Re: sjprt article on pop. & devel.
Thomas, > Given the carnage of war - the wasted use of resources - the brutalities of > ethnic cleansing, torture, concentration camps, I am willing to entertain > any suggestions except the one you postulate which is fear of change. We agree on the undesirability of the techniques and artifacts of war [we probably agree on many other things]. We just happen to disagree on the desirability of one particular tactic - an international police force - for eliminating them. > If we get to the point where we let slogans rule our lives, I prefer Jesus's - > Love thy neightbour as you love yourself. Regardless of either of our preferences, I am convinced that Lord Acton's dictum has (for good or bad) withstood the test of time better than most others. > Think of the ol west and the lawless frontier town with it's bully's, > drunkeness, gambling and prostitution. You elect a marshal - or appoint and > their job is to arrest and present a case for the court in which a judge > makes a decision as to whether a law has been broken. But these elected marshals have become the police forces that, among other things, forcibly break up seemingly legal strikes and political demonstrations, and generally ensure that the wealthy and powerful stay that way (or, usually, become more so). > What's so different about an international police force? That's exactly my point. > Milosovec breaks the international law - the police force is sent in to apprehend >him, > if his military tries to prevent this, the whole international community > contributes forces to overcome, challenge or face down the local military. > The bad guy is arrested, a case is prepared, a judge decides. War is > hopefully averted. If not, the war is created by the person charged trying > to evade arrest and the full force of the resources of the world are used to > enforce the laws of the world. Look back a little further than Kosovo, and you'll see that those police would have been continuously busy _and_ continually having to choose sides. What determines how they choose? What _should_ have happened in South Africa (during apartheid years)? What should have happened in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, when the U.S. was supporting one not very civilized side in some "internal" dispute? Heck, what should have happened in the U.S. between Reconstruction and the civil rights movement? > Of course, in the ol frontier town, the brothel owner, the saloon keeper, > the bully rancher boss, did not want the law, but each of them individually > became less powerful against the resources of the community and when > necessary, vigilantes or a posse - acting as a citizens militia might have > to be invoked. We've been watching different movies. In mine (possibly unreleased) the brothel owner, saloon keeper, rancher boss, and monopoly shopkeeper (i.e., the more successful local businessmen) hired the marshal. > To continue to allow government leaders to borrow a country into financial > servitude while loading up their Swiss bank accounts, or to tyranize a > portion of their citizenry must be considered a violation of the rights of > citizens and those who do this must be held accountable. Once it is > stopped, then we will wonder why it was not done sooner. I think an international police would exacerbate precisely this. Isn't one of the main uses of police and courts to enforce contracts (including, specifically, debt collection, however distasteful the debt)? Speaking of "fear of change", it's not that I hate or fear the police, but I do see one valid view of their societal function as precisely that of discouraging change (i.e., enforcing existing law under existing interpretation within existing power relationships). Here's the really frightening thought (and not one that I would embrace easily): it may be that actual war is typically a _necessary_ step to effect significant political change! Although I think the vast majority of people reject "might makes right" as a moral principle, unfortunately not all of the mighty do. P-) -- ___o -o Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _-\_<, -_\ /\_ 15307 NE 202nd St., Woodinville, WA 98072 (*)/ (*)-(*)^(*) (425)489-0501 http://www.halcyon.com/marks -- If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! PS: And anyway, if the US won't pay its UN dues when it doesn't like something the UN does (or doesn't do), how is this IPF going to happen?
Re: short article on pop. & devel.
On Mon, 12 Jul 1999, Thomas Lunde wrote:
> I know it has been postulated before, but I think it is time, perhaps
> evolutionary to make a conscious decision to outlaw war. If that requires a
> world police force, so be it.
Be careful what you wish for!
I doubt you're suggesting that the US should serve such a function, so are you
thinking of a UN police force capable of policing even the US? If so, are
you proposing this as an experiment to see if Lord Acton was right ("Absolute
power corrupts absolutely")?
If nothing else, such concentrated power would be an irresistible magnet for
precisely those people whose instincts that power was created to control. The
danger of cooptation seems insurmountable.
P-)
--
___o -o Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
_-\_<, -_\ /\_ 15307 NE 202nd St., Woodinville, WA 98072
(*)/ (*)-(*)^(*) (425)489-0501 http://www.halcyon.com/marks
--
More comfortable AND faster ... that's REAL technology!
Re: real-life example
Jay Hanson writes: > Democracy makes no sense. Right, democracy is the worst system except for all the others, since power will always corrupt. > Government by popularity contest is a stupid idea. So is the corresponding straw man form of any kind of government. Government by age? Government by family name? Government by bank account? Government by narrow technical expertise? -- P-) ___o -o Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _-\_<, -_\ /\_ 15307 NE 202nd St., Woodinville, WA 98072 (*)/ (*)-(*)^(*) (425)489-0501 http://www.halcyon.com/marks -- More comfortable AND faster ... that's REAL technology!
Re: FW -- net net baud rate
dpw writes: > Of all the things I have to say, if there is only one thing you take > seriously let it be this: > >We can maximize the global net baud rate for interpersonal >communications by using combinatorial optimization to match people >based on personality, interest, and education profiles. This approach breaks "interpersonal communication" into two streams, + the actual interpersonal communication + communication of each potential communicant's "parameters" to the optimizer The bulk of the latter stream must be considered in determining overall system efficiency. If the amount of information required by the optimizer is high (because a lot more detail must be specified than would be present in any individual interpersonal communique), or if the parameters have to be frequently updated, then the overhead of optimization could swamp any direct gains, and the efficiency comparison could actually go against the optimization scheme. > I can think of a few people out there who know me and my favourite > topics quite well, people who can read most of my text quickly and > still understand it almost perfectly. "People who know me" presumably means that there has been significant prior communication and that (some interpretation of it) has been remembered. This is sometimes characterized as establishing a shared context. It is these contexts that must be somehow encoded for the optimizer. It's still an open question how usefully such contexts can be reduced to byte strings; much of Artificial Intelligence research has been an attempt to do this. But even accepting that possibility, it is not at all obvious to me that the many separate contexts which one person shares with other individuals and groups can be combined into a unified set of optimizer parameters for each person. > For example, suppose you can only read and write in an unrelated > language that uses the same character set,... there would be no actual > communication taking place: a net baud rate of zero. > > If I to was write a cheerful account of my last trip to Vancouver > mentioning only the places visited and people seen, the net baud rate > would be much higher. Mathematical information theory speaks to the probability of different messages - low probability messages contain high information. It doesn't require that each bit be equivalent to every other bit; such an assumption simply makes the math easier, and is adequate for assessing _maximum_ channel capacities. Discounting bits that contain 'less information' than they might otherwise is well within the capability of the formulas of information theory. Transmitting in an unknown language is one such discounting, but so it transmitting bland, "unsurprising" messages. In other words both examples seem to me of arguably low net baud rate (but for different reasons). >From this perspective, it is in this flexibility of discounting that the overall scheme will ultimately break down. It will prove impossible to find a discounting scheme which is simultaneously 1. consistent 2. general enough to usefully summarize a wide range of "intended meaning" 3. specific enough to make adequate distinctions for optimization purposes 4. computationally efficient In short, the notion of "net baud rate" will turn out to not have a practicable definition, and therefore to not be subject to optimization. -- P-) ___o -o Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _-\_<, -_\ /\_ 15307 NE 202nd St., Woodinville, WA 98072 (*)/ (*)-(*)^(*) (425)489-0501 http://www.halcyon.com/marks -- More comfortable AND faster ... that's REAL technology!
Re: soap and water
Tony Pierce writes: > Does it necessarily follow that "lowering of living standards for all > workers and absolute poverty for most" follows from capital's "roaming of > the world in search of cheap labour". 'Necessarily' is such a coercive word - only in Mathematics does anything of significance ever necessarily follow from something else! ;-) > I think not. Surely it must improve the living standards of some individuals in less >well > off countries. But does it improve the SoL for the less well off individuals in those less well off countries? > Richer countries may have to "pay" for their lesser well off neighbours but > our standard of living on average is much higher. > Is part of the "problem" with globalization, that Western nations will have > to take a pay cut! (( washes mouth out with soap and water )) ;-) Tony's claim touches the key issues: 1. Must globalization increase the overall pie? This is the gain that the mathematical models do predict unambiguously for (idealized) free trade - that the total economic product is maximized. Some folks claim that the gain would be adequate to keep any piece from shrinking. 2. (If so,) must increasing the overall pie increase particular pieces? For example, the smaller ones? This is more problematic, even mathematically. The relevent theory is that of 'Comparative Advantage', which argues for specialization. Unfortunately it appears that the particular specializations must be able (even eager) to easily change over time, something that seems rather difficult to pull off in practice. 3. (How) does increasing the size of a piece affect the distribution of that piece among those who share it? This is where the economic theory is relatively mute and (not coincidentally?) where the greatest harm of globalization is perceived. In the short term, any loss in the size of a pie-piece is small (%-wise), but the proximate cause of the shrinkage is that some particular individuals lose much of their share, rather than that every sharer loses a little. The now-disappearing social net is supposed to change that imbalance, but such questions of equity are outside the scope of the popular models. There is also some indication that relative inequality has a more significant *psychological* effect on perceived "quality of life" than does absolute SoL, which would make distribution considerations even more complicated. > Are we concerned about how globalisation affects the whole world or only > part of it. Both? -- P-) ___o -o Peter Marks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _-\_<, -_\ /\_ 15307 NE 202nd Street (*)/ (*)-(*)^(*) Woodinville, WA 98072 (425)489-0501 -- More comfortable AND faster ... that's REAL technology!
