A Social Commentator From The Past Worth Checking Into

I have to admit that I was not aware of Hannah Arendt, until now. From this New York Review of books piece I'm sorry I didn't connect with her back in the 70's.

The only other comment I will make now is that these comments here of her's, at least, show some insight that seems quite prescient in today's context. Do Check this out.

Hannah Arendt: From an Interview

Hannah Arendt

OCTOBER 26, 1978 ISSUE

Hannah Arendt made the comments that follow in 1974 during an interview with the French writer Roger Errera.

A Footnote On My "War of Ideas" Post

Towards the end of that post I put forth the (not so original) ideal that, as a global population, we clash now because all nationalities, and cultures, are in, figuratively speaking, each other's faces and that is not a good thing. The underlying assumption here being that so many of the cultures of the world perceive things quite differently; often at a fundamental level.

Just to give you some perspective on that I present now an interesting look into how social scientists were themselves were made aware of just how different such perceptive foundations could be. It is well worth the read.

We Aren’t the World

By Ethan Watters

The War Of Ideas Indeed

And in this conflict, certainly, you need to think in terms of not only keeping our interactions as non confrontational as possible, but also of realizing that prevailing your best interests, in the long run, depends on having better ideas than the other guy in the first place. Because, ultimately, how we all perceive things, especially relative to each other, determines a great deal of how much difficulty we're going to have with each other.

And in this, unfortunately, is the fulcrum at the base of the balance between still talking, and outright violence. Still talking, though definite in its need for a certain forbearance of beliefs, and rhetoric, we find distasteful, does have the beneficial tradeoff of allowing for both keeping the killing and dieing to a minimum, but also allowing us the luxury of being better able to find solutions to other pressing problems; problems, shockingly enough, it would be well for us to have the resources at hand with... You know, the stuff with which to actually apply effort in solving same?

Of course, the other thing about talking is that you might, eventually, be able to find enough common ground to work with that tolerating each other, at least for a while, might actually be better than that "politics by other means".

So, bottom line, what we're really talking about here is "thinking our way through problems" 101. Something that ought not be a game of Ad Libs at a mental institution (because that's how extra deep the new administration seems to be not thinking their way through most of government policy now).

In this you need to always be looking for better ideas because, in the end, the only true way to fight a bad idea is with a better one. You also need to keep in mind that, though unavoidable at times, letting confrontation come to harsh, physical interactions, makes continued thinking very difficult. It also takes options away for doing much of anything else, on an always crowded list of priorities; and at rates that can increase more than you ever seem to realize beforehand.

One last thing to reiterate, though. There actually could be common ground for which the West and the East (to use the simplest of ideological divides) could come to that might have a chance to provide the tolerance we need, and the time frame to be useful. And that is the safety valve that the means for all people, with the mind to, could move again. Could find the literal, and figurative, sense of "frontier" once more.

I say this because I believe that a big part of the problem we face now in the clash of cultures is that we have each other's manifestation "in our faces" as it were. All of the time. We have it there so much, in fact, that in quite literally drives a good number of us mad with revulsion. A revulsion that can sometimes come from world views so divergent that there is simply little hope of reconciling them.

The world, you see, is not only too small for certain numbers of people, as an outright physical problem. It is also too small for people to live in cognitive harmony when other people's vision of reality splashes over them so readily, in and out of the Infosphere. What is needed is an assurance that all cultures of the planet will have not only the opportunity to go forth into the cosmos, to find their own worlds, they will have their own path outward that will be their's alone; so that their worlds will be given an ever increasing cushion between them and the rest of us, as they progress outwards.

This means, in case you're not paying attention, is a grand commitment by humanity to provide collective infrastructure to both overcome earth's immediate gravity well, but also to have the productive capability, based from the moon initially (I would think), to build habitat ships we've only begun to imagine now. Habitat ships that might be allocated on a combination of schemes: some via a direct relationship to resource input,  but others more in line with a lottery. A compromise, in other words, between inclusivity, and the right of commensurate return.

In doing this, we would then have, by that time, the quite sensible realization that the home planet, and it's solar system, must be made a mandatory no conflict zone. A collective protectorate of both a hatchery, and a living legacy. Something those that remained would dedicate themselves to not only because it's a viable way forward while we struggle to grow up more, but also because great combinations of culture would come forth to help preserve at least some sense of the power of diversity.

This is the kind of dreaming you can do if you can keep promise with both mind and soul. Keep promise with the idea that humanity no longer needs to play the never ending game of an economy of scarcity. Any more than war is the only way to hoard, and to keep that hoard.

Think about these things. Ask questions. Become better informed. Find your path and take action.

Sam Harris: Winning the War of Ideas | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

 

Real Time with Bill Maher 

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Commentary On The Decision To Give Corporations The Free Speech Right...

...Of unlimited spending in campaign financing. Related, of course, to corporations first being recognized as citizens in the first place. Citizens, it would appear, that have a great number of the rights of citizenship, but correspondingly few of the responsibilities.

In any case, though, this commentary (provided by Russell Mae) was indeed quite prescient. It also illustrates the fact that, whether you agree, or disagree, with the man making the comments, you do have to agree that he bases his opinions in reason, and sound thinking. He still does, in fact, and though certainly passionate about his positions, they are still worth the listen, and your consideration. Please do check him out regularly now on the GQ YouTube channel.

Keith Olbermann Prophecy 7 years ago

 

Russell Mae

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To Have A Viable Opposition That Can Actually Hope...

...To provide us with the chance for meaningful change, we need to become more than a revised version of “reform” minded liberals.

The basic starting problem with being “reform” minded in the first place is that it assumes a residual faith in the current economic operating model now in place. And in that faith is an inherent understanding that you will keep buying into the basic foundations that support it. Which is why it was hardly surprising that Clinton, even as she proclaimed in a campaign speech, before she lost, that she would do away with money in politics, was a major recipient of big money donations. The Clinton's have always, after all, been their own kind of pro business (trying to bring forth the “Third Way,” and all). In this, at the core, is the belief that, thought obviously flawed, Capitalism, with the right kinds of reform legislation in place, can be managed in both a fiscally sound, as well as socially equitable, way.

The problem is folks, nothing could be further from the truth.

The only way for a new opposition to make a strong challenge for change is to offer a form of Progressive Realism that makes sense both technologically, socially, and in practical terms within Democratic norms. And to do that we must first realize that Capitalism is in fact quite obsolete.

It truly can't take us where we need to go. Our sensibilities have changed. The environments now possible to live and work in have changed. A completely new perspective on how we go about doing the production,distribution, and management, of needs, where individual liberty and collective responsibility, are in balance, must be found, and utilized to come up with something fundamentally new.

And then, having found that, and starting on the ongoing work of better defining it, we set out to organize working people like it has never been done before. Organizing working people not by particular industry, but by the mere fact of being a wage earner. Organization that must work the full span of commercial life. Organization that bases itself on the proposition that Capitalism has had its day (for a host of very real reasons) and it is way past time to replace it. And the only way to do that is to be able to put very large chunks of the entire economy on strike.

If we can do that. If we can show the money people that the days of their counters are numbered, I can assure you that the powers that be will have to stop and listen to us. They'll have to stop and realize that they are either going to be part of the solution, or just unavoidable collateral damage (though definitely in a non violent sense).

Obviously I think I have outlined a place to start from here. I've put a lot of years into trying to come up with the reasons that support my basic contention (obsolescence), as well as the why's my alternative would fit the requirement. What I ask of you all now is to begin looking into this yourselves. Ask questions. Find the flaws(I don't have all of the questions yet so I can assure you that I don't have anywhere even near all of the answers to what I'm missing in my alternative. Which is no more than to say that no one mind is going to be able to figure out the details in any solution, much less mine). Maybe come up with a better alternative. 

The major point here is that it simply cannot be based on Capitalism anymore. And that is absolutely where we need to start from.

America’s New Opposition

BY JEDEDIAH PURDY
February 1, 2017
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALEX NABAUM

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The Only Part of Globalism That is "Soulless..."

...Now is the Capitalism that dominates it.

Interacting with our global neighbors both generally, or with trade more specifically, is precisely what you want to be doing. Engaging as many of these folks as you can, as positively as you can (which is always the hard part when so many of them can be so inimical to our best ideals).

You do that because positive with the easier neighbors makes everyone stronger because it leverages the efforts of both; and positive, however limited, with the not so easy makes it at least possible to keep talking. If you keep talking (patiently, professionally, and behind the scenes) you can at least let them know a bottom line for us that's expressed a good deal more subtly than a simplistic threat.

The real problem we have here is that, to a very real extent, the kind of trade that Capitalism demands, even of the more general, interactive kind, is absolutely Soulless. It is precisely because it is a product of the age of reason; the age of the onset of the emancipation of knowledge in the form of repeatable type, and the book that type made possible. If it is anything, it is the epitome of cold logic.

As such it calls for things to be produced where that production is the most efficient. Which is certainly not to say for any reasons like, say, where there are the most faithful? The most likeable? The people everyone would agree are simply "cooler" than the rest of us? Or even more basic: the people who simply need a job (because, of course, that's everybody)? Do you think asking for  production placement on these kinds of criteria will gain us all fame and fortune?

By the same token, it also calls for the continuous flow of capital; by which is meant that imbalances of currencies shouldn't be allowed to develop. Too much of a particular currency in another country, or group of countries for that matter, will likely spell trouble; especially for the country responsible for that currency. That means, at the end of the day, that where you buy you should also sell; as well as to say, where you sell, you must also buy (because that's how we both get to continue making things).

That last proposition gets trickier these days because it combines with the "efficiency" proposition in ways the rationalists that started it all could not have foreseen:

1. That the information needed to make something would become so easily transferable.
2. That getting things from one dispersed market to another could possibly become so scaled up.
3. That competition would possibly become so intense.
4. that capital itself could come to move about at the blink of an eye.

So. Jobs now go to either the poorest country (which is where the cheapest labor usually is), the robots, or the country that wants to vie with being the poorest again. You can pretend, at least for a while, that you can work Capitalism by betraying the rules I just listed, but in the end it will have its needs met, or you will be out in the cold.

The Communists thought they could betray those rules because they thought their own dogma would solve all (and yes, they were still trying to be Capitalists, just of the centrally planned, the state is primary profit beneficiary, type). Being out in the cold for the old Soviet Union meant complete collapse.

For the Chinese, who have, admittedly, done a lot better, starting out, with their more "state hands off" approach, the picture isn't so rosy anymore either; as even they are now having a great deal of difficulty reconciling both old party dogma, with the rapid realization that growth by cheap labor, and protectionism, can only take you so far. A difficulty exacerbated by the far greater discrepancy between the very many have nots still in their nation, with the still quite limited numbers doing so very much better.

What one is left wondering about with people like Mr. Sessions is that how can you let ideology blind you to the way things actually work in the world. After all, one would assume the guy still believes in Capitalism, even after whatever his theology might be. Does he think America can be "Great Again" by running our economic operating system within a geographic bunker, itself within a fortress? A fortress-bunker with guns bristling at the parapets as our main marketing slogan? Will capital flow as it's supposed to then? Will the idiot Capitalists that still support the crowd behind him take this calmly? And even if our capital holders did, do you think the rest of that lot in the world would?

The thing is here... I understand why Mr. Session's boss would want to pander to the need for people to feel that their jobs can be made safe. There's a lot of worry, and passion, swirling around the issue of jobs. But, as in life, in the world of Capitalism there is no such thing as "safe." And you must either learn to deal with that, or accept the fact that maybe Capitalism has had it's time, and that time is over now. It is, in fact, long past over.

If you really want a more real effect on ensuring the continuance of not only meeting your needs, but of actually prospering as well, maybe you should start considering the possibility that a new way to do things is required. Absolutely Required.

And I ask you. Honestly. Why should that proposition be so hard to even consider at all?

Why should considering that be any more difficult than accepting the fact that your computer needs a new operating system from time to time. It needs it because things keep changing so damned pervasively, and quickly. Not only because there's better hardware available, but because the best way to utilize the hardware is to go about how you use it quite differently. And the best way to work interactively, with all of the others trying to do the same thing, is to do it quite differently.

Trump’s hard-line actions have an intellectual godfather: Jeff Sessions

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So Many Intelligent, Clever, Creative People...

...In the arts. In the Sciences. In intellectual critique. In economic, and political, discourse in general.

And on the one hand we have a brand of thought (with lots of sub brands) that would happily suggest that we are on the rising wave of great success, all over the world (whether the end is coming or not); despite the hard challenges that are still out their to solve (a prominent sub brand of which just won the White House).

Then, on the other hand, we have clusters of thought swirling around each other, all on a range of "diametrically opposed to," down to "seriously questioning," the "one brand" just mentioned above. Folks who, in a significant majority, think that the sub brand now residing in the White House, is either a "final seal" broken, or at least a "this can't possibly be happening here" event.

From some of the best of these people we get the following (from the linked article below):

"...Mark Fisher, who died earlier this month, said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Certainly it’s more fun. Our imaginations are so overpowered and outmaneuvered by the toxic gravity of the global economy that we are happy to amuse ourselves watching the whole world burn instead of doing anything to keep that from happening..."

Trust me, as a member of this second group, I can empathize where this feeling comes from. How can any of us who wade as deep as possible into the Infosphere these days not be overwhelmed, at least in respect to how we get so many intimidating problems in a constant state of "In your face." And one of the big aspects in all of this, especially as to the degree that it contributes to the difficulty of solving any of them, is the fact that they are all interconnected.

Some of all of this is certainly alluded to in Jessa Crispin's article "High On The Apocalypse;" which is where I got that quote from. She, in turn, draws from the recent book "The Ends Of The World," by Deborah Danowski, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. A book that, as Barnes & Noble give in overview:

"...In this book, philosopher Déborah Danowski and anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro offer a bold overview and interpretation of these current discourses on ‘the end of the world’, reading them as thought experiments on the decline of the West’s anthropological adventure Ð that is, as attempts, though not necessarily intentional ones, at inventing a mythology that is adequate to the present. This work has important implications for the future development of ecological practices and it will appeal to a broad audience interested in contemporary anthropology, philosophy, and environmentalism."

As I said, I understand where all of this is coming from but, as someone who has also spent the better part of the last 20 years trying to articulate a better vision to start from; a vision as to how change should come about, as well as someone who has also tried to give this vision at least the beginnings of a sound philosophical foundation... As that someone, I do have to say that it is quite frustrating... To Say The Least!

I know. A good part of the problem has to do with my own choices. I am anything but a practitioner of the "Accredited" path of "Successful Credibility Attainment." Having a passion for ideas, change and writing, even if you had to take a lot of time off earning a living as systems analyst, developer, usually puts you on one of a few specific road maps, through a limited set of usual suspects in education, and vocation. Being a slow learner, I suppose, as well as always being quite averse to the idea that higher education must also equal high debt, I had to take a sort of "great polar route" to get where I was when I first began my advocacy (back in 2000, or thereabouts, when I wrote, and first hosted, my own web site: Old Softy Concerns, named after the DBA business designation, Old Softy Computer Assistance, that I still maintain). The philosophy wasn't articulated much then, but I had a good start on the alternative.

In some ways, though, I think that my "great polar route" was the only way anybody could have gotten into as big a departure from standard economic thought as mine is. Floating about outside the mainstream does have the occasional upside after all. Especially as it might have allowed a better buffer against set ways of thinking already in place.

Perhaps more important, however, is how my serendipitous sojourn into computing, and system thought (I dug into data processing mostly because Marshall McLuhan got me convinced I should understand information processing at a deeper level), intimately connected with integrated solutions to complex problems.

First of all you stop attacking Capitalism from the main thrust of inequality. That's still important obviously, but to change the tenor of how this gets framed at the get go is to start the attack on a purely technological level; hence the theme: Capitalism is Obsolete.

By its own fall into hyper competition has it rendered itself so dependant on technological change, and yet, as a part of that fall, with so much change having already been rendered (especially as it relates to the electrified retrieval of experience) has it come to the point where it cannot possible hope to cope anymore with the complexity of its own, disperse matrices of ever faster transactions; let alone all of the collateral damage all of thase transactions put into effect.

This thrust then lets you also explore the fact that the very nature of work is in question now. After all, how can it remain simply a commodity if it can be done more effectively with robots. But then, of course, if it's only robots with jobs, are we going to give them all Visa, and Master cards? And the rest of us do the best we can at niche servitor duties?

Questioning the nature of work also lets you segue into the whole aspect of just how fucked up it is any more to continue thinking that social organization must necessarily be founded in a factory mindset; any more than having our needs met must be based on mass production and consumption. Being specialized, after all, necessarily means creating automatic interests groups; inevitably setting up a great deal more of "anything that's good for you is probably going to be bad for me." Which can also segue one into considering that, having as you only options, the choice either to stop poisoning your neighbors, or live on the streets unemployed, isn't exactly going to put one in a place of great incentives to do the right thing.

On the technological side you can also begin to question how any Democracy can work when information itself is money now; given the nature information is having it be both money literally, and figuratively. A Democracy depends on an informed electorate after all. In the big "It's all About Net Gain" game, however, information seldom flows for the benefit of the receiver.

Then you can get into not only the usual, and very real, inequality issues, as well as how money itself, and the very fact of a cost based economic operating system (where who pays and who benefits is always at issue) is the real impediment to solving nearly all of the big social, and environmental problems.

You then make it clear that, if we had a clean, not very technically demanding, source of energy, (which, as it happens, I have proposed via sea based, Yen Tornado Turbines, and the production of liquid hydrogen), and the free flow of information, we would have it in our power to set things up anyway we wanted. The only question to follow up being how do you go about managing it equitably, and that, I believe, I have also done.

So all I'm really saying here is this. Come on you guys. Meet me halfway here. Take some time. Look into this. Maybe... Just maybe imagining an alternative to Capitalism can be easier than imagining an end to everything. And I don't know about you, but I have really gotten fed up with all of the apocalypse themed aspects of the Infosphere; whether it be entertaining, distracting, or otherwise. It's depressing. And it's self defeating.

Get over it! Anything is possible. Truly! Really bad things obviously. But, with a little effort, really good things are still possible as well. The fact of the matter is it ain't over till the majority of us not happy with that other brand give up trying. If that's what you want to do fine. Just be up front about it and accept your fate.

High on the Apocalypse

Team Orwell is rooting for the end of the world

Jessa CrispinJanuary 30, 2017

Capitalism Is Obsolete