I made a mistake in definition and almost went live with my ignorance. Libertarianism is most certaintly not Fascism, because at its core it abhores the Corporate State, but in its variants of Individualism and Free Market Utopianism it is basically in error. The Health Care debate going on in the U.S. reveals that one variant of the Libertarian view of anarchy to the state will not suffice and that it represents poliitical selfishness, but it is most certiantly not Fascism.
The core of this issue really is: "How are we all interconnected and responsible for one another?" The individualists with their tinge of Social Darwinism would insist that responsibility for our fellows in the sense that we should help the less fortunate among us to get help mitigating illness is minimal. I say, "To your peril!" just as I say that to cause injustice to any minority with the excuse that competitive advantage is always OK often does find recourse and may will erupt into urban terrorism, some would say it already has. The rule of law or even the power of arms is ultimately not sufficient against the redress against injustice.
At the core of this is elitism, of those that have, and those who think they are better than some others. Those who rail against entitlement, ought to know, they have entitlements they think they earned, but were granted to them because they passed certain cultural tests, were judged to be more able and deserving, than others. This Knot of who is not deserving by who deserved is untied, as it has for a long time, but acknowledging the rights all people, and quite a few animals, as well, have. To whit we arrive at the oft quoted: "Health Care is not a Right, it is a privilege." to which I answer, "Who Decides? Your Banker, Your Broker, Your Loan Officer, Your Insurance Underwriter?" The Market hasn't figured this out, and in any case judging by the performance of investments over the past year, and the message of the Edward Jones investment ad now airing, markets, their investors, and the businesses they fund, especially Insurance companies, are not too smart or able to solve problems.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The "Salem Hyposthsis"
This got started from a generalization I made about creationists who claimed to have technical expertise to debate about evolution. It turned out many of the were in fact engineers and that many engineers are not trained to think scientifically, suspend judgement, hold beliefs with moderate humility. This is not to say that scientists don't get arrogant, they do, but because of the narrowness of the average engineer's training, they are susceptable to mistaken beliefs, crack-pot ideas, and are somewhat more influiencial with them because of the status of their careers and a fix-it mentality. It leads some of them to go off half-cocked.
My concern with this is that my name appears in many Internet pieces, so I want to know how my fame proceeds me, and secondly.
I encounter the workings of the idea here in Silicon Valley in the odd and bizzare politics of some otherwise intelligent people who are usually engineers. What I have seen in many cases are fixations on solutions or ideals that don't have much real world applicability. And yet their proponents are sure that they do. One guy I knew was sure that pure domocracy is all that is needed. He didn't know about nullification or opinion-making, The ideal he had in his head was that everyone else was as rational and conscious as he saw himself; he carried a far too simplistic version of how real people are. Reality seems to be far too messy for this guy. Idealistic thinking seems to be a hallmark of this flaw in cognition. Having arrived at a simple solution doesn't necessary make it the right one, in fact it may be dead wrong. The need to remove the anxiety to deal with a problem seems to exceed the restraint it takes to wait and get the best answer or answers. It may be that need for security coupled with a distrust of the imagery that many other types of people use in their persona that drives the urge to fix it quick. This causes one to miss the complexity in the real world. in the political world.
One might pause at the question of how well an investor of technology anticipates the social impact of his idea, or of its engineerred application. More often than not this prognostication misses the eventual impact by a large degree. For example the impact of the Internet and computers may be greatest in giving strategists and investors a much tighter control over capital, in shortening the time to ROI. It may have led directly to the current financial crisis as the sheer volume and rapidity of decisions made is too hard to check. The psychology of markets is much more important under this acclerated trading environment than the basis on which they are made.
My concern with this is that my name appears in many Internet pieces, so I want to know how my fame proceeds me, and secondly.
I encounter the workings of the idea here in Silicon Valley in the odd and bizzare politics of some otherwise intelligent people who are usually engineers. What I have seen in many cases are fixations on solutions or ideals that don't have much real world applicability. And yet their proponents are sure that they do. One guy I knew was sure that pure domocracy is all that is needed. He didn't know about nullification or opinion-making, The ideal he had in his head was that everyone else was as rational and conscious as he saw himself; he carried a far too simplistic version of how real people are. Reality seems to be far too messy for this guy. Idealistic thinking seems to be a hallmark of this flaw in cognition. Having arrived at a simple solution doesn't necessary make it the right one, in fact it may be dead wrong. The need to remove the anxiety to deal with a problem seems to exceed the restraint it takes to wait and get the best answer or answers. It may be that need for security coupled with a distrust of the imagery that many other types of people use in their persona that drives the urge to fix it quick. This causes one to miss the complexity in the real world. in the political world.
One might pause at the question of how well an investor of technology anticipates the social impact of his idea, or of its engineerred application. More often than not this prognostication misses the eventual impact by a large degree. For example the impact of the Internet and computers may be greatest in giving strategists and investors a much tighter control over capital, in shortening the time to ROI. It may have led directly to the current financial crisis as the sheer volume and rapidity of decisions made is too hard to check. The psychology of markets is much more important under this acclerated trading environment than the basis on which they are made.
Monday, July 20, 2009
On Optimism
After writing many rants here, the question of optimism arises. I can be an skeptical trouble-shooter who is critical of what others do. It is obvious that I have been harsh on government and business, and my comments say that I have been disappointed many times by what others do. I see a lack of excellence and pride in what people are paid to do. They seem to have little moral stake in what they do. So the question is am I optimistic about the human condition, about my future, about the future of my children and people I know?
The answer is equivocal. On the one hand I see no ordained reason for the human race to survive. Like most of the species that have ever existed, there is no mandate that humans should survive the earth. More than likely our planet will go on for billions of years even after we are gone.
On the other hand, I am surprised by the resilliancy of individuals; we have a great deal of flexibility, and more than we think. I had a period in 2007 when I was almost homeless, in that it was during this episode that I found out how government really doesn't work. Now business doesn't work either, and actually has less fortitude to solve difficult problems. It isn't a question that one if better than the other, but that both are plagued by people who don't perform tasks they are nominally charged with and are not accountable. In fact the decadence of a civilization may be measured by the amount of unaccountability. But I had survived this stress and made my own recovery with precious little help from either government or business.
But, no matter, one can scream that the sky is falling as institutions and contacts fail, and one can be bitter about it. I don't have that attitude. I think that every condition gets its due, and that suffering is indicative only of inflexibility. The news is full of what amounts to free advertising for those interests hurt by change, by the fiscal collapse of government. I had written about how services I could use get taken away right at the time when they are most useful because government funding is now tightly linked to the business cycle as Conservatives wanted. So, no matter. If government or some bank or the Stock Market are such good things, let's see what happens when they go away and lets see if their detractors like what results.
I am optimistic, not that the status quo will return. I don't think that at all and that is a good thing, but because people will discover that change provides new opportunities. As the past is my guide we smile at the crises of some prior economic glitch, such as running out of wood and going to coal. I am certain that if we get to do fusion to make energy, our dependence on foreign oil and perhaps the global warming problem will seen temporary. At the same time I would say that like the dinosaurs we could easily be on the chopping block put there by the lack of wisdom of out leaders. The universe really doesn't care and there is nothing I can do about that, so why get upset about it?
I think that to believe in conspiracy theories is an act of huberis. Even if the believer claims to have no personal power, he or she lusts for it and gives to others mow power than they really have. I could construct a conspiracy in the world financial order to drain away the wealth of the U.S. to reinvest in Asia, even with pennies on the dollar. I could say that is why banks engage in risky investments, still even after TARP, and that their plan was to use mortgage and credit card debt to get at equity to reinvest in China. I could even say that George H. W. Bush's use of "New World Order" was a code for this conspiracy. But I resist this idea. It gives people too much intelligence and foresight, something I think they lack. Even if the trend is true, that wealth will drain away from the U.S. and go to Asia and elsewhere, principally Europe, simple greed is enough to explain it. It doesn't really matter that is might be a trend and that the U.S. will become less powerful. That might be a blessing in disguise, and in any case if all the world's investors think that China or India are a good bet the could be just as wrong as the group of people who just got wiped out in last year's crisis. It is just as likely that China will be the most vulnerable economy in the world to the effect of global warming and become a very bad bet in as soon as 20-30 years. So even though its billions of consumers represent a huge market, it may have already passed the limit of sustainability.
The answer is equivocal. On the one hand I see no ordained reason for the human race to survive. Like most of the species that have ever existed, there is no mandate that humans should survive the earth. More than likely our planet will go on for billions of years even after we are gone.
On the other hand, I am surprised by the resilliancy of individuals; we have a great deal of flexibility, and more than we think. I had a period in 2007 when I was almost homeless, in that it was during this episode that I found out how government really doesn't work. Now business doesn't work either, and actually has less fortitude to solve difficult problems. It isn't a question that one if better than the other, but that both are plagued by people who don't perform tasks they are nominally charged with and are not accountable. In fact the decadence of a civilization may be measured by the amount of unaccountability. But I had survived this stress and made my own recovery with precious little help from either government or business.
But, no matter, one can scream that the sky is falling as institutions and contacts fail, and one can be bitter about it. I don't have that attitude. I think that every condition gets its due, and that suffering is indicative only of inflexibility. The news is full of what amounts to free advertising for those interests hurt by change, by the fiscal collapse of government. I had written about how services I could use get taken away right at the time when they are most useful because government funding is now tightly linked to the business cycle as Conservatives wanted. So, no matter. If government or some bank or the Stock Market are such good things, let's see what happens when they go away and lets see if their detractors like what results.
I am optimistic, not that the status quo will return. I don't think that at all and that is a good thing, but because people will discover that change provides new opportunities. As the past is my guide we smile at the crises of some prior economic glitch, such as running out of wood and going to coal. I am certain that if we get to do fusion to make energy, our dependence on foreign oil and perhaps the global warming problem will seen temporary. At the same time I would say that like the dinosaurs we could easily be on the chopping block put there by the lack of wisdom of out leaders. The universe really doesn't care and there is nothing I can do about that, so why get upset about it?
I think that to believe in conspiracy theories is an act of huberis. Even if the believer claims to have no personal power, he or she lusts for it and gives to others mow power than they really have. I could construct a conspiracy in the world financial order to drain away the wealth of the U.S. to reinvest in Asia, even with pennies on the dollar. I could say that is why banks engage in risky investments, still even after TARP, and that their plan was to use mortgage and credit card debt to get at equity to reinvest in China. I could even say that George H. W. Bush's use of "New World Order" was a code for this conspiracy. But I resist this idea. It gives people too much intelligence and foresight, something I think they lack. Even if the trend is true, that wealth will drain away from the U.S. and go to Asia and elsewhere, principally Europe, simple greed is enough to explain it. It doesn't really matter that is might be a trend and that the U.S. will become less powerful. That might be a blessing in disguise, and in any case if all the world's investors think that China or India are a good bet the could be just as wrong as the group of people who just got wiped out in last year's crisis. It is just as likely that China will be the most vulnerable economy in the world to the effect of global warming and become a very bad bet in as soon as 20-30 years. So even though its billions of consumers represent a huge market, it may have already passed the limit of sustainability.
The Moon on Jul 20, 1969, 1st Man on the Moon.
As I recalled it on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the moon was a waxing crescent, about half way between new and first quarter. I remember going outside and looking at it and thinking that people are there for the first time. I was a senior in college at what is today California State University, East Bay. The following year I started grad school in geology at Stanford.
Today I checked my recollection with a planetarium program, Celestia, and confirmed it. The Moon was in Virgo, below the Ecliptic; so the descending node was precessed to somewhere around Cancer. I don't know when there was a solar eclipse in 1969, but it might have been in June or July of that year.
I speculate that NASA chose the phase at Mare Tranquillitatis, with heating of the space suits or the LEM in mind. The sun had just risen at that phase angel, and so the lunar surface has not warmed too much.
Today I checked my recollection with a planetarium program, Celestia, and confirmed it. The Moon was in Virgo, below the Ecliptic; so the descending node was precessed to somewhere around Cancer. I don't know when there was a solar eclipse in 1969, but it might have been in June or July of that year.
I speculate that NASA chose the phase at Mare Tranquillitatis, with heating of the space suits or the LEM in mind. The sun had just risen at that phase angel, and so the lunar surface has not warmed too much.
Excite restored my e-mail
Excite gave me back my e-mail. It took them a while, but they did give me my e-mail back. This begs the question of who owns your e-mail. None of the web-based mail services offer you the option of sending you an archive, that is, allowing you to create something like a zip file, of your messages when you want to, like when you delete the messages.
I still have to deal with the fact that the web interface is still very limited. Not only do you have to put up with advertizing, but you can't resize the messages window; you can change the part that is devoted to the individual message as opposed to the section for the message list.
I still have to deal with the fact that the web interface is still very limited. Not only do you have to put up with advertizing, but you can't resize the messages window; you can change the part that is devoted to the individual message as opposed to the section for the message list.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
excite.com is crap
I had an e-mail account on excite.com for almost a decade which they closed because I hadn't used it for 90 days. Like register.com, who I am going to cancel my domain and e-mail with, they destroyed all the e-mail I had on their site. They don't seem inclined to make it easy to get the account back as it was. I could open a new account and start from scratch, but I am not going to. In fact I am disgusted enough that I will avoid the site. They will not get my business.
The reason I let their mail set is that I found their latest web-based interface sufficiently hard to use that I ignored it. Now maybe that is their plan all along to get rid of certian customers, but if they wanted to know why their business is going in the toilet; prehaps they are really on the verge of folding, maybe my difficulties using their interface is part of the problem. So they
cut me off. Fuck them.
It really annoys me that the interest style to doing business is to make it hard to give feedback and ask direct questions. If you send e-mail to a support mailbox you get automated replies back or get pointed at a FAQ. I'd love there to be a forum somewhere where these activities can be discussed and eventually it has some effect on decisions made by these ISPs.
When register.com gave a crummy "free" web page for euphon.org, I used that page to flame them and I don't care if no one but them ever sees it, because if some marketing person who works for that rip-off organzation, which is in New York, naturally, sees that I hate them, he may think twice about their business.
As far as I am concerned this is continuing evidence that business people are for the most part stupid, and now that I am retired, I am happy to be free of having to deal as an employee with the idiots I've encountered in my career and using services provided by like idiots.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Why Public Services go away in a Recession
From services provided at the taxpayers' expense such as bus service, other public transit, and other things are either going away or getting more expensive, bridge fare, college tuition right at the time when a recession is hurting those who need those services the most. Why? The main reason is I think that these functions are accounted as cost centers and the people who run them think like business people.
Of course that means that they are forced to make cuts, but protect that core of their organization even if it means that most of their client base can no longer afford to use them.
I think that experience managing a business is a disqualification for public service, that no one who is used to thinking like a business person is suitable for serve that citizens. When a candidate for even the smallest public job puts entrepaneur or business on their resume, I begin to look at the other candidates.
Conversely, private business cannot fill the gaps created if government programs were to go away. People would be left to starve, or be denied things they need.
Government does certain large-scale jobs better than private enterprise. When the payback is long-term or very risky, or the scale large, government does better. Where efficient results and immediate return are desired private business does generally better, although the risk is not necessarily less and the efficiency is not necessarily better. The sources of ineffectiveness are just different. To make government run like business and to have to follow the forces of the cycle in private business is why government services are collapsing just as they are needed most. We have the naive populism of Libertarains and Republicans to thank for cut and run in the business community and the the government just when we need them.
I do not believe that much reduced government is better, and that "freedom" consists of full exposure and responsibility to market forces. In fact markets are not free or rational, ever, and that the dream of Libertarians in particular is naive.
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