If you managed to maintain your sanity after reading the stream of consciousness that was my last post, congratulations. That rambling monstrosity was my own thinking out loud, and what you read was my thoughts as I came to the final conclusion in real time. Sorry about that. But here's what I've basically decided:
No government+cooperative/competitive action is best but not feasible because people are people and nothing will change that. The strong will always conquer the weak and that's just how it is. So with this in mind, I now have a new goal. A goal to not be conquered. I wish to escape servitude, to self actualize, to realize a life of my own making and not the designs of another. We are a dysfunctional species and being such, I no longer hold any grand illusions of systemic improvement. Society goes in cycles of freedom and tyranny and the trick is being able to ride out the worst parts from a safe vantage point.
I need to find and achieve that vantage point.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Musings on trust, theft, utopia, and cycles.
Trust is everything. Trust makes the world go round. Trust is currency, trust is power, trust is capitalism, trust is socialism. Everything comes down to trust. We trust our parents to care for us and teach us about the world, we trust our teachers to continue this. We trust each-other to follow the guidelines we've laid out for surviving in this world. We trust each-other to drive on the agreed upon side of the road, to not pull out a gun and shoot each other as we go by. We trust our shop keepers to sell us quality goods. We trust our drug dealers to do the same. The entirety of functional society depends on this mutual trust. An action is perceived to be good if it rewards this trust, bad if it betrays it. It is the trust that you and I will accept the dollar as currency that gives it value that allows the efficient exchange of goods. It is trust in a company's profit motive that allows the capital markets to function.
I do not trust our leaders. I do not trust our CEO's. I do not trust any man or woman who sees fit to hold themselves over me or anyone else and command my actions without my direct consent.
Those who desire power are those that achieve it. To hold power over another is different from holding a position of leadership, but this is not an oft made distinction.
How can you trust someone who lives wholly separate from yourself to govern you. Even eschewing the very real possibility of corruption, nobody can determine one's needs better than one's own self. Can a politician know your hunger? Can any number of government studies capture your thirst? The best constructed census employing the best professional statisticians and collectors of information can provide only a paltry approximation of an average. It might be argued that we don't know what we need. That the individual is ignorant, short sighted, greedy and stupid. How then do you differentiate that individual from the one seeking power? Is the power seeker, by virtue of his desire, superior? Perhaps it's his wealth, the stature of his birth that lends him superior knowledge to govern the unwashed masses. Do these paragons of humanity arise from some superior genetic stock, some divine birthright such that they might rule over the Earth and all her creatures, including those not so blessed? Certainly they are different from us, lest any man may seek governance of his peers. We elect these captains of industry, men of education, men of politics, men seeking to power, to govern us. We give them dominance of ourselves, the fruits of our labours, our adoration, our support, our undivided attention, for what?
Strong Conquers weak, this is the way of the world. The bandits realise that stealing everything is not so profitable as stealing some and allowing the victims to rebuild and thus be stolen from again. The victims become a crop, harvested but not destroyed. Over time the thieves become more and more powerful, more cunning, and more demanding. By living off the productive efforts of the victims, they are free to grow stronger, to demand more, and to conquer more. Soon we are convinced that the thieves are necessary, that society could not exist without them. They keep order, we pay them to protect us from other thieves, and they do (one must protect one's assets after all). These thieves grow ever bolder, soon the willing victims are dying as a tool of the brigand's conquest. By this point, they are so entrenched, perceived as so incredibly vital to existence that to even question their motives is to invite scorn and derision.
What then is the rational victim to do? He cannot fight the thieves, for even were they not so strong, he must toil when they do not. By the end the thieves are so strong, so well equipped, and so entrenched that even efforts to organise an uprising fall flat, dismantled before any chance of momentum. Some victims lash out individually and are swiftly destroyed as a warning to any who would challenge their rulers. Terrorists, criminally insane. They are enemies of the flock, destroyers of value. No they are too strong. Victory cannot be achieved. The few that rise up will be hammered down, the many that don't will remain as they are. Inertia maintains, change is difficult, made doubly so by the interests of those on top. Entropy is no saviour either. Should they shear their sheep too close and the parasites die along with their hosts, new rulers will rise up and the cycle will begin again.
There is no change, only cyclical rise and fall. Order, then chaos, then order again. Strong dominating the weak until they can no longer be dominated then the new strong rising to dominate the new weak. A cycle of birth, death and rebirth, inescapable.
Perhaps not.
To where would I escape?
What would I do there?
Is it desirable to be free and alone?
If not alone, is it possible to put in place a structure to prevent a relapse back into this cycle of dominance and submission?
Can the thieves be resisted from the outset?
Competition instead of parasitism, co-operators in place of controllers, Trust.
Trust must be made so vital to survival that to lose it would be unthinkable. But this doesn't eliminate deception, just the poor deceivers. The successful deceivers will always benefit and the naive will always lose.
Perhaps there is no solution. No way to escape the cycle. The naive will always be, as will the cunning. Strong vs Weak.
Since one cannot escape the cycle, the next option is to determine one's preferred place in it and maintain that place to the best of one's ability.
Unfortunately, from where I'm standing, this is the best and worst of all possible worlds, constantly cycling from good to bad, and at this point in time, the world is in it's bad phase. I can take solace in the fact that it will eventually transition to a good phase which will be made all the sweeter by the depth of this bad phase.
Here's to the next phase.
-Aaron
I do not trust our leaders. I do not trust our CEO's. I do not trust any man or woman who sees fit to hold themselves over me or anyone else and command my actions without my direct consent.
Those who desire power are those that achieve it. To hold power over another is different from holding a position of leadership, but this is not an oft made distinction.
How can you trust someone who lives wholly separate from yourself to govern you. Even eschewing the very real possibility of corruption, nobody can determine one's needs better than one's own self. Can a politician know your hunger? Can any number of government studies capture your thirst? The best constructed census employing the best professional statisticians and collectors of information can provide only a paltry approximation of an average. It might be argued that we don't know what we need. That the individual is ignorant, short sighted, greedy and stupid. How then do you differentiate that individual from the one seeking power? Is the power seeker, by virtue of his desire, superior? Perhaps it's his wealth, the stature of his birth that lends him superior knowledge to govern the unwashed masses. Do these paragons of humanity arise from some superior genetic stock, some divine birthright such that they might rule over the Earth and all her creatures, including those not so blessed? Certainly they are different from us, lest any man may seek governance of his peers. We elect these captains of industry, men of education, men of politics, men seeking to power, to govern us. We give them dominance of ourselves, the fruits of our labours, our adoration, our support, our undivided attention, for what?
Strong Conquers weak, this is the way of the world. The bandits realise that stealing everything is not so profitable as stealing some and allowing the victims to rebuild and thus be stolen from again. The victims become a crop, harvested but not destroyed. Over time the thieves become more and more powerful, more cunning, and more demanding. By living off the productive efforts of the victims, they are free to grow stronger, to demand more, and to conquer more. Soon we are convinced that the thieves are necessary, that society could not exist without them. They keep order, we pay them to protect us from other thieves, and they do (one must protect one's assets after all). These thieves grow ever bolder, soon the willing victims are dying as a tool of the brigand's conquest. By this point, they are so entrenched, perceived as so incredibly vital to existence that to even question their motives is to invite scorn and derision.
What then is the rational victim to do? He cannot fight the thieves, for even were they not so strong, he must toil when they do not. By the end the thieves are so strong, so well equipped, and so entrenched that even efforts to organise an uprising fall flat, dismantled before any chance of momentum. Some victims lash out individually and are swiftly destroyed as a warning to any who would challenge their rulers. Terrorists, criminally insane. They are enemies of the flock, destroyers of value. No they are too strong. Victory cannot be achieved. The few that rise up will be hammered down, the many that don't will remain as they are. Inertia maintains, change is difficult, made doubly so by the interests of those on top. Entropy is no saviour either. Should they shear their sheep too close and the parasites die along with their hosts, new rulers will rise up and the cycle will begin again.
There is no change, only cyclical rise and fall. Order, then chaos, then order again. Strong dominating the weak until they can no longer be dominated then the new strong rising to dominate the new weak. A cycle of birth, death and rebirth, inescapable.
Perhaps not.
To where would I escape?
What would I do there?
Is it desirable to be free and alone?
If not alone, is it possible to put in place a structure to prevent a relapse back into this cycle of dominance and submission?
Can the thieves be resisted from the outset?
Competition instead of parasitism, co-operators in place of controllers, Trust.
Trust must be made so vital to survival that to lose it would be unthinkable. But this doesn't eliminate deception, just the poor deceivers. The successful deceivers will always benefit and the naive will always lose.
Perhaps there is no solution. No way to escape the cycle. The naive will always be, as will the cunning. Strong vs Weak.
Since one cannot escape the cycle, the next option is to determine one's preferred place in it and maintain that place to the best of one's ability.
Unfortunately, from where I'm standing, this is the best and worst of all possible worlds, constantly cycling from good to bad, and at this point in time, the world is in it's bad phase. I can take solace in the fact that it will eventually transition to a good phase which will be made all the sweeter by the depth of this bad phase.
Here's to the next phase.
-Aaron
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Economic Myths
Stumbled upon this daily update by Mises institute. Lays out some serious flaws in the thinking of the general populace.
http://mises.org/daily/3085
http://mises.org/daily/3085
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