Democracy is rather famously the worst form of government except for all of the others, and it's certainly a shibboleth these days that it is the best, full-stop. As is my wont I am here to Devil's Advocate that assumption, and current events are certainly pointing out the instabilities inherent in the concept of free-for-all democracy.
Most recently and closest to home, students in Quebec are protesting (more or less violently) the decision to raise their tuition rates. This is no "Arab Spring" but the idea is similar; they don't like what's happening and they vote against it with sit-ins, and some arson and smashing of things. Leaving out the details of that protest (except to say I have no sympathy since everyone else in the country already pays far more than they do), this is an ancient problem getting a modern treatment.
First, the ground rules in a standard liberal democracy: they are Representative Democracies. This means we have a system used to elect representatives for our local interests, and it's an understatement to say that this has limitations. Regardless, it's the system we have, and it's a "model" of democracy which works adequately as long as people work within it. "Model" in this case means something which represents the actual thing, and of course anything which isn't the thing itself can't display all characteristics of it. Details are lost, values are approximated.
A REAL democracy would have everyone voting individually for everything. Of course technology brings this closer all the time, but ask yourself if you'd really like to see that. It is pretty obvious that you can (in fairly homogeneous societies) put peoples' political leanings on a curve with distinct Left and Right tails. Each of these tails overlaps into the Centre, and it is my belief (not tested) that the Right is bigger than the Left.
So what? The polarization of the electorate in Canada and the USA is very evident in voting patterns indicating a "core" of people who feel certain ways about certain things. This is of course a model, not the real thing, but it's serviceable. Of the two tails the Right is bigger, as this encompasses the conservative/leave me alone strains of the population. We'll say this is 35% of the population. The other end, the entitlement/nanny state I'll put at a hard 20%. In between there are a lot of people who don't feel terribly strongly about very much, and that 45% or so will either form a default plurality bloc or bleed off in either direction as circumstances warrant.
With the map (a.k.a. model) laid out, back to my point. The above groups display certain basic characteristics, some of them common. Both tails think they know better than everyone else, and the Right and the Centre will overwhelmingly go with "the Devil they know" than smash everything in pursuit of "Revolution".
Enter the sore losers. Election didn't come out the way you wanted? Scream "cheating", "recall" or whatever is likely to get you what you want. Sit-in, smash and burn things, distort peoples' statements, act outraged at everything you don't agree with, lie, and resort to ad hominem attacks on the opposition. It is to be noted (neatly backing up my numbers) that 2/3 of Quebec students are quietly completing their semesters. I think this excerpt says it all:
At McGill University, classes and exams have been largely unaffected by the student unrest. Only four departments -- Gender, Sexuality and Women's studies; Graduate Art History; Social Work; and French Literature -- are on strike. (emphasis mine).
This is not to say that any one group has a monopoly on dirty tricks. Much mud is slung in all directions, but the TEA Party vs "Occupy" comparison is educational as it directly compares both ends of the political curve. TEA Party groups came out for the day, then went home sans rampage. Occupy groups squatted somewhere and formed impromptu communes and mini-Woodstocks. In Oakland Ca there were labour and trade disruptions as well as the usual vandalism and not-always-civil disobedience.
The latter are not the people who keep the lights on in our civilization, the former are. The evil baby-raping Right Wingers protest within the law of the land and go home, voting their preferences and conscience at all opportunities. The "you're too stupid to know what's good for you" Left cries "foul" and tries to physically change the terms of the discussion.
There are a lot of different brands of ideas and the farther you go in either direction the less common ground they have. With this in mind, the dangers of unbridled democracy should become evident. Here is the reductio ad absurdum of "Democracy is always good":
Last year, the White House began peddling the line that the uprisings in the Middle East were a repudiation of the al Qaeda model of seeking change through terrorism. The argument was that while America opposed violent extremism, the rise of nonviolent radical movements was just fine, and even commendable. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri quickly dismissed this claim, saying that from the terrorists’ point of view, it didn’t matter whether an Islamist victory came through violence or not. The means were unimportant except as they related to the end state: the imposition of hard-line Shariah-based laws and policies. (emphasis mine again)
Of course we've been down this road many times, recently and obviously with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The thing that people seem to forget is that any political system is a tool, a means to an end. If the end is the means, anything done within the means is legitimate.
When you think "Democracy" do you think "one man, one vote, once"? Theocracy? Democracy can be used to achieve these end-states as easily (more easily, really) than it can produce a stable liberal democratic system. Hitler was legally elected too...
Life is a struggle (ultimately futile) against Entropy, and anything we do in life requires maintenance. If you want to live in a society which allows free speech and freedom of association, that cannot be maintained by burning everything down each time you have a grievance. I started this post yesterday (30 April) but as I wrap it up today it is May Day and further Anarchist/nihilist stupidity can be expected over the Western world. As the Gender Studies students and loutish vandals co-mingle at various "protests" the former will not recognize themselves as the vectors of the latter "Black Bloc" assholes.
Coming back to the freedoms (speech and association) I mentioned earlier, there can be no absolute freedom in anything. Although poorly understood, the Universe has rules which are necessary to keep things turning and every other sub-system needs some definable structure too. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if you squeeze the trigger on your "revolucion" don't be surprised when your Robespierre pops up, Reign of Terror and all.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Friday, 20 April 2012
Libertarianism in the U.K.
This guy was WAY more into "the scene" than I was, but I can find a lot of common ground with him on the punk-conservative idea. "Libertarian" is about as close as I can get to a political label for myself, although my attachment to Good Government goes back as far as I've had an opinion, so the Anarchy thing was never happening.
I think the biggest thing that would have you transition between Punk and conservatism is the fact that you can think for yourself. There were a fair number of slumming dilettantes hanging around the gigs 25 years ago, but the people like me who were living on their own and too poor to buy new jeans when their old ones ripped survived on our own ingenuity. Except those who were on Welfare who were never likely to amount to anything. Some others of this group have gone on to be hateful leftist PC types, but not that many.
The biggest thing I got out of being a "punk" (as labelled by others, not initially self-identified) was the idea that it was a group where I could be myself. There were of course always the "harder-core than thou" types who were their own sort of conformists, but I was quite capable of ignoring them.
A group identifies by certain conventions they follow, and my favourite one of the list McInnes gave was #6 about slam dancing. Slam dancing was fun, because you could actually move, with a (usually) gratifying amount of physicality to make it more interesting. Moshing is an abomination and I personally blame Nirvana for ruining everything. Picking people back up was a key part of slamming, and this made it a social activity instead of a blood sport.
I said I blame Nirvana, so I shall substantiate. It was the fall of 1991 and I was a young guy living in a dank basement apartment downtown with a couple of friends. There were a small number of clubs which were "alternative" at least in the middle of the week when the hard-drinking party crowd was in abeyance. These we patronized on the Tues/Wed/Thurs as appropriate and at the time I knew pretty much everyone who showed up at least by sight if not better.
Then "Smells Like Teen Spirit" started getting heavy rotation on Much/MTV and things changed almost overnight. Fratboy jocks started showing up and trying to flatten people on the dance floors. The rest of us had learned the social mores of punk at gigs and followed them in the clubs; these new arrivals had no idea and seemed disinterested in learning better. It was a flavour of the month thing, but it "broke" the alternative scene in my city.
Entropy is the way of the universe so my time for that passed, but it was mildly disturbing to be off the cutting edge at 21. However, it was never about that; I as an accidentally opportunistic Individual liked the music (still listen to it and seek out new stuff) and was not about to conform to something I didn't like just to stay "in".
Doing your own thing and minding your own business are the traits of both Punks and Libertarians. My current career is a blatant sell-out to financial security as I really don't like being told what to do, and LOATHE being told how to do it. This is how I'm fighting Entropy these days, but I hope to make a change to being my own boss. Having children does tend to keep one's inner Anarchist under control, so I'm plotting and planning, but not holding my breath or betting the house on it. There's the "conservative" part.
What else particularly resonates with me? # 8 (The PC Police Have No Power Over You) and #10 (Violence has its Place). The former is part of the hating-to-be-told-how-to-do-things issues I have, and the latter is merely the way of the world. Indeed, both of these precepts are the underpinning of this Blog's existence.
Categorizing people inherently limits them, and nobody that I want to know would fit neatly into any one category. I'm all over the place in how I feel about things, and what I write here is a fair representation of that, but the map is not the territory. Speaking of a map, this post has lost it's way so it's time to tie it off.
I think the biggest thing that would have you transition between Punk and conservatism is the fact that you can think for yourself. There were a fair number of slumming dilettantes hanging around the gigs 25 years ago, but the people like me who were living on their own and too poor to buy new jeans when their old ones ripped survived on our own ingenuity. Except those who were on Welfare who were never likely to amount to anything. Some others of this group have gone on to be hateful leftist PC types, but not that many.
The biggest thing I got out of being a "punk" (as labelled by others, not initially self-identified) was the idea that it was a group where I could be myself. There were of course always the "harder-core than thou" types who were their own sort of conformists, but I was quite capable of ignoring them.
A group identifies by certain conventions they follow, and my favourite one of the list McInnes gave was #6 about slam dancing. Slam dancing was fun, because you could actually move, with a (usually) gratifying amount of physicality to make it more interesting. Moshing is an abomination and I personally blame Nirvana for ruining everything. Picking people back up was a key part of slamming, and this made it a social activity instead of a blood sport.
I said I blame Nirvana, so I shall substantiate. It was the fall of 1991 and I was a young guy living in a dank basement apartment downtown with a couple of friends. There were a small number of clubs which were "alternative" at least in the middle of the week when the hard-drinking party crowd was in abeyance. These we patronized on the Tues/Wed/Thurs as appropriate and at the time I knew pretty much everyone who showed up at least by sight if not better.
Then "Smells Like Teen Spirit" started getting heavy rotation on Much/MTV and things changed almost overnight. Fratboy jocks started showing up and trying to flatten people on the dance floors. The rest of us had learned the social mores of punk at gigs and followed them in the clubs; these new arrivals had no idea and seemed disinterested in learning better. It was a flavour of the month thing, but it "broke" the alternative scene in my city.
Entropy is the way of the universe so my time for that passed, but it was mildly disturbing to be off the cutting edge at 21. However, it was never about that; I as an accidentally opportunistic Individual liked the music (still listen to it and seek out new stuff) and was not about to conform to something I didn't like just to stay "in".
Doing your own thing and minding your own business are the traits of both Punks and Libertarians. My current career is a blatant sell-out to financial security as I really don't like being told what to do, and LOATHE being told how to do it. This is how I'm fighting Entropy these days, but I hope to make a change to being my own boss. Having children does tend to keep one's inner Anarchist under control, so I'm plotting and planning, but not holding my breath or betting the house on it. There's the "conservative" part.
What else particularly resonates with me? # 8 (The PC Police Have No Power Over You) and #10 (Violence has its Place). The former is part of the hating-to-be-told-how-to-do-things issues I have, and the latter is merely the way of the world. Indeed, both of these precepts are the underpinning of this Blog's existence.
Categorizing people inherently limits them, and nobody that I want to know would fit neatly into any one category. I'm all over the place in how I feel about things, and what I write here is a fair representation of that, but the map is not the territory. Speaking of a map, this post has lost it's way so it's time to tie it off.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
God will know His own
Just when you thought things were screwed up enough in South Asia:
(Reuters) - An Islamist leader who had a $10 million American bounty placed on his head this week has been helping Pakistan de-radicalize militants under efforts to stabilize the strategic U.S. ally, a top Pakistani counter-terrorism official said on Friday.
Of course I have no idea how sincere this guy's effort to get heads out of religiously-brainwashed asses is, but taking the statements of the Pakistani government at face value, this situation seems sufficiently absurd to be plausible.
I know that doesn't seem like the best way to make a case for it, but that how things roll in the Global Something On Guys We Don't Like For Some Reason Or Another (GSOGWDLFSROA). I will forgive you if you don't see that acronym sticking, but I think it sums up the current state of play pretty well.
A key thing to remember is that even in the best-case that this is legit, "de-radicalizing" to the Pakis is not the same as it would be to the Yanks. To the former it means that some of the would-be jihadis will get jobs or at least stop attacking their own people. To the latter it would mean that they stop targeting Western troops and interests in that part of the world and beyond. It doesn't take a genius to see that "a" does NOT equal "b".
So? Past and current American practice is to shoot first and ask questions later (though ironically not when their own troops need that fire support in combat) so even money has a Hellfire with Hafiz Saeed's name on it despite whatever anyone else says about him. He may have it coming, but it is at least possible that killing him will be counter-productive on the strategic level. Oh well, I can always hope to be pleasantly surprised and that some investigation will be done before they lock on. On va voir.
(Reuters) - An Islamist leader who had a $10 million American bounty placed on his head this week has been helping Pakistan de-radicalize militants under efforts to stabilize the strategic U.S. ally, a top Pakistani counter-terrorism official said on Friday.
Of course I have no idea how sincere this guy's effort to get heads out of religiously-brainwashed asses is, but taking the statements of the Pakistani government at face value, this situation seems sufficiently absurd to be plausible.
I know that doesn't seem like the best way to make a case for it, but that how things roll in the Global Something On Guys We Don't Like For Some Reason Or Another (GSOGWDLFSROA). I will forgive you if you don't see that acronym sticking, but I think it sums up the current state of play pretty well.
A key thing to remember is that even in the best-case that this is legit, "de-radicalizing" to the Pakis is not the same as it would be to the Yanks. To the former it means that some of the would-be jihadis will get jobs or at least stop attacking their own people. To the latter it would mean that they stop targeting Western troops and interests in that part of the world and beyond. It doesn't take a genius to see that "a" does NOT equal "b".
So? Past and current American practice is to shoot first and ask questions later (though ironically not when their own troops need that fire support in combat) so even money has a Hellfire with Hafiz Saeed's name on it despite whatever anyone else says about him. He may have it coming, but it is at least possible that killing him will be counter-productive on the strategic level. Oh well, I can always hope to be pleasantly surprised and that some investigation will be done before they lock on. On va voir.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Declaration of War, the Short Form
For years now (predating this blog even) I have railed against the Americans' lack of sense vis a vis National or Strategic interest. This is manifest from everything they have done in the last 20 years. I say that time period, as during the preceding 40 years you could argue that the questionable regimes they propped up or overthrew were within the overall strategic design of containing Communism. When that collapsed under the weight of it's own inefficiency the Yanks started looking around for causes to replace it.
In fact the rot started before that, at the time slightly disguised as a way to stick it to the Soviets. The lack of consideration for unintended future consequences in shipping hundreds of millions of $ worth of cash and weapons to a barely (if at all) civilized group of raiders in Central Asia was truly breathtaking, but at least it was in the context of containing the Red Menace. Replacing them with the Green one wasn't the plan of course, but...
The article in The Atlantic which I linked to addresses the lack of long-term thinking that goes into the way America (and NATO by extension) fights these days. This is certainly fair, but I think it misses the bigger picture. Instead of planning as if you'll still be there in five years, ask yourself why wherever/whatever it is would be worth, in blood and treasure, getting locked up in it for years on end.
Let's imagine that the Americans broke Afghanistan's government ten years ago, laid a beating on Bin Laden's goons and then let the locals sort each other out. The whole thing as far as we're concerned would be over by spring 2002, mission (actually!) accomplished. Instead, we're here over ten years later staring down the barrel of the whole place doing exactly what I've said we should have let it do in the first place when NATO finally pulls the plug after 12-13 years in 2014 or so.
It's not a tactical problem, it's a strategic one. The trick lies in finding places that we might be able to help, not failed basket case states that will act as nationbuilding tar pits. Afghanistan? Fucked. Kosovo? Shouldn't have gotten involved, it was another "stick-it-to-the-Slavs" exercise which should have died out when Yeltsin came in. Iraq? I think we all know how big a mistake that was by now. Libya? Sure Qaddafi was a dick, but a bit of pragmatism in our foreign policy would have been in order there in view of what has happened. That one at least I am willing to wait out a bit before passing judgement, but my crystal ball has Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (at least) making a comeback...
What you want is a basically sound country with a bad government; that's a simple fix. Note however that "simple" and "easy" are not the same word; if it was easy the people would do it them selves. My example for this is Zimbabwe, albeit fixing it would require some old-school colonial-style administration while you build them a functioning government. South Sudan is another possibility, but the grand prize is Iran.
You may have noted that whenever I mention attacking Iran, it's always the Revolutionary Guard and other bulwarks of the Islamic regime, not the country itself. We can get on just fine if we clear the decks for them to have a more reasonable crew in charge of the place. There would be nary a boot on the ground, save some operators making contact with the opposition, certainly no "ground troops".
This is how I would do things, but I don't set policy for anyone. What I can say is that whatever I did I would assume that my kids would be dealing with it after I'm gone, and pick my battles accordingly.
In fact the rot started before that, at the time slightly disguised as a way to stick it to the Soviets. The lack of consideration for unintended future consequences in shipping hundreds of millions of $ worth of cash and weapons to a barely (if at all) civilized group of raiders in Central Asia was truly breathtaking, but at least it was in the context of containing the Red Menace. Replacing them with the Green one wasn't the plan of course, but...
The article in The Atlantic which I linked to addresses the lack of long-term thinking that goes into the way America (and NATO by extension) fights these days. This is certainly fair, but I think it misses the bigger picture. Instead of planning as if you'll still be there in five years, ask yourself why wherever/whatever it is would be worth, in blood and treasure, getting locked up in it for years on end.
Let's imagine that the Americans broke Afghanistan's government ten years ago, laid a beating on Bin Laden's goons and then let the locals sort each other out. The whole thing as far as we're concerned would be over by spring 2002, mission (actually!) accomplished. Instead, we're here over ten years later staring down the barrel of the whole place doing exactly what I've said we should have let it do in the first place when NATO finally pulls the plug after 12-13 years in 2014 or so.
It's not a tactical problem, it's a strategic one. The trick lies in finding places that we might be able to help, not failed basket case states that will act as nationbuilding tar pits. Afghanistan? Fucked. Kosovo? Shouldn't have gotten involved, it was another "stick-it-to-the-Slavs" exercise which should have died out when Yeltsin came in. Iraq? I think we all know how big a mistake that was by now. Libya? Sure Qaddafi was a dick, but a bit of pragmatism in our foreign policy would have been in order there in view of what has happened. That one at least I am willing to wait out a bit before passing judgement, but my crystal ball has Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (at least) making a comeback...
What you want is a basically sound country with a bad government; that's a simple fix. Note however that "simple" and "easy" are not the same word; if it was easy the people would do it them selves. My example for this is Zimbabwe, albeit fixing it would require some old-school colonial-style administration while you build them a functioning government. South Sudan is another possibility, but the grand prize is Iran.
You may have noted that whenever I mention attacking Iran, it's always the Revolutionary Guard and other bulwarks of the Islamic regime, not the country itself. We can get on just fine if we clear the decks for them to have a more reasonable crew in charge of the place. There would be nary a boot on the ground, save some operators making contact with the opposition, certainly no "ground troops".
This is how I would do things, but I don't set policy for anyone. What I can say is that whatever I did I would assume that my kids would be dealing with it after I'm gone, and pick my battles accordingly.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Post-ish Scarcity, Energy, and learning from Failure
Today I'll do something a bit different for this blog and talk about ideas I have been considering from literature, specifically SF. I've been reading a fair bit of Iain M. Banks of late, and have been thinking about his setting of The Culture and how it relates to what we have now and are likely to get to based on our present trajectory.
First off, The Culture is a Utopia, so instantly suspicious to realists such as myself. It is not made out to be perfect, but in terms of everyday life it's as close as no matter. The phrase "post-scarcity" came up at a party I was at a while ago, albeit in the context of today's world. The Culture takes that concept to its' logical conclusion, with the caveat that the frame of reference has been shifted significantly.
Communism and (to a lesser extent) Anarchy have been tried out and found severely wanting; this is in comparison to a well-run liberal democracy which is merely wanting. The best possible government you can get is an enlightened despot, but they are exceedingly rare. The key constant in all of these systems is people. As long as you have people, you will have human emotions and drives gumming up the works. Banks gets around this by putting seriously powerful AIs in charge of everything, leaving people to do anything they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.
We don't live there and as far as I can see we never will. What we need to deal with though is the people who think this is achievable. One of the things which pushed me toward this was a protest which students were having in Montreal about hikes in their tuition rates, still the lowest in the country. They are emblematic of people who forget that this is not a completely Post-Scarcity world.
Things need to be paid for; there are no magical gnomes or super advanced technology resembling magic which will build your house or grow your food. Obvious, I know, but there are a surprising number of people who don't understand it. We live in the most fortunate age civilization has seen, with all but the very poorest having luxuries (proper heating, electricity, hot running water) which the Kings and Emperors of all previous ages could not have had for any sum.
Perfection? No. As close as we'll get? Doesn't have to be. The key is cheap clean energy and advanced technology, and either one will get you the other, therefore both. I'll start with Energy.
Energy at its' most basic is the ability of something to do work, and I recommend the link as a refresher (if you need one) about how energy and matter relate. As "doing work" is how things get done, energy is obviously the key to everything else. Hell, with enough energy you can re-arrange matter at the atomic level (e.g. making elements in a linear accelerator). I am not a physicist by any means, so I won't get too far into this, except to say that the cost of energy effects the cost of everything else.
I thought that was obvious too, but apparently not. Taking the simplest connection, if the price of petrol goes up it costs you (and everyone and everything else) more to get around. This has the compound effect of reducing your discretionary income and increasing the price of things you would drive out to buy. Result: standard of living goes down, economy contracts. We're living it right now.
Enter the Entitlement Generation. I am working hard to NOT raise my children like that, but the results are all around us and it started at the tail end of (my) Generation X. I am by nature a rather lazy person, but I am also a responsible one. I accept (or at least understand) the kicking that I often take from the Type-A types who rise to the top of my organization. I do the best with what I have, but I know that some other people will be better than me at certain things.
This I consider to be a realistic and healthy (albeit somewhat depressing at times) appraisal of the world and how it works. So, I will work and accept that I will never rise to the top, as they are looking for things I don't have. This is as it should be, but there are a LOT of people (mostly young) who don't get it. You cannot (with rare but notable exceptions) do whatever you want just because you put your mind to it. Trust me, I've tried a lot of things that way and it ain't how things work for most people.
They'd love Banks' "Culture"; so would I but we're nowhere close. We need rules and we need Rule of Law to keep the decision makers in line. While I was in the gym this morning I saw a business school guy talking about the cost of education and making choices. People are talking about free education, but he wasn't having any of it, and with good reason.
Enter "Opportunity Cost": The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action. So, you want someone else to pay your opportunity cost for you (e.g. free tuition)? Proponents of free education call it "an investment in society" but if so it's a bad one. Again, not an economist, but off the top of my head I don't see the extra tax income from graduates offsetting the investment in them in any kind of a hurry. What it amounts to is everyone else paying more taxes so that YOU can get ahead: in other words, an entitlement.
There are all sorts of people in universities who shouldn't be there in the first place, simply on academic achievement and potential. I went to class with a lot of them and often wondered how they got out of high school let alone into university. This isn't your top-end universities, but it is most of them.
Vocational and trades training need to be brought back, and I see that some attempts are being made. I have done a lot of really messy jobs to make ends meet before I sorted myself out career-wise, but too many kids won't clean bathrooms or move garbage because it's "below them". Thank you, Princess culture et al. Which brings us back to...
...where does all of our "stuff" come from? Somebody designs it, somebody designs the tools that make it, somebody builds those tools while other people build the building this all goes in. Others extract the raw materials, process them and ship them to the factory. Notice: nary a super-intelligent AI with unbounded energy resources and manipulation to be seen in the process.
My point? Stuff doesn't make itself, ship itself or (oh horrors!) clean up after itself (or you). I don't like cleaning bathrooms any more than anyone else, but I do it (at home) because it needs to be done. In all of this I blame lazy parents. Teaching kids responsibility and accountability is hard and tiring, a.k.a. Work. Kids learn what they're taught; if expectations are low at home, and low at school, they'll never learn anything useful.
Just like our ancestors broke their backs and their health to clear land and build farms and cities, the current and upcoming generations need to work to make better things in order to make things better. It's a lot less of a slog than it was for our predecessors, but we can't coast now. I don't know about you, but I want my (figurative) flying car. Thorium reactors would be a good start though, so let's work on that.
As Ronald Reagan said: If not us, who? If not now, when?
First off, The Culture is a Utopia, so instantly suspicious to realists such as myself. It is not made out to be perfect, but in terms of everyday life it's as close as no matter. The phrase "post-scarcity" came up at a party I was at a while ago, albeit in the context of today's world. The Culture takes that concept to its' logical conclusion, with the caveat that the frame of reference has been shifted significantly.
Communism and (to a lesser extent) Anarchy have been tried out and found severely wanting; this is in comparison to a well-run liberal democracy which is merely wanting. The best possible government you can get is an enlightened despot, but they are exceedingly rare. The key constant in all of these systems is people. As long as you have people, you will have human emotions and drives gumming up the works. Banks gets around this by putting seriously powerful AIs in charge of everything, leaving people to do anything they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.
We don't live there and as far as I can see we never will. What we need to deal with though is the people who think this is achievable. One of the things which pushed me toward this was a protest which students were having in Montreal about hikes in their tuition rates, still the lowest in the country. They are emblematic of people who forget that this is not a completely Post-Scarcity world.
Things need to be paid for; there are no magical gnomes or super advanced technology resembling magic which will build your house or grow your food. Obvious, I know, but there are a surprising number of people who don't understand it. We live in the most fortunate age civilization has seen, with all but the very poorest having luxuries (proper heating, electricity, hot running water) which the Kings and Emperors of all previous ages could not have had for any sum.
Perfection? No. As close as we'll get? Doesn't have to be. The key is cheap clean energy and advanced technology, and either one will get you the other, therefore both. I'll start with Energy.
Energy at its' most basic is the ability of something to do work, and I recommend the link as a refresher (if you need one) about how energy and matter relate. As "doing work" is how things get done, energy is obviously the key to everything else. Hell, with enough energy you can re-arrange matter at the atomic level (e.g. making elements in a linear accelerator). I am not a physicist by any means, so I won't get too far into this, except to say that the cost of energy effects the cost of everything else.
I thought that was obvious too, but apparently not. Taking the simplest connection, if the price of petrol goes up it costs you (and everyone and everything else) more to get around. This has the compound effect of reducing your discretionary income and increasing the price of things you would drive out to buy. Result: standard of living goes down, economy contracts. We're living it right now.
Enter the Entitlement Generation. I am working hard to NOT raise my children like that, but the results are all around us and it started at the tail end of (my) Generation X. I am by nature a rather lazy person, but I am also a responsible one. I accept (or at least understand) the kicking that I often take from the Type-A types who rise to the top of my organization. I do the best with what I have, but I know that some other people will be better than me at certain things.
This I consider to be a realistic and healthy (albeit somewhat depressing at times) appraisal of the world and how it works. So, I will work and accept that I will never rise to the top, as they are looking for things I don't have. This is as it should be, but there are a LOT of people (mostly young) who don't get it. You cannot (with rare but notable exceptions) do whatever you want just because you put your mind to it. Trust me, I've tried a lot of things that way and it ain't how things work for most people.
They'd love Banks' "Culture"; so would I but we're nowhere close. We need rules and we need Rule of Law to keep the decision makers in line. While I was in the gym this morning I saw a business school guy talking about the cost of education and making choices. People are talking about free education, but he wasn't having any of it, and with good reason.
Enter "Opportunity Cost": The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action. So, you want someone else to pay your opportunity cost for you (e.g. free tuition)? Proponents of free education call it "an investment in society" but if so it's a bad one. Again, not an economist, but off the top of my head I don't see the extra tax income from graduates offsetting the investment in them in any kind of a hurry. What it amounts to is everyone else paying more taxes so that YOU can get ahead: in other words, an entitlement.
There are all sorts of people in universities who shouldn't be there in the first place, simply on academic achievement and potential. I went to class with a lot of them and often wondered how they got out of high school let alone into university. This isn't your top-end universities, but it is most of them.
Vocational and trades training need to be brought back, and I see that some attempts are being made. I have done a lot of really messy jobs to make ends meet before I sorted myself out career-wise, but too many kids won't clean bathrooms or move garbage because it's "below them". Thank you, Princess culture et al. Which brings us back to...
...where does all of our "stuff" come from? Somebody designs it, somebody designs the tools that make it, somebody builds those tools while other people build the building this all goes in. Others extract the raw materials, process them and ship them to the factory. Notice: nary a super-intelligent AI with unbounded energy resources and manipulation to be seen in the process.
My point? Stuff doesn't make itself, ship itself or (oh horrors!) clean up after itself (or you). I don't like cleaning bathrooms any more than anyone else, but I do it (at home) because it needs to be done. In all of this I blame lazy parents. Teaching kids responsibility and accountability is hard and tiring, a.k.a. Work. Kids learn what they're taught; if expectations are low at home, and low at school, they'll never learn anything useful.
Just like our ancestors broke their backs and their health to clear land and build farms and cities, the current and upcoming generations need to work to make better things in order to make things better. It's a lot less of a slog than it was for our predecessors, but we can't coast now. I don't know about you, but I want my (figurative) flying car. Thorium reactors would be a good start though, so let's work on that.
As Ronald Reagan said: If not us, who? If not now, when?
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Paying the bus you throw your allies under
The Obama administration intends to resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.For months, the money for Egypt — more than $1.5 billion, with the bulk earmarked for the military — has been withheld amid that country’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, including several U.S.-based organizations with close ties to political parties in Washington.
A law passed by Congress in December forbids funding unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.
But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is close to announcing plans to bypass those restrictions on national security grounds, according to senior administration officials and others who have been briefed on the deliberations but were not authorized to speak publicly. The administration believes failure to provide the funds would risk worsening already fraying ties with Egypt’s leaders, most notably the Egyptian military, which still controls the country.
At least I'm far from being alone in thinking that this is a bad idea. Warts and all, Mubarak was the Americans' only reason to fund the Egyptian military, as he took Sadat's baton of peace with Israel and carried it for 30 years. Once again the USA has abandoned an immediately politically inconvenient (and admittedly at least partially despotic) ally to forces inimical to America's national interests.
This is the trajectory of last year's "Arab Spring", and the 1979 Iran (Islamic) revolution should provide a model for what is likely to come in most of these countries. The Egyptians won't start another war with Israel (outcome is certain anyway) but they can be miserable and descend into a factional Islamist terrorist-supporting state.
The idea that the US will maintain any useful influence with the Egyptian power structure is wishful thinking at best, putting arms into the hands of people who will use them against you and your interests at worst. Oh well, it's not like they haven't done it before; there is that old saw about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results...
Yes, I've not been up to too much here and at times I feel badly about that. However (and I know I've said this before) it often feels that I've nothing new to say. Anyway, I'm less busy than I have been for the last couple of months so there will likely be more from me here. You have been warned...
Saturday, 25 February 2012
International Burn a Religious Text Day
Once again, books are being burned (for good reason this time) and people are killing other people and themselves over it. I give Islam a lot of stick on this blog, but any Muslims can rest assured that I would be equally scathing with any other group that was so violently touchy and intolerant.
There is a lot of bowing and scraping about the "desecration" of the books, but that is NOT against any law in North America to the best of my knowledge. The Bible pre-dates the Koran by a whole lot and is the basis for Islam (whether they'll admit it any more or not) and I can burn as many of those as I want and nobody makes a peep.
Oh, I'm sure you'll find a few Christian nutjobs who'd like to lynch me over it, but they'd be pooh-poohed as cranks. What do you do when there are hundreds of millions of nutjobs? Apparently you panic and kowtow:
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a U.N. office and killed 12 people. In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration, and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
There is a lot of bowing and scraping about the "desecration" of the books, but that is NOT against any law in North America to the best of my knowledge. The Bible pre-dates the Koran by a whole lot and is the basis for Islam (whether they'll admit it any more or not) and I can burn as many of those as I want and nobody makes a peep.
Oh, I'm sure you'll find a few Christian nutjobs who'd like to lynch me over it, but they'd be pooh-poohed as cranks. What do you do when there are hundreds of millions of nutjobs? Apparently you panic and kowtow:
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a U.N. office and killed 12 people. In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration, and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
American officials vociferously condemned the pastor's act.
"...the strongest manner possible ." Think about that language. This equates burning a mass-produced book to the raping and killing children or other such universally abhorrent acts. I'm sure Director (then General) Petraeus would contest my equivalence here but there is no getting around what he said and what it means. And for Obama to call for "a fair and public trial", I'd like to know what law these American service people broke, even under military law that would call for a trial; they were burning the trash, and the books were in it for good reason.
So, to sum up:
- Burn a Koran, be threatened with arbitrary arrest and/or death at the hands of incensed Muslims the world over, or;
- Riot, burn and kill people about something which has nothing to do with you and you are "proud and noble".
If you want to live under a system where you're executed for this sort of thing, move to, well, any self-identified "Muslim" country. Under the law of MY land, I can have a big Koran/Bible/Torah/Bhagavad Gita/Kangyur BBQ in my backyard (local fire ordinances permitting) and there is nothing illegal about it. Of course, making a ranting Youtube video about it could land me in front of the Human Rights Tribunal, but that becomes a "hate speech" issue and don't get me going on that in a discussion of freedom of expression.
I feel badly for all of the decent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and anywhere else who are condemned to live with the REAL intolerance and bigotry which kills you if you step out of line. Let's haul in front of a Human Rights Tribunal all of the people who would kill me (or them) for saying what a lot of people think about bullshit religions instead of terrorising people into being Sharia compliant dhimmis. If you don't know what those last two terms mean, do yourself a favour and research them, especially "Dhimmitude", 'cause that's where Obama, Petraeus and General John Allen have already placed us.
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