to disrupt industry for no good reason<br /><br />Then I was out in industry as an engineer<br />And I found out what was actually happening<br /><br />A union went on strike for some trivial reason<br />The "trivial reason" in the newspaper was always just one of a series of reasons - some very non trivial<br />But those reasons didn't get into the papers!<br /><br />The unions were nearly powerless to actually defend their members especially against the press<br /><br />But the "Unions are out of control" was enough to get Mad Maggie into power<br />And skillful mishandling of the Argentinians was enough to keep her there <br /><br />Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24148758108214758322015-04-03T20:42:13.612-07:002015-04-03T20:42:13.612-07:00Hi Alex
I was working in the 70's - for every...Hi Alex<br /><br />I was working in the 70's - for every hour we lost to "Union Power" we lost 100 days to management incompetence<br /><br />The Unions didn't "get out of control"<br />But the media moguls managed to persuade almost everybody that they had<br /><br />Bit like the Nazi's managed to convince most of the German people that their problems were caused by the Jews<br />With about the same level of justification<br /><br />Small business employers do risk a lot - almost as much as employees do<br />They are risking more wealth - but they have more and they are normally only risking part of that<br />Very few small business employers are risking all of their wealth - most have ring fenced their core wealth from the business so at worse they won't lose their house<br /><br /><br /><br />Duncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-72078829723635341782015-04-03T20:19:23.848-07:002015-04-03T20:19:23.848-07:00We used to have a partial equalizer in the Trade U...<i><br />We used to have a partial equalizer in the Trade Unions</i><br /><br />But the unions got seriously out of control in 1970's Britain. The Labour government couldn't wrest back control and it ushered in Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979.<br /><br />Small business employers do risk a lot, especially sole proprietorships. But large corporations - senior managers risk almost nothing, shifting risk and losses to shareholders and employees.Alex Tolleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01556422553154817988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-70082792400770612952015-04-03T18:33:36.252-07:002015-04-03T18:33:36.252-07:00Alfred
"Stomp the Cheaters"
In this mod...Alfred<br />"Stomp the Cheaters"<br /><br />In this modern world we have the workers and the employers<br />There is an instant mismatch in their power in "The Game"<br /><br />The employer is risking very little<br />The employee is risking a lot more<br />- Not as much as in the old days of starvation - but still a lot more -<br /><br />This mismatch leads to inequality<br /><br />We used to have a partial equalizer in the Trade Unions<br /><br />But the rich have used the power of their money to kill the unions<br /><br />That was CHEATING - and needs to be stomped<br />More to the point the rich are continuing to benefit from that cheat <br />And will continue until something else is put into place that does the sameDuncan Cairncrossnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-66029943019208613642015-04-03T18:17:17.565-07:002015-04-03T18:17:17.565-07:00Heh. If that was Ron Paul, I would have to admit t...Heh. If that was Ron Paul, I would have to admit to a lack of surprise. He says what he means often enough to produce a chest full of gems like this. I'd have to agree. Let people use their money that way. Once we find out who they all are, we will know who to lynch... or not vote for. 8)<br /><br />The error lies with charging anyone else to stomp the cheaters. Don't surrender that obligation to our civilization. Ever. Get some dangerous cleats and strap them on your own feet instead of someone else.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-15328956186798582292015-04-03T18:11:28.014-07:002015-04-03T18:11:28.014-07:00Regarding the stark choice... could be. It's h...Regarding the stark choice... could be. It's hard to tell the difference between what we hear is going on through our new, inexpensive communication tools (this here internet whiz bang) and what's actually happening. It takes a while for the economists to dig through the avalanche and then a while longer for them to argue with each other before I feel I have a chance to know something objective.<br /><br />My own experience tells me there are people who go way beyond 40 hours in a week, but they choose to do so. If that's how they want to add value and earn twice as much as I make, I have no qualms stepping aside and letting them do it. Personally, I'd rather see my son grow up.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-43864276949842910332015-04-03T18:09:06.543-07:002015-04-03T18:09:06.543-07:00Alfred Differ:
I think it is worth considering Lo...Alfred Differ:<br /><i><br />I think it is worth considering Locke’s wager and holding out for it a little longer. I should resist the temptation to guide a market. Instead, I should stomp cheaters into the dirt. <br /></i><br /><br />Again, I'm in agreement there.<br /><br />It simply doesn't help when so many of the politicians in power seem to have gone over to the Dark Side--to consider cheating to be part of the way the game is played. A few months back, a prominent Republican politician (I want to say Ron Paul, but I can't prove it now) came out and said that if someone wants to use his money to bribe politicians, he should be free to do so.<br /><br />So the problem is that the ones charged with "stomping the cheaters" have become the cheaters. Who watches the watchmen? (Which, by the way, does not negate anything you said)LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-14940392783853758432015-04-03T18:04:15.558-07:002015-04-03T18:04:15.558-07:00@Alfred Differ
In theory, I think I'm more in...@Alfred Differ<br /><br />In theory, I think I'm more in agreement with you than in disagreement. Of course, that also brings up a favorite Yogi Berra line: In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there <b>is</b>.<br /><br />The "either all or nothing" thing is something I'm concerned about not falling into, not something I'm asserting as the way things are yet. Still, in America, anyway, it does seem more and more that there is a stark choice between working 80+ hours a week and smiling about it (Be grateful you have a job at all) or else being unemployed, with little room in between.<br />LarryHartnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59405618677585672162015-04-03T17:26:21.903-07:002015-04-03T17:26:21.903-07:00@LarryHart: Hmm. I smell a false dichotomy. I look...@LarryHart: Hmm. I smell a false dichotomy. I look around me and think most people have not grabbed too much of failed to grab anything at all. In fact, I think I smell the perception of a zero-sum game.<br /><br />Wealth has a way of being inflationary in the sense that space and time were in the early universe. My distant ancestors would have placed no value on the computer I have at home leaving anyone who thought they could make such a device poor. At some time over the elapsed years, though, a phase change occurred and they became valuable making tycoons of the people who saw it coming. No one forced anyone when trades were absent or when they occurred. There is something almost hyperbolic to the region of trade options near such a phase change. It’s too bad people use the term ‘singularity’ for what they think is coming. Phase change makes more sense to me and we’ve already been through at least two.<br /><br />The problem with individuals deciding what is fair and equitable is it leaves little room for what the community already knows about the space of possibilities. As David pointed out in his Singularities and Nightmares essay, I think it is worth considering Locke’s wager and holding out for it a little longer. I should resist the temptation to guide a market. Instead, I should stomp cheaters into the dirt. Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-36296340275177008632015-04-03T16:13:25.999-07:002015-04-03T16:13:25.999-07:00Hm. Well. Hm. Well. David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-24510188153890164532015-04-03T15:53:33.831-07:002015-04-03T15:53:33.831-07:00David,
"Anyone who thinks that France has gon...David,<br /><i>"Anyone who thinks that France has gone "right wing" should see this:"</i><br /><br />After berating Laurent for being stuck behind the limited one-dimensional Left-Right Axis, you can't seem to see around it when you look at France (or Europe in general).<br /><br />There's nothing inconsistent with "right-wing" and "top-down authoritarian moralising". Especially in Europe.Paul451https://www.blogger.com/profile/12119086761190994938noreply@blogger.com