Yes,
Animal experimentation.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:00
AM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
REH:
That is my problem with "social" experiments like
economic systems that have been put in place based upon theory but with
inadaquate "checks and balances" to assure the "guinea pigs" that they can
still survive and even be happy should it fail or need "tweaking."
Mengele assumed Jews and Gypsies were "guinea pigs"
and that simply burning them rather than "using" them for science was a
waste. Today our economists ruin individual and professional lives
in the service of market theories for the "greater good" in "Mengele" like
experiments that require that their lobbying representitives be impotent for
the "experiments" to work. Why else would everyone be so
anti-labor union in such situations? Personally I have both
belonged to and been abused by labor unions but they are a part of the system
that checks and balances the abuse of individual workers by other groups i.e.
the wealthy share holders.
Just a few comments, Ray. Economists aren't all
bad. It's the defunct ones that one has to go after. As Keynes put
it: "We are all the slaves of defunct economists", or some such thing.
Defunct economists enslave us, present day ones try to fix things up and, in
turn, become defunct and enslave us. What a dastardly
profession!
However, I would suggest that there is a difference
between economist and Mengele. Even if theoretically, economists attempt
to understand reality. Mengele's world was one of complete and utter
unreality, except of course for the unfortunate people that were thrust into
its madness. For example:
Twins in the experiments describe three
days of what must have been psychological examination and three days of
laboratory experiments. "Three times a week we were marched to Auschwitz to
a big brick building, sort of like a big gymnasium. They would keep us there
for about six or eight hours at a time - most of the days. ..... We would
have to sit naked in the large room where we first entered, and people in
white jackets would observe us and write down notes. They also would study
every part of our bodies. They would photograph, measure our heads and arms
and bodies, and compare the measurements of one twin to another. The process
seemed to go on and on." (Echoes from Auschwitz, Kor).
The laboratory experiments were described by
Kor as follows: "Most of the time, they would take blood from one arm, and
they gave us shots in the other." (Echoes from Auschwitz,
Kor).
Experiments did not end with the death of
the twins. Dissection of the corpses for final medical analysis is well
documented by Nyiszli and by Lifton. (http://www.candles-museum.com/mengele.htm)
Can you imagine anything more
bizarre?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 2:14
PM
Subject: Re: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Bravo Harry,
Very elegantly put. Now for a
couple of things. "Simple" is an interesting
word. Would you not not agree that "simple" for
Horowitz (on the piano) is not the same as "simple" for Liebowitz (the
writer) even though their names are similar?
Complexity always depends upon competance and simplicity is what has
become "natural" to the person i.e. "walking" is simple to an adult who
is healthy and complicated to a person who has had a knee injury or to the
child just learning to stand.
The second part has to do with
cooperation. Just as there are levels of competance i.e.
complexity, for individuals, so are there levels of competance for
groups. The group that has the highest level of competance and
the lowest complexity level is the most successful, would you not
agree? So what seems almost casual in your comments is
really a lot more interesting than that in reality. Does not the
future of work depend upon such expertise in analysis as systematically
exploring what you are describing in a more deep and layered fashion?
And finally are not the "simplicities" of
science based upon predictability? In the end, does not
science accept a certain degree of sloppiness if it
"works"? Is not the problem for science, the
necessity of experimentation for the purpose of nailing down
"predictability?" As a result do you not need a
certain number of "smallpox" experiments to know if the vaccine works or
not? (or on the extreme you have the experiments of Mengele with the
twins.) That is my problem with "social" experiments like
economic systems that have been put in place based upon theory but with
inadaquate "checks and balances" to assure the "guinea pigs" that they can
still survive and even be happy should it fail or need "tweaking."
Mengele assumed Jews and Gypsies were "guinea pigs"
and that simply burning them rather than "using" them for science was a
waste. Today our economists ruin individual and professional
lives in the service of market theories for the "greater good" in "Mengele"
like experiments that require that their lobbying representitives be
impotent for the "experiments" to work. Why else would
everyone be so anti-labor union in such situations?
Personally I have both belonged to and been abused by labor unions but they
are a part of the system that checks and balances the abuse of individual
workers by other groups i.e. the wealthy share holders.
So for me it ultimately comes down to
competance and the lowering of complexity through the raising of the
competance of indivduals and groups. Simplicity then
becomes "elegant balance" and not just the most "stupid solution"
possible.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003
12:08 AM
Subject: RE: You are naive (was Re:
[Futurework] Walmart and the American dream
Gentlemen,
As you might expect, I have a rather more simple
view of human behavior.
There seems to be a certain acceptance of
experimental research that is based more on the reports of these efforts,
than the actual research. Any scientific research is full of maybe's, and
perhaps, and possibilities, rather than probabilities.
However, reporting such uncertainties doesn't make
for sexy news.
I know that people will survive or not depending on
how they behave. They surely have a better chance of surviving in
communities. Cooperation multiplies well-being.
We who have survived because we enjoyed the
advantages of community. If we are nice to each other, if
we help each other, if, on occasion, we even sacrifice for each other - it
may be because these are traits which have made us welcome members of the
community.
Those without this built-in behavior are
probably long gone (or most of them). How this propensity to cooperate
moves from generation to generation is, I feel, less important than the
fact that exists.
Harry
Ed,
At 11:23 28/10/2003 -0500, you
wrote:
Keith, you seem to attribute almost all of human
behaviour to motives like gaining status and ensuring the preservation
of one's genetic code. Every single lifeform acts
to preserve its genetic code more than anything else. In primate
societies, rank order is the main device that has evolved for the
selection of sexual partners. It's as basic and important as that.
By your view of it, a behaviour like altruism is
not something based on morality, on wanting to do 'right' by others and
wanting others to do right by you, but something that it essentially
selfish and that we can't help because we are genetically programmed to
behave that way. I simply don't buy that. You are
entitled to believe the above, but the evidence is increasingly showing
that all our principal behaviours are predisposed by our genes. However,
where we differ from other primates is that our frontal lobes are able to
embellish all our deep drives in imaginative ways. For example, almost all
the goods we buy have been, at one historical period or another, status
symbols. Another example: almost all religions' rules about marriage put a
civilised gloss on the incest taboo which is followed rigorously by all
human societies that are not under stress.
Our sense of morality and decency is ancient. It
has been developed out of a vast array of interactions over the
millennia. It has been codified in religions, philosophies, laws and
institutions, and surely plays at least as important a role in our
behaviour, one to another, as our basic animal make-up. Without a
codified morality, we could not function as societies. It is what
distinguishes us from other species. We could
easily function without detailed, codified moralities. But it's helpful to
codify them and, where they differ in detail from one culture to another
it adds colour to each.
The examples you give of morals that are prefigured
in our genes are not very convincing. Both mothers and fathers have died
to save their children. Yes, but mothers try
harder! In cases of bad house fires in England where one of the parents
perish trying to save the children, it is the mother who nearly always
dies rather than the father. The ratio is something like 12 to 1 -- if my
memory is correct (the ratio might be more than that, but it's
significant).
And when, as in cases of intended rescues I know
about, brothers have tried to save brothers, the very last things they
were thinking about was the preservation of the family genes.
Of course, individuals don't actually think about
their genes! In primate societies, brothers will nearly always come
to the aid of their brothers. In the case of humans, this could only be
proved conclusively by a scientific experiment which would be ethically
impossible to carry out! But, gosh! -- just think of the nepotism that
goes on in buysiness and politics and the way almost everybody writes
their Wills.
As for altruistic work, I know of many people who
do things for strangers without any thought of getting something in
return. I personally am involved in a food bank, and I demand no
recompense. I and the other people who work with me just feel that it is
a necessary thing to do. Yes, this is true. But
this is quite rare, and it nearly always involves individuals who are more
intelligent than the norm and are more aware of the importance of
community/social linkages. In Bath there are quite a number of charities
and voluntary societies. There is only one I can think of in which working
class voluntary helpers are almost as numerous as middle class individuals
-- this is the Refuge Centre for battered wives (which is the particular
charity that I support)..
My general point remains: quite apart from our
genes and what might be interpreted as our economic self-interest, we
are moral creatures. We are only 'moral creatures'
because we say there should be morals. And the people who are the most
insistent about morals are those who want power -- churchmen and
politicians
All I was suggesting in the posting you challenged
was that our morality needs to be applied more forcefully to some of the
more pressing problems that confound our economy today. Something other
than rounding them up and deporting them needs to be done for illegal
immigrants who enter the rich world to do its menial work, and something
must also be done to help affected communities deal with job-loss
problems arising out of outsourcing. Perhaps because business has become
so big and powerful in society or because we have become more cynical
and less secure, we seem to have lost some of the focus that, for
example, Roosevelt, applied to the economy of his times via the New Deal
and, as another example, the Kennedys and Johnson applied to civil
rights in the 1960s. I believe that we in the
developed world are prosperous enough and should be civilised enough to
adopt a general duty of care to many illegal immigrants. But let's not get
carried away about this. I can only speak of England. According to a BBC
Radio 4 investigation, 2,000 children are brought into England every year
from Africa. Some have been brought here so that people here can claim
children's benefits from the welfare state, some are brought in as sex
slaves and some are actually brought in for ritualistic human sacrifice
(and there is strong police evidence that this goes on). Some come here
for entirely valid reasons, of course, for fear of persecution. There are
also at least 70-80,000 prostitutes who have been brought in by (mainly
Albanian) criminal gangs. Their passports and papers are taken from them,
they know no English and many of them have no chance of escaping from the
pimps' clutches. In effect, they are slaves. At the present time, it is
almost impossible to know how to sort out all this substantial immigration
because most illegal immigrants entering the country simply destroy their
passports and identity papers on the plane as they fly here, or they hide
them on arrival.
Keith
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith
Hudson
- To: Ed Weick
- Cc: Harry
Pollard ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 2:16 AM
- Subject: You are naive (was Re: [Futurework] Walmart and the
American dream
- Ed,
- At 18:04 27/10/2003 -0500, you wrote:
- I believe I started all of this by
rather innocently posting an article from the NYTimes dealing with
cheap illegal immigrant labour doing cleaning work at Walmart.
Personally, because I have first hand familiarity with what second
generations can achieve, I'm not against bringing in cheap immigrant
labour to do menial work, nor am I against sending work abroad to
India and China. What I am against is holding the threat of
deportation over immigrant labour's head and using outsourcing to
undercut domestic workers and their communities. There must be
a decent and moral way of doing both out and in sourcing.
Society, acting through its elected politicians, has to find that
way and not leave it up to Walmart and the outsourcers. The
matter has to be considered as an important political issue and not
be kept hidden under the table. But perhaps I'm being
naive?
- Ed
- I think you are being naive. Not because you are an innocent but
because you are trying to mix morals and economics. In truth,
consumers are greedy and will always go to the cheapest sources. When
the British car industry was dying in the 1960s and early 70s in my
home town of Coventry (we had eight large factories there then: one
now) and politicians of both parties were appealing to us to "Buy
British" whenever they were in power -- with "Buy British" stickers
everywhere you looked and stuck on every conceivable product -- the
very same workers who were destroying the British car industry were
also buying Japanese cars. They were there, large as life, in
the car parks of all the factories when their owners were on shift.
Why? Because Japanese cars were better and cheaper.
- And why were Coventry car factories destroyed (the last remaining
one -- Jaguar -- is due to move abroad shortly)? Because the car
workers were greedy (they were already earning twice or thrice the
average UK wage for those days) and the local management was weak. I
know because I worked in one of the factories for many years.
- We all deplore the demise of the corner shop, yet we (Bathonians,
at least) all do the bulk of our weekly shopping in the superstores
because there's more choice, the food is cheaper and the quality is
more reliable. When I first came to live in my present house in Bath
17 years ago there were five corner shops (literally) at the end of
the road -- greengrocer, butcher, grocer, newsagent, post office.
They've all gone now. What we have now is a deli (in truth, a posh
takeaway) and four antique shops, mainly for the benefit of tourists.
Yet another dagger in the heart of the local community.
- We don't have much by way of morals -- but all are deeply
prefigured in our genes. They are:
- 1. A mother (but not a father) will give her life in sacrifice for
her children in an emergency; in a period of starvation, however, she
will allow her child to die instead of herself. (Why? Because she has
a chance of having more children if and when the starvation period
goes -- otherwise, both might die. Observe any and every TV clip you
see of mass starvation, as in Ethiopia and northern Africa.);
- 2. An individual will help another within his family in order to
maximise the survival of his/her particular cluster of genes;
- 3. An individual will help another in his community (that is, when
there is a fair chance that the help can be reciprocated sooner or
later either by the recipient or by an observer in that
community);
- 4. An individual will tend to trust another (friend or stranger)
in any transaction if there is an almost certain chance of
reciprocation either immediately or at some stage in the future;
- 5. It is permissable to use every trick in the book (that one can
get away with) to raise one's status in the community because in this
way one is able to choose a beautiful and talented sex partner with
survival-worthy genes for your offspring.
- The first three are called altruism; the fourth is called trade,
the last is called art and/or science and/or philosophy and/or
organised religion (another version of politics) and/or politics
and/or economics and/or consumerism.
- This may seem a bleak list -- and so it is, because, ever since we
left hunter-gatherer times (after having extinguished most of the
easily-available animal prey) the majority of the world's population
are either suffering physically or are experiencing unhappiness. Even
the 'prosperous' developed world is becoming increasingly stressful
and will probably become increasingly divisive (both inter-nationally
and intra-nationally). It will always be so -- until we have a more
realistic notion of what sort of creature we are and are able to
fashion our social and political units more in accordance with our
genetic make-up. Until then, I'm afraid, it's all pie in the sky.
- Keith
- Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
|