One of the reasons libertarianism has stagnated, besides the obvious of the Party engaging in Party politics and not sticking with principle, is that the liberty minded just generally think everything would be better if nobody went politicking.
Meanwhile, most people do politics, even many so-called non-political types. This is a never ending flipping problem, and it exists both in the public and private space. So, you can't just offer a shallow interpretation of the issue based on 'let's all just not engage in politics.' You can't, for instance talk about the minimum wage laws and say we all ought to leave things alone because wages track with productivity- no. They do track with productivity- up until the point somebody can install themselves into some sort rent-seeking department. Labor regulations beget public bureacracy jobs, AND private sector bureacracy jobs. And once your organization is filled up with these creatures, they'll arrogate more power to themselves.
So, to win, one must first admit the ground is usually shifting beneath our feet. We have to look at our principles, figure out what the hell the world would probably look like if they were implemented and then diffuse the political urge by using up the political urge.
Case study: Walmart.
Back in the day, progressives would protest Walmart. Libertarians would reply by extolling the wonders of economies of scale. But the truth of the matter is found right in the fact that you are supposed to make marginal revenue equal marginal cost in order to achieve this economy of scale. Some of these costs come from the government. Thus, with less government, you'd have businesses achieving economies of scale as smaller entities.
Now, what the left did, as it always does, is bind everyone closer to the political process. Walmart got bigger, and the protesters got more regulation.
But if we can see the reality clearly, we can take short term action, obviating future regulation, preferably reducing cost, and encouraging more competition in a space. In other words, it would have been saner to end Walmart. Break it up. And wherever possible, massively reduce costs, so that Mom and Pop stores can get by with as few transactions as possible.
Now, there is another entire level of big, which happens when a company's primary business changes from selling widgets to chasing dollars by going to D.C. and spending dollars to woo politicians. This is very lucrative, and Walmart may actually be that big now, in no small part thanks to those protesters making them notice they needed to pay attention to D.C.
What I am arguing here is that the political will happen, and we need to look at how to make it happen in a way that, when the dust clears, we are better off. So, since the equation suggests lower costs from the government would lead to achieving economies of scale at smaller business sizes, we should have explained that and held out a political plan of action- we kill the big meanie corporation (which, despite being a person in U.S. law, doesn't actually have a soul), and reduce costs so people can compete. And, of course, the big meanie corporation would become many smaller ones- if done right most employees wouldn't even be out of a job- and most of those assets would still be working in the economy, and things would get better, not worse.
But if you don't offer a political action that actually gets us were we want to go, others will, and things will continue to suck. Sure, it will be awesome if one day nobody asks for the political option anymore, but you've got to be realistic and look at the fact we've got to wean people off this crap.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Perhaps Dueling Kept Bureaucracy At Bay
We tend to think of dueling in terms of personal honor, but it may have also functioned to keep incompetents at bay.
Certain bureaucratic decisions are foolish. In modernity, it seems less and less possible to directly confront foolish bureaucratic decisions. One can just be ignored, or perhaps there will be much shouting and pointing to various credentials, claims of expertise, election results, this or that metric going up or down, etc...
Whatever.
When you hear the sound of running water in your own house, you will probably search out why you hear running water, because you know you will see it on the bill later. If you are particularly slow, you develop this habit after you see an astronomical water bill or two.
But if you are in a place run by bureaucrats, well, you have probably trained yourself not to hear it. Because if you do hear it, you might feel the need to say something about it, and if you do say something about it, you will be rewarded with unpleasantness.
Now there are great many issues relating to management that seems incredible hard to transmit to the right people. Clearly, education would be the way to go, except I have checked into the whole realm of management education and I see instead that it is propaganda, apparently designed to make impossible for anyone to identify and listen to people who are smarter than them- and/or at least people who know something about the subject under discussion.
Dueling would be a very quick and effective way of radically transforming this class of people. If they knew they might have to defend their decisions in battle, then, presumably, they'd be a little more careful about their decisions. Plus, a rather large group of people unfit for any battle, not to mention unfit for any decision, would leave in exodus- especially after some girl who has watched too much Game of Thrones dies at dawn over the new pronoun policy she just tried to push on the company.
Certain bureaucratic decisions are foolish. In modernity, it seems less and less possible to directly confront foolish bureaucratic decisions. One can just be ignored, or perhaps there will be much shouting and pointing to various credentials, claims of expertise, election results, this or that metric going up or down, etc...
Whatever.
When you hear the sound of running water in your own house, you will probably search out why you hear running water, because you know you will see it on the bill later. If you are particularly slow, you develop this habit after you see an astronomical water bill or two.
But if you are in a place run by bureaucrats, well, you have probably trained yourself not to hear it. Because if you do hear it, you might feel the need to say something about it, and if you do say something about it, you will be rewarded with unpleasantness.
Now there are great many issues relating to management that seems incredible hard to transmit to the right people. Clearly, education would be the way to go, except I have checked into the whole realm of management education and I see instead that it is propaganda, apparently designed to make impossible for anyone to identify and listen to people who are smarter than them- and/or at least people who know something about the subject under discussion.
Dueling would be a very quick and effective way of radically transforming this class of people. If they knew they might have to defend their decisions in battle, then, presumably, they'd be a little more careful about their decisions. Plus, a rather large group of people unfit for any battle, not to mention unfit for any decision, would leave in exodus- especially after some girl who has watched too much Game of Thrones dies at dawn over the new pronoun policy she just tried to push on the company.
Monday, September 11, 2017
Staged? Definitely not a win.
Nearly all of the benefits I thought may have been achieved with Charlottesville were actually achieved with subsequent events, rendering this particular demonstration pointless.
In other words, there is every indication Antifa would have made themselves unwelcome without the Nazi golem appearing. Indeed, this seems like such a left driven narrative- since there are commies in the streets, then there MUST be Nazis to fight! And if there aren't we'll make them up, or convince low IQ people to masquerade.
And the location. I am not much for the whole idea of declaring everything a psy-op, but if someone were picking a location for a 'Unite the Right' rally, why would you risk Virginia?
So, what did you get? Injuries. Three guys in jail. They should be freed, but again, they are deep in hostile territory, and that justice system is probably packed with leftist appointees.
This doesn't look like the sort of movement that helps to create the sort of legitimacy necessary to change governance in America.
Frankly, I do hope ya'll get lucky. That every civil and criminal suit goes your way. Because what they did to you is wrong, illegal, and un-American. But it will be luck.
In other words, there is every indication Antifa would have made themselves unwelcome without the Nazi golem appearing. Indeed, this seems like such a left driven narrative- since there are commies in the streets, then there MUST be Nazis to fight! And if there aren't we'll make them up, or convince low IQ people to masquerade.
And the location. I am not much for the whole idea of declaring everything a psy-op, but if someone were picking a location for a 'Unite the Right' rally, why would you risk Virginia?
So, what did you get? Injuries. Three guys in jail. They should be freed, but again, they are deep in hostile territory, and that justice system is probably packed with leftist appointees.
This doesn't look like the sort of movement that helps to create the sort of legitimacy necessary to change governance in America.
Frankly, I do hope ya'll get lucky. That every civil and criminal suit goes your way. Because what they did to you is wrong, illegal, and un-American. But it will be luck.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
A Substitution of the Lesser For the Greater
Giovanni Dannato on The Social Cosmology:
Sadly, this seems to be true even for people who should know better:
US Catholic leadershp, should have, if they were worth anything, have had some exceptional degree of fury for what was done to people like me, people it had some sort of formal relationship with and could in some sense be considered responsible for. But it didn't give much of a damn about me or any of its children. Now it wants other children, another flock. It is just as bureaucratic as the secular leadership, and in lieu of taking real risks to keep a community together, it will use the churn of peoples to maintain pretenses.
But, I digress... They also prove Giovanni's point by painting Trump as this horrible demon.
Which, of course, they shouldn't, since they should have some more clarity and whatever memetic space is needed for spiritual matters should continue to be reserved for those spiritual matters.
About a decade ago I started intuitively thinking of cultural conflicts by this model of Zoroastrian/Christian dualism. I realized that in a society of hundreds of millions of strangers, those known to all are best thought of as gods who are not people but divine representations of concepts and ideals.
Humans can only process around 150 personal relationships, the Dunbar number. The demands of mass society are so astronomically beyond those limits, we need to repurpose our mental constructs to process our environment.
The memetic spaces that used to be occupied by polytheistic deities and animistic spirits are now used to comprehend entities whose every word is heard by millions. This was how I came to understand people’s reverent attitudes to celebrities, athletes, or royal families who will never personally know or care about them.
Sadly, this seems to be true even for people who should know better:
Upon this morning's announcement that the Trump administration would rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the US' Catholic leadership has responded with an exceptional degree of fury, its pointedness matched only by the rare united front of church entities which have pushed for months to support the survival of the Obama-era effort protecting some 800,000 undocumented young people from deportation and authorizing them to study and work.
US Catholic leadershp, should have, if they were worth anything, have had some exceptional degree of fury for what was done to people like me, people it had some sort of formal relationship with and could in some sense be considered responsible for. But it didn't give much of a damn about me or any of its children. Now it wants other children, another flock. It is just as bureaucratic as the secular leadership, and in lieu of taking real risks to keep a community together, it will use the churn of peoples to maintain pretenses.
But, I digress... They also prove Giovanni's point by painting Trump as this horrible demon.
Which, of course, they shouldn't, since they should have some more clarity and whatever memetic space is needed for spiritual matters should continue to be reserved for those spiritual matters.
We The People
I didn't think about it much, because it is a bit of a joke; if everybody owns it, then nobody does, which suits politicians just fine.
But the major churn of populations improperly labelled free market in some fashion isn't- this is doing unto the people the very same thing bureaucrats did to nobles, kings, private property owners, and just about anyone else with some sort of authority.
They've even done it to parents.
And the current libertarian conversation is the same anemic refusal to face reality- a city was private property, back before civil rights legislation and newfangled immigration laws it was actually plausible to believe that you could build a statue, a building, a university, etc...- on city property and expect your descendants and your relatives to keep control of those assets, because they were the voters there. Under more normal circumstances, citizens might actually get to throw the bums out, or throw the bums in jail.
Surely this is the metastasis of bureaucracy. It was given the opportunity to grow when the kings decided they had divine right. The bureaucrats helped the king destroy the nobles, and when the king was little more than a signatory, they got rid of the king. The various flavors of socialism were the tumors. But the nations under communism had a problem- nobody wanted to go there, so the bureaucrats could only steal so much.
But here in America, just keep churning through people. I don't suppose there were any black cultural markers torn down in Compton as the Latinos took it over. Does it occur to anyone taking down a Lee statue that a similar fate awaits their statues?
But the major churn of populations improperly labelled free market in some fashion isn't- this is doing unto the people the very same thing bureaucrats did to nobles, kings, private property owners, and just about anyone else with some sort of authority.
They've even done it to parents.
And the current libertarian conversation is the same anemic refusal to face reality- a city was private property, back before civil rights legislation and newfangled immigration laws it was actually plausible to believe that you could build a statue, a building, a university, etc...- on city property and expect your descendants and your relatives to keep control of those assets, because they were the voters there. Under more normal circumstances, citizens might actually get to throw the bums out, or throw the bums in jail.
Surely this is the metastasis of bureaucracy. It was given the opportunity to grow when the kings decided they had divine right. The bureaucrats helped the king destroy the nobles, and when the king was little more than a signatory, they got rid of the king. The various flavors of socialism were the tumors. But the nations under communism had a problem- nobody wanted to go there, so the bureaucrats could only steal so much.
But here in America, just keep churning through people. I don't suppose there were any black cultural markers torn down in Compton as the Latinos took it over. Does it occur to anyone taking down a Lee statue that a similar fate awaits their statues?
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Bad Faith
The bureaucratic environment allows bad faith. The primary concern are rules. Bureaucrats make rules, more rules, and then they hire another bureaucrat to catalog all their rules. Bureaucrats are often afraid of confrontation and will make ten thousand new rules just to avoid it.
But no matter what you are talking about, whether its religion, or merely work schedules, there will be confrontation. The bureaucrat often causes the bulk of confrontation not to be about the actual issue, but about the rules.
The nobility however, were more concerned about whether or not you were acting in good faith.
Work schedules are a simple one, so I will go over it briefly. You and your supervisor will either get along and agree on how much you've worked, or you won't. Perhaps one of you is operating in bad faith, but more rules will not work. Either you are actually there or not. Frankly, a lot of employers get more time because there are things employees can do during their down time- at the computer- rather than having to take off work to get them done. The entire focus on time is often a bad idea- it's a better idea to focus on tasks wherever possible.
But you often get ten thousand rules and people getting very aggravated, focused on time and the rules, with actual tasks not getting done, because the world is bureaucratic and has prioritized obedience to rules over the reason for the existence of the work in the first place.
Since this inclination is everywhere, we now have an uncomfortable world in which you can appear to follow all the rules, but have bad faith, and we are generally very vulnerable to such creatures.
Additionally, those who have some dedication to actually getting things done often run the risk of having trouble come down on them for not following some rule or another, most often rules that have nothing to do with the task at hand- or worse, rules contrary to reality, like the continuing nonsense over pronouns.
But no matter what you are talking about, whether its religion, or merely work schedules, there will be confrontation. The bureaucrat often causes the bulk of confrontation not to be about the actual issue, but about the rules.
The nobility however, were more concerned about whether or not you were acting in good faith.
Work schedules are a simple one, so I will go over it briefly. You and your supervisor will either get along and agree on how much you've worked, or you won't. Perhaps one of you is operating in bad faith, but more rules will not work. Either you are actually there or not. Frankly, a lot of employers get more time because there are things employees can do during their down time- at the computer- rather than having to take off work to get them done. The entire focus on time is often a bad idea- it's a better idea to focus on tasks wherever possible.
But you often get ten thousand rules and people getting very aggravated, focused on time and the rules, with actual tasks not getting done, because the world is bureaucratic and has prioritized obedience to rules over the reason for the existence of the work in the first place.
Since this inclination is everywhere, we now have an uncomfortable world in which you can appear to follow all the rules, but have bad faith, and we are generally very vulnerable to such creatures.
Additionally, those who have some dedication to actually getting things done often run the risk of having trouble come down on them for not following some rule or another, most often rules that have nothing to do with the task at hand- or worse, rules contrary to reality, like the continuing nonsense over pronouns.
Why there is no Kingdom
If you are Christian or just happen across various media branded as such, you may have heard about the Kingdom. But it never comes. Why?
Well, it was once more real than it is now, and it may be again, but right now many of those very same Christians are an obstacle because they reject any sort of criticism or correction and hide themselves away with their bibles, and imagine they personally will be able to extract an interpretation that will suddenly make things work.
But it turns out we live in this world where the King's subjects need to know how to behave. The sentiment 'No king but Jesus' leads to no king at all. All Christians should be monarchists due to the simple realization that the people need a king, or at least a local lord or something, in order to understand how to behave in relation to a king.
Modern men have no earthly clue. And women are more likely to mistake Jesus for their boyfriend. Back when the Republic wasn't a hulking corpse, there was some sense of aristocracy, at least in the upper house, and I suppose they may have been able to at least infer how they were to behave.
But we've been oh so very progressive since then...
And it seems perhaps the point, all along, was to pervert the Christians way of thinking so that even should he desperately want the Kingdom, he would then proceed in a manner designed not to achieve it. And when you point this out to the person, he shall suggest some version of Deus Ex Machina, intimating that if he just perseveres in doing precisely the wrong thing for as long as humanly possible, God will then show up and fix everything.
It is extremely annoying. Not only the persistent losing, but the absolutely stubborn refusal to think about and respond constructively to criticism.
Well, it was once more real than it is now, and it may be again, but right now many of those very same Christians are an obstacle because they reject any sort of criticism or correction and hide themselves away with their bibles, and imagine they personally will be able to extract an interpretation that will suddenly make things work.
But it turns out we live in this world where the King's subjects need to know how to behave. The sentiment 'No king but Jesus' leads to no king at all. All Christians should be monarchists due to the simple realization that the people need a king, or at least a local lord or something, in order to understand how to behave in relation to a king.
Modern men have no earthly clue. And women are more likely to mistake Jesus for their boyfriend. Back when the Republic wasn't a hulking corpse, there was some sense of aristocracy, at least in the upper house, and I suppose they may have been able to at least infer how they were to behave.
But we've been oh so very progressive since then...
And it seems perhaps the point, all along, was to pervert the Christians way of thinking so that even should he desperately want the Kingdom, he would then proceed in a manner designed not to achieve it. And when you point this out to the person, he shall suggest some version of Deus Ex Machina, intimating that if he just perseveres in doing precisely the wrong thing for as long as humanly possible, God will then show up and fix everything.
It is extremely annoying. Not only the persistent losing, but the absolutely stubborn refusal to think about and respond constructively to criticism.
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