Sacrifices

[Brian H]

There are a number of problems with that article. Amongst them is that the resort of drillers to deep water is in large part the result of being barred from more accessible resources. There is, e.g., a de facto ban on on-shore and near-shore drilling in the continental US, despite large proven reserves. Then the companies are demonized for high prices when only expensive operations are left to exploit, which must compete with drilling costs about 90% lower in such places as Saudi Arabia. Like everything else, NIMBY must be paid for.

As for Nigeria, it is a poster child for reliance on The Devil’s Excrement (oil) as a sole source of government funding. There is not a single functional government in the world which is entirely oil-dependent. Venezuela almost escaped the ‘rentier’ trap, before Chavez did his populist-dictator-for-life thing.

But with FF, oil has had its day anyway. Be grateful for the economic consequences of its use for the last century or so.

[Brian H]

As for the ongoing Marxist class warfare drivel, try this:
Worry Over the Wealth Gap is Wasted

[Rezwan]

You continue to not answer the question directly.

Brian H wrote: The epitome of trust and co-operation is a sanctuary city, like Maywood, CA. Which just went bankrupt and cancelled all services and dissolved itself.

Didn’t Orange county go bankrupt a while ago? On the scale of entities that go bankrupt and dissolve, is this more noticeable than most? Produce the scale. It’s like people who claim Africa has issues because it has greater corruption. On a corruption index, Asian countries are higher up. More bribes, more everything. The more money, the more opportunities for corruption. You have to put these things in context.

A game or society without agreed and enforceable rules is just a playground for cheats and users.

A society comprised of people like you will never agree on enforceable rules. You have spent most of the rest of your posts on the forums railing against “consensus”. Now you’re saying it’s a good thing?

You know what I think this comes down to is the dynamic between spontaneous order and centrally planned order. Again, I thought you were a spontaneous guy – hence averse to “consensus” and the central planning that implies.

But apparently you’re pro central planning, as long as the rules enforced and agreed upon are the ones you espouse. You’re the dictator here, projecting, trying to calculate how to get into the position of power. Plying us with literature on that very topic. Classic.

I, on the other hand, first of all find this very humorous.

Second, I accept that about you, and most other people. Myself, too! We all have within us the dictator that wants everyone else to bow before us. If left unchecked, we just might let that character take over. But if you’ve ever had the chance to let that dictator out – well, it’s quite unpleasant. (Actually, you’ve tried, but posturing on a forum isn’t quite the same as taking over – seeing fear and cringing in your fellow human). Unless you’re a true sociopath, this just won’t be satisfying. A great story on this topic is “On the Conduct of Lord Tadanao” by Kikuchi Kan (in an anthology of Japanese Stories)

Nature, or God, or whatever, in it’s infinite wisdom, in the iterative wisdom of evolution, has made collaboration the successful strategy. When we work together, we gain tremendous benefits. If we resort to theft, we kill the golden goose. The short term benefit of theft is a test, a prisoners dilemma. Betraying one another in the short term is pathetic. Game it all you want but it’s embarrassing to watch. And it’s not in equilibrium, because people crave the higher order of collaboration. They just don’t know how to get there, and when they don’t have trust, they can’t.

Notice that the trust in sanctions and repercussions for bad behavior is also a form of trust. I trust when I stray out of my lane in traffic that I will get a lot of angry honks. People keep each other in line with this handy “communication” thing. Rarely have I gotten the “universal sign” while driving, and I have yet to be shot by a fellow motorist.

Sure, corruption, like static, builds up as people try to take advantage of trust. But people remember what you did last time, and it comes back to you. Memories. Adjustments. There’s always this background static. The progression is toward greater collaboration.

And then you die.

[Brian H]

Chock full of “straw men” (misrepresented arguments you go on to defeat, leaving the originals untouched).

Acceptable rules are the ones which provide just the minimum restraint on action necessary to keep agreed-on goals accessible to all. Those which favor some at the expense of others break the game or society in the end.
I don’t fully endorse everything in the following analysis, but pretty close:
Americas Ruling Class-Codevilla. (PDF warning).

BTW, equality of outcome is a nonsense goal. A soccer game, e.g., where you must immediately allow the other team to score unopposed whenever you go ahead is a farce, and no one would willingly play it.

[emmetb]

This thread is at risk of going up in flame(war)s. That would be a pity because there is also an interesting underlying debate going on.

Acceptable rules are the ones which provide just the minimum restraint on action necessary to keep agreed-on goals accessible to all. Those which favor some at the expense of others break the game or society in the end.

What should be our more fundamental premisse: to minimize restraints, or to maximize cooperation?

[Brian H]

emmetb wrote: This thread is at risk of going up in flame(war)s. That would be a pity because there is also an interesting underlying debate going on.

Acceptable rules are the ones which provide just the minimum restraint on action necessary to keep agreed-on goals accessible to all. Those which favor some at the expense of others break the game or society in the end.

What should be our more fundamental premisse: to minimize restraints, or to maximize cooperation?

Attempting to enforce maximized co-operation is merely to reward manipulators. People will co-operate when they actually believe that supporting other(s)’ goal(s) is also the best way to achieve their own. Demanding altruism is merely sanctimonious twaddle.

It should never be forgotten that individual and self-organized charitable donation internally and internationally by Americans dwarfs the total and per-capita grub-O-mint generosity of any other nation in the world. Calling Americans primarily self-interested and greedy is not only inaccurate, it is the most outrageous falsehood, 180° opposed to the facts. (To forestall the knee-jerk reaction that this is merely jingoism, be it noted that I am Canadian, and happen to know that American per-capita giving is DOUBLE Canadians’, including all our off-loaded grub-O-mint giveaways at all levels.)

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: Chock full of “straw men” (misrepresented arguments you go on to defeat, leaving the originals untouched).

BTW, equality of outcome is a nonsense goal. A soccer game, e.g., where you must immediately allow the other team to score unopposed whenever you go ahead is a farce, and no one would willingly play it.

You’re projecting again. I never said anything about equality. You have raised the equality thing and marxist drivel all on your own out of nowhere. Misrepresented (non-existent) arguments you go on to…etc.

We’ll have to set up a “Brian Bingo” game.

[Henning]

Rezwan wrote: We’ll have to set up a “Brian Bingo” game.

I’m all for it.

[Rezwan]

emmetb wrote: This thread is at risk of going up in flame(war)s. That would be a pity because there is also an interesting underlying debate going on.

Acceptable rules are the ones which provide just the minimum restraint on action necessary to keep agreed-on goals accessible to all. Those which favor some at the expense of others break the game or society in the end.

What should be our more fundamental premisse: to minimize restraints, or to maximize cooperation?

I agree. Although I’d note that the word “wars” here is not to be confused with actual war, and runs the risk of again inflation of concepts, which is what got me started in the first place. Call it “posturing that jumps the shark”. Or preening as Phils Dad aptly put it.

There are 3 underlying debates going on.

1) One is the most recent you point out here, about the best way to make rules. Proscriptive, prescriptive, what have you.

2) Two is about how best to coordinate collaboration: via spontaneous (like markets) organization, or central planning (like corporations and governments and families). Many people see a polarized dichotomy between “markets” and “marxists”, but the continuum is more fluid and simultaneous. I.e., people coordinate with a continually changing mix of all of these methods, forming and dissolving groups around which they organize to get some venture taken care of, spontaneously making decisions in a marketplace setting. It’s always evolving.

3) The third, which was the first, really, is about the nature of war and conflict. What made me bristle were 2 comments, one about needing to pound the tar out of extremists, and the other about war being “the natural state”. What these triggered in me was the sense that I’m on a forum with a bunch of westerners who see themselves as civilized, and see the natives over there getting restless and breeding extremists that the civilized need to pound. This is the standard way of overlooking ones own role in a conflict and not taking any responsibility. And I’m thinking, it was the British who backed the Wahabis and the house of Saud – the most repressive, fundamentalist group they could have chosen. And the Americans continue to support them. The hijackers were Saudis, your allies, and then you go in and bomb Iraq, killing over 100,000 civilians, etc. etc.

From “Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength”

Once a relationship gets into trouble, it can be awfully hard to get out. We’re so rivetedon the other person – on divining his motives or on avoiding his impact – that we on’t take a close look at what we ourselves are doing to create a relationship neither of us wants. …For the most part, all we see are the constraints others are imposing on us, while remaining blind to the constraints we’re imposing on them. Unaware, we wait for others to make life easier for us while we make it harder for them to make it easier for us. In the end…we’re left with little choice: either end the relationship or settle for one that doesn’t work.

Or unilaterally bomb the heck out of them. It’s the natural state.

These twin assumptions – “you alone are the cause of the problem” and “you are eiher mad or bad” – make it natural for people to place blame and make accusations.

These accusations, which focused on one side of the problem, had no influence on either one of them, making them feel as if they had no choice. They had to prepare airtight cases that would place institutional blame where they thought it belonged: on the other person’s shoulders.

In addition to turning their relationship into a toxic-waste site, this either/or perspective made it impossible for _____ and ____ to resolve their substantive differences well or quickly. Each of them assumed that only one (or the other) of them could be right. They thus figured: if I’m right, then the other must be wrong. It didn’t occur to them that they each might see things the other missed or that together they might see things in a more complex and useful light. Nor did it occur to them to ask the other what led him to see things the way he did. They already knew: the other guy was either mad or bad! The best they could do at this point – in fact, all they could do at this point – was make the same assertions and counterassertions over and over again in the desperate, if deluded, hope that they could get the other guy to see things his way.

And…scene.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:
Attempting to enforce maximized co-operation is merely to reward manipulators. People will co-operate when they actually believe that supporting other(s)’ goal(s) is also the best way to achieve their own. Demanding altruism is merely sanctimonious twaddle.

Highly manipulative phrasing. Would you like your reward in redeemable credit card points?

No one is demanding altruism. Someone suggested that it was the ideal social skill. Plus, demanding altruism is a paradox. The whole point of altruism is that it’s voluntary.

If you read what I wrote, you’ll recall I held up assertion and problem-solving as ideal social skills.

I don’t see how “assertion” and “problem-solving” become an attempt to enforce maximized co-operation. Rather, they will lead to the natural cooperation you describe above – because each person is standing up for themselves, and they are also systematically addressing individual and joint problems in a constructive – dare I say, collaborative – way.

As I pointed out, in the iterative, evolving process of living on this planet, collaboration tends to spontaneously dominate. The ol’ invisible hand.

You’re the one who keeps talking about enforcers. You’re the one that wants to call in the cops and army and have all the rules.

I have continually pointed out that most of that is unnecessary – the war, the rules, the enforcement. People can negotiate and mend their own fences without your interference.

I’m the minimalist here.

This is probably what’s infuriating you. So you keep trying to assert that I’m the one trying to enforce something. You’ve been exposed, dude. Own it. You’re the manipulator.

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote:

Chock full of “straw men” (misrepresented arguments you go on to defeat, leaving the originals untouched).

BTW, equality of outcome is a nonsense goal. A soccer game, e.g., where you must immediately allow the other team to score unopposed whenever you go ahead is a farce, and no one would willingly play it.

You’re projecting again. I never said anything about equality. You have raised the equality thing and marxist drivel all on your own out of nowhere. Misrepresented (non-existent) arguments you go on to…etc.

We’ll have to set up a “Brian Bingo” game.

It’s irredeemably implicit. Co-operation is agreed-on division of labor for a shared outcome. This is NOT something which can be substituted for competition, but can only follow it and somewhat exploit its results, as the latter is the only way to find out what works best. Co-operation requires most of the options to have been excluded up front, and in practice (in political or societal terms) this means filtered and decided by self-anointed experts. Unless they’re selected by an even more enlightened and even smaller set of uber-experts. Who, of course, are self-selected. Who else would be competent to do that?

So in practice, you get to this:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

Those you seem to consider are being inspirationally co-operative are being philanthropic only in the most self-righteous and arrogant (and de facto destructive) manner since the days of the Spanish Inquisition. They are the ones the US Founders warned against. “Vain and arrogant men … ”

Co-operation with, e.g., international actors like Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad, Putin, Abbas, Kim, Nasrallah, Erdogan, and so on is Chamberlainian wisdom, and will reap the same reciprocity. Right about now, most of those people look at the US and think, “Indeed, a fool and his money (and power) are soon parted!”

Keep your eyes on North Korea. It’s a pure case of those who demand co-operation or else. So far, it has achieved 3 generations or so of citizens stunted, starved, and stultified unto death. Which reminds me. Recently NK claimed its scientists had harnessed fusion, a world first. Why not ask if they’d like to help LPP out? 😆

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote: People will co-operate when they actually believe that supporting other(s)’ goal(s) is also the best way to achieve their own.

…

Calling Americans primarily self-interested and greedy is not only inaccurate, it is the most outrageous falsehood, 180° opposed to the facts.

Isn’t “cooperating when you believe supporting others goals is the best way to achieve your own” the same as acting out of self-interest?

And yet, you’re saying Americans are not acting out of their self interest? Were they coerced? So, should we NOT act out of self-interest? You’re confusing me.

I’m sure you will shrilly assert that something is implicit here, but I’m just not sure what.

So, what are Americans primarily? I like to think of us as a cantankerous collection of misfit immigrants who have developed a fabulous way of coordinating their collaboration through a great set of laws and due process and rewards for individual achievement, but who unfortunately have a double standard and tend to support despots overseas, falling short of their own ideals.

Also, did anyone say self interest was a bad thing? That’s what “assertion” as a social skill is about. People need to be able to assert their own interests. It’s extra work for me to try to anticipate what your needs are, much easier for you to assert them. The more people develop that skill, the more the world will reflect the proper allocation of resources. Again, that’s what the whole invisible hand of the market is about. It depends on people being able to assert their self interests.

I’m all about figuring out what people’s “true preference” is. Can’t do that if they aren’t expressing it.

And finally, “altruism” is also a form of self-interest, in which the self now identifies with the whole. Not for everyone. Takes a certain type of person to pull that off.

[emmetb]

Attempting to enforce maximized co-operation is merely to reward manipulators. People will co-operate when they actually believe that supporting other(s)’ goal(s) is also the best way to achieve their own. Demanding altruism is merely sanctimonious twaddle.

I beg to differ, people have a built-in, hard-wired capacity for co-operation, altruism, empathy, love etc. These things are much more than just masqueraded selfish impulses. As a species, as a planet, our survival crucially depends on all these “soft”-values, at least as much as on the “hard”-values. The mere fact that there are these biological traits proves this: otherwise evolution would surely have unburdened us from such excess bagage.

The question about how soft/hard boiled you like your leaders still remains of course. I’m not too cynical in this respect. The higher educated people are, the more they start paying attention also to the “soft”-values. I do believe that the more well-informed, empowered people get. The more they start to appreciate moral leaders. Generally speaking that is.

[Brian H]

emmetb wrote:

Attempting to enforce maximized co-operation is merely to reward manipulators. People will co-operate when they actually believe that supporting other(s)’ goal(s) is also the best way to achieve their own. Demanding altruism is merely sanctimonious twaddle.

I beg to differ, people have a built-in, hard-wired capacity for co-operation, altruism, empathy, love etc. These things are much more than just masqueraded selfish impulses. As a species, as a planet, our survival crucially depends on all these “soft”-values, at least as much as on the “hard”-values. The mere fact that there are these biological traits proves this: otherwise evolution would surely have unburdened us from such excess baggage.

The question about how soft/hard boiled you like your leaders still remains of course. I’m not too cynical in this respect. The higher educated people are, the more they start paying attention also to the “soft”-values. I do believe that the more well-informed, empowered people get. The more they start to appreciate moral leaders. Generally speaking that is.

Such vocabulary begs the question; it has nothing to say about social structure and polity. In practice, it is never something which is left to operate “on its own” but is institutionalized as de facto enforced “sharing”. In the end, the self-contradiction kills the noble gold-egg-laying goose. It is, further, an unfortunate fact of demonstrable human nature that those who are the recipients of the “sharing” quickly, almost instantly, take the proceeds as their due and become passive and demanding of its continuance and expansion. And elect those who claim they’ll make damn sure the greedy fatcats don’t turn off the spigot. Which leads to a steady exodus of fatcats, so in the end you have Chicago or Detroit. Main products: enthusiastically crooked governors and community agitator senators.

Rezwan, your use of the utterly bogus “bombed Iraq and killed 100,000 civilians” BS from the inane and thoroughly discredited politicized Lancet study betrays your real agenda and bias. That number was a ludicrous extrapolation of highly selective interviews onto the whole population, and in effect blamed American action for most of the guerrilla killing of civilians. Not to mention counting any fighter wearing civilian clothes as a non-combatant. Which was all of them (a high war crime under the Hague Conventions called “Perfidy”, by the way — wearing civvies and hiding in the civilian population; the Convention assigns 100% of the responsibility for collateral casualties to the “Perfidious” ones, those disguising themselves, as I’m sure you do not know. See also Hamas, which Obeanzo is funding co-operatively to the tune of hundreds of millions, and growing.)

About the bankrupt city (cities) in CA; their problem is basically that they have turned over the keys to the treasury to the unions, who have stripped the joint. And can’t be cut back, and who keep every pol in sight bought. The payroll/staffing computers apparently are even programmed in such a way that salaries and staff can’t be reduced; the data entry routines don’t permit such blasphemy! The “sanctuary” town Maywood I mentioned is 50% illegal immigrants, who pay no property tax, and who are untouchable even for (e.g.) drunk driving — which reduced policing to a farce and shambles. The town is hoping/assuming it will be absorbed by nearby Bell, only slightly larger and in almost as bad shape. It’s uncertain whether Bell will be smart enough to resist swallowing that decaying horse and thus finishing itself off, too.

[Aeronaut]

“And finally, “altruism” is also a form of self-interest, in which the self now identifies with the whole. Not for everyone. Takes a certain type of person to pull that off. “

And be profitable and above reproach from accusatory laws that haven’t been thunk of yet. For instance, just last year we (the general public) learned from Dopenhagen that burning fossil fuels was a crime of the very worst kind and degree. :bug:

Yes, Brian, you’re absolutely right about the small size of the sample of the population that 1) Sees opportunities that he or she is looking at, 2) Leads the herd in mobilizing resources such as capital, training, regulation, manufacturing, sales, service, regulation, and publicity (for a warmup- the list is far, far more extensive) 3) Sees the need for and begins mobilizing overwhelming political support, thus joining the ruling class.

Rezwan has a very solid point about seeing if the other guy’s been wronged in the name of expediency. He probably has, and it won’t be resolved fast enough for my liking without the risk of using arms- unless I can show all sides more profit in not fighting.

[Author]

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