Thanks, Eric, for making that clear.
I feel like as an Old Deweyan, I should be for free trade. After all, if I believe tin the market-place of ideas, surely I believe in the free market place of marketplaces. But isn’t it also Deweyan to believe in rational democratic planning? Also, I have always been wildly ambivalent about disruption. It does seem that whenever we put the cat amongst the pigeons, it’s always the pigeoneers with the most pigeons that pick up the strays. I suppose there are some fat cats, but for the most part, the cat is working for the pigeon oligarchs. Ach!! This metaphor is getting out of hand. Ok. Here’s a question: putting aside dumb conspiracy theories, if TPP is so bad, why is Obama for it. Deep answers only, please. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Eric Charles Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2016 1:30 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] TPP pro and con Gillian asked: "Why not just work towards StarFleet and a large club of some sort? ... China might be really good at making underpants, but no clue how to make t-shirts, America might make pretty good T-shirts and no clue how to make Sweaters. Canada (might) have make KFA pants." Two answers: 1) Generally speaking: When it is a mass production issue there are not people better or worse at it. I.e., if China is "better" at making IPhones, it is because of (comparatively) lax labor laws, and a government uninterested in stopping exploitation* of laborers, not because they are "really good at it" in any proper sense. That isn't a race we want to win. 2) Still generally speaking: Also, when it is a mass production issue, in the long run none of the laborers, in any of the countries, are better than machines. Thus, "everyone just do what they are best at" logic only works when there is some geographic advantage (e.g., having land well-suited to growing grapes), or a protected skilled-labor advantage in small-batch or one-off production (e.g., a lineage of sword makers who make customized products and do not take foreign apprentices). Without those conditions, you just have a bunch of semi-random processes determining who happens to make the best at making items of a particular type at a particular moment (e.g., the best guy is in China, but the narrowly second best is in the U.S. and the narrowly third best in Canada), and thus you would never expect any country to stay the best location for production for very long. Even with small batch and one-off production, 3-D printing has already made much of that a "do anywhere" possibility. * And by "exploitation" I mean things like imprisonment, not a Marxist notion of "divorcing them from means of production" or something like that. ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Supervisory Survey Statistician U.S. Marine Corps On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 12:29 PM, Gillian Densmore <gil.densm...@gmail.com <mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com> > wrote: And as importantly with 100% transparency, such that there's hopefully good questions like: is (this thing here) doable and a good idea? On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 10:27 AM, Gillian Densmore <gil.densm...@gmail.com <mailto:gil.densm...@gmail.com> > wrote: I had heard about that Can (seriusly) ask about (one of) the elephents here? Why not just work twards StarFleet and a large club of some sort? such that Ireland and it's delightfull accent works with America, or China? (for example) Fore example: China might be reeally good at making underpants, but no clue how to make t-shirts, America might make pretty good T-shirts and no clue how to make Sweaters. Canada (might) have make KFA pants. And no clue how to make ShuttleCraft or hoverpods. Etc Greek (a melenia ago) coind the workd TechoGorky later called a Counsole if my very rough Greek history from highsool was (sort of) acurate. This got a unforate name now Faschita and Rebpubilic I have to laugh it simply meens United as one, for the future of Sparta. Today we might call it a Republic or get realy cool and call it a TechoGarky. A TechoGrocky Colaberative or what ever that's called where persons-that-are clever and know how to do (SOMETHING HERE) work with each other rather than wasting energy biffing eachother on the head....wich while fun for a bit you run out of energy. Sooo why then why not a Federation or StarFleet or TechaGark I'll crawl back to my simple persons corner now. On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 9:56 AM, glen ☢ <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto:geprope...@gmail.com> > wrote: https://ustr.gov/tpp/ https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp In the midst of a wide-ranging discussion with my intensely Christian neighbor who expects to vote for Trump, he explained his experiences as a missionary in some of the NAFTA countries where he claims to have seen the bad effect of the agreement on the poor. I did my ignorant best to talk about the TPP as an improvement over deals like NAFTA, despite my being programmed by my clique to dislike the deals. I somewhat buy the argument that the TPP gives us leverage in our competition with China. And I also buy the arguments that the deal falls way short of democratic ideals (in both the way it was developed and the policies it would put in place). But I'm bouncing between 2 (or more) bodies of rhetoric and I'd like to know what y'all think, even if, pragmatically, it's doomed because Congress won't ratify it. -- ☢ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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