On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 11:40 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 21 Nov 2013, at 11:05, Telmo Menezes wrote: > >> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 20 Nov 2013, at 21:35, John Mikes wrote: >>> >>> Telmo wrote: >>> >>> "I admire the US constitution too. In fact, my political position is >>> essentially to follow it (although I like to imagine possibilities for >>> peaceful world with further increases in freedom)." >>> >>> Which Constitution? the one epoch-opening chef-d'oeuvre based on >>> modernized >>> medieval ideas of those well educated smoking-duelling slave-owner male >>> chauvinist Forefathers, >>> who just did not want to pay taxes to the King of England, or the later >>> "amended" versions of the same obsolete construct making it into a >>> gun-toting killer - corrupt, faith-ruled money-monger (with SOME >>> exceptions, >>> thank you). >>> >>> I join you in admiring the original one - as a relic, an innovation >>> historical masterpiece FOR THE 18th CENTURY. Not for the 21st. >>> My admiration stopped short when I realized the outcome: >>> a 'special-interest money'-ruled anti-democratic conglomerate, governing >>> a >>> so called government into committing crimes (international and domestic) >>> originally excluded >>> from it's 'modus (regulatio) vivendi'. >>> >>> How can you imagine a 'peaceful' world with capitalistic (I call it: >>> econo-feudalistic) principles, imperialistic (oil?) wars and forcing own >>> interest on other countries? (Not to >>> mention the availability of all level governance for enough money). >>> >>> >>> >>> Gödel pretended that the US constitution was inconsistent and refused to >>> sign it. >> >> >> You mean "pretended" in the French sense right? As in Gödel claimed >> that... > > > Oops! Yes. Thanks for noticing. "To pretend" is a false friend. I knew it, > but forget it all the time! > > > >> >>> Einstein intervened and succeeded in changing Gödel's mind (about >>> not signing it to get the "green card" or the nationality). >>> Einstein asked Gödel if the US constitution could prevent something like >>> a >>> Nazy party to take power, like in Germany, and Gödel said that it could! >> >> >> Provided it is followed, of course. I don't think the Weimar >> constitution was ever repealed during the third reich. It was simply >> ignored... > > > OK. > > > >> >>> I don't think capitalism is the problem, but financial lobbying and >>> corporatism; + lies, can pervert completely a democracy. >> >> >> I completely agree. We might only differ in that you are more >> optimistic on the possibility of preventing financial lobbying using >> rules, while I suspect that the only solution is to decentralise power >> so completely that there is not target to lobby. > > > I am not sure decentralizing would work better. It would augment the number > of local powers, and such local powers might even been worse, as being more > local and less public or less transparent. > I think we might need some reasonable mix of centralized and decentralized > power. > If nobody complains on his local decentralized power, the central power > should have nothing to say, but if the locals complain about their local > powers, the central power can be used as an arbiter.
I agree that this is a risk. I don't claim that there is any system that could be implemented and would solve all the problems, that's the danger with ideologies. My belief is that "human evolution" -> "better forms of governance", not the other way around. So democracy, with all its flaws, was made possible by a new level of human development. Here I mean evolution and development in the broad sense, not the biological sense. This is made clear by the attempts to force democracy on less developed societies. My point is that, as we evolve further, maybe the decentralized system can exist without incurring so much on the risks that you mention, and at the same time being much more resilient to sociopathic manipulations. >> >>> The deeper problem relies in the fact that most humans are unwilling to >>> think by themselves, and they confuse "p -> q" and "q -> p" all the >>> times. >>> The (human, but not only) sciences are still driven by the appeal to >>> authority. We have never been "modern". >> >> >> I'm happy to read this. I thought this confusion was a central problem >> in society for a long time, without being an expert in logic. > > > The problem is that "p <-> q" is far better than nothing, in the short run, > so our brains are hardwired to "reason" by association, instead, of logical > validity. Logic is by essence counter-intuitive (which explains the > logician's sense of humor). > The short term/long term conflict is unavoidable. Humans face it all the > time, like when hesitating to stop smoking, or to stop producing CO2, etc. > It is even more complex today due to globalization. With the 20th century, > earth has become a finite space, and this has to be taken into account, and > it is not a simple task, as we have to change habits that we have since a > very long time. In the long run, we will have to escape the planet and > continue to run forward. But meanwhile, we have to accommodate with the > finite resourcing, with or without global warming. That's a reason more to > fight against corporatism, special private interests, international white > collar criminality, etc. Right, but the hope of some people who propose a radically free market is that it would work more like the immune system, and that it would allocate resources in a more efficient way than central control. The long term view is not foreign to markets. This is precisely what investments are. Warren Buffet became extremely rich by taking a long view on investments, not by doing high-frequency trading. But again, I say this with the human evolution caveat in mind. I'm also strongly in favour of experiments. For example, and this would certainly annoy most libertarians, I am very excited by the Swiss plan to provide a base level of income to all citizens. I like it because it's so simple and non-intrusive. You just give everyone the same base income, no matter how poor or rich they are. Hopefully it will remove unnecessary and even counter-productive jobs, free more people from meaningless lives and attack the entire "job mentality". One can hope... Telmo. > Bruno > > > > >> >> Telmo. >> >>> Bruno >>> >>> >>> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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