Media "Control" of the Elections?

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tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Mankind is at least evolutionarily adjusted to small tribe hunter-gatherer societies. Not that that life then was long, or happy, or even particularly moral. But it worked. Civilisation since then has been a glorious and terrible experiment.

Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong. So we are still trying to find some way in which, with the aid of an apparently almost infinitely malleable cortical structure, and external technology that has revolutionised our environment, we can coexist with each other satisfactorily.

There is no law to say that this should be possible, or the reverse.

Best wishes, Tom

hanelyp
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Post by hanelyp »

IntLibber wrote:Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. The value of these will only go up in a serious inflationary environment.

If I could cash out of my online business right now, it would all be going into those metals.
Mention of cash assets being moved into gold and other precious metals brought to mind something I'd heard about limits on private ownership of gold during the great depression. Looking it up I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102. Might it happen again?

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

Mankind is at least evolutionarily adjusted to small tribe hunter-gatherer societies.
We're evolutionarily programmed for rape and murder too, but civilization tells us these are wrong. The best thing about Man is he can rise above his programming.
But it worked.
In what sense did it work? It was worse in every way than practically any civilization.
Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong.
Shrug. Small tribes go wrong too. In fact, they're much more likely to.

This attitude is one thing I found extremely irritating about Jared Diamond's books. The notion that we're not vastly better off in modern societies is just so ridiculous and postmoden and passe.

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

hanelyp wrote:
IntLibber wrote:Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. The value of these will only go up in a serious inflationary environment.

If I could cash out of my online business right now, it would all be going into those metals.
Mention of cash assets being moved into gold and other precious metals brought to mind something I'd heard about limits on private ownership of gold during the great depression. Looking it up I found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102. Might it happen again?
They can sure try. I doubt that they would get away with it without violence.

I wouldnt keep it in a bank safety deposit box, though. Banks get seized and robbed by thugs and govt thugs.

IntLibber
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Post by IntLibber »

TallDave wrote:
Mankind is at least evolutionarily adjusted to small tribe hunter-gatherer societies.
We're evolutionarily programmed for rape and murder too, but civilization tells us these are wrong. The best thing about Man is he can rise above his programming.
But it worked.
In what sense did it work? It was worse in every way than practically any civilization.
Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong.
Shrug. Small tribes go wrong too. In fact, they're much more likely to.

This attitude is one thing I found extremely irritating about Jared Diamond's books. The notion that we're not vastly better off in modern societies is just so ridiculous and postmoden and passe.
Actually, Dr. Robin Hanson's work has proven that other than immunization and principles of sepsis and public sanitation, no other health care technology has done anything to extend the average life expectancy.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong.
Tribes don't always do well either. Not against each other. Not against civilization. Civilization exists because it produces more net energy than competing forms of organization. When it stops doing that other forms dominate.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

Right -

Civilisation produces more resources per person than lack of. Unfortunately humans are not well designed to share these resources and the work that makes them in a way that works well for the civilised. Inevitably civilisation has led to pyramidal structures in which a few people control most of the resources, and those at the bottom are sometimes less well off than before. [Modern industrialised societies do often offer those at the bottom more than before, but not always, and the destruction of tight-knit communities that goes with modernity, while it has many benefits, probably overall has a big negative effect on utility].

As for domination. I don't think more resources necessarily means military superiority. In our history however civilisation has gone hand in hand with military superiority. And of course the ability to support more people on given area means civilisation will tend to win through force of numbers.

Finally humans are much more sensitive to resource differences than lack of resources. When everyone on your street has 40" HDTV you feel impoverished with a 15" TV. But otherwise not. [Though, fankly, I spent my life before marriage with no TV at all perfectly happy. And others having 40" HDTV just makes me think they are sad].

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

No doubt my 63" HDTV would make you weep.
Unfortunately humans are not well designed to share these resources and the work that makes them in a way that works well for the civilised... Finally humans are much more sensitive to resource differences than lack of resources
That's a feature, not a bug. Capitalism is driven by desire for status. If we were all content with just having enough to eat and somewhere warm to sleep, the global economy would be nonexistent.
Modern industrialised societies do often offer those at the bottom more than before, but not always
About the only exception is North Korea. And even N Korean living standards are probably better than hunter-gatherer.
Actually, Dr. Robin Hanson's work has proven that other than immunization and principles of sepsis and public sanitation, no other health care technology has done anything to extend the average life expectancy.
Probably true that any single medical advance has a tiny aggregate effect, but no one is going to refuse MRI or antibiotics on the grounds they won't help them live longer.

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

Actually, Dr. Robin Hanson's work has proven that other than immunization and principles of sepsis and public sanitation, no other health care technology has done anything to extend the average life expectancy.
That is so immediately and obviously wrong, it is not even laughable. People, a very great many people, now survive and continue to lead happy productive lives when they have suffered trauma and disease which would have killed them quickly in previous centuries; Hanson's is simply not a remotely credible hypothesis.

Oh BTW, those early factories were just so awful and horrible nobody worked in them, people kept marching right out and some starving on the way back to the farms they used to work in.

Except not, because the factories were better than the farms.

There is no possibility of improving the human condition, it is a permanent consequence of intelligence as we experience it.

Differing and changing--improving--ways to play and avoid pain however, these are possible, and they are more possible in industrialized/division of
labor/meritocratic/classically liberal societies.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

alexjrgreen
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Post by alexjrgreen »

tomclarke wrote:As for domination. I don't think more resources necessarily means military superiority. In our history however civilisation has gone hand in hand with military superiority.
For an exception see:

Caral and the Earliest Peruvian Civilization: Expanded Site Data
http://www.athenapub.com/caral.htm
Ars artis est celare artem.

tomclarke
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Post by tomclarke »

TDPerk -

It is surprising, but true, that most modern interventions do relatively little to extend life. The point is that you can stop a few people from dying of a particular disease, but they then die of something else. And most are not subject to these interventions.

The big determinants of life expectancy (other than immunisation) are environmental - sepsis, lifestyle & diet. Other biggish benefits - aspirin, omega-3, beta blockers & statins for heart disease - have gone hand in hand with worsening lifestyle and so we do not see much improvement.

For many years better material standard of living meant better diet but now alas it means worse (because people eat too much).

Alex - good example - I should have said recent history.

Talldave - 'fraid so!

TDPerk
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Post by TDPerk »

It is surprising, but true, that most modern interventions do relatively little to extend life.
It isn't surprisingly true, it is grotesquely false. It is one of those things so stupid you have to be a trendy intellectual to believe it.

In fact, it is only remotely accurate to say the life expectancy of those of us who do not die young has not greatly extended, and then only if you don't count a decade or so increase as a great extension. It is only barely true if burying babies means nothing to you, or to Hanson.

Is is also simply false even on Hanson's meaningless terms --http://www.webmd.com/news/20080611/life ... RSS_PUBLIC-- to say the life expectancy is not increasing owing to medical science.

Really I am not trying to be gratuitously insulting, but you aren't making any more sense than if you were re-hypothesizing the phlogiston theory of fire.

And of course, there's what's coming -- http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=062304D.
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

Billy Catringer
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Post by Billy Catringer »

There are two relatively modern inventions that have saved more lives than any of the rest, bar soap and screen wire. If you do not understand why I say this, you have led a overly protected life.

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

TallDave wrote:
Mankind is at least evolutionarily adjusted to small tribe hunter-gatherer societies.
We're evolutionarily programmed for rape and murder too, but civilization tells us these are wrong. The best thing about Man is he can rise above his programming..

That's provided they gets new drivers loaded. If allowed to mature with the default programing in place, people aren't compatible with civilization. Unfortunately loading appropriate drivers is a complex and time consuming process, which many single parent homes cannot accomplish.



TallDave wrote: In what sense did it work? It was worse in every way than practically any civilization.
Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong.
Shrug. Small tribes go wrong too. In fact, they're much more likely to.

This attitude is one thing I found extremely irritating about Jared Diamond's books. The notion that we're not vastly better off in modern societies is just so ridiculous and postmoden and passe.

I for one vote for plumbing and electricity.


David

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

tomclarke wrote:Mankind is at least evolutionarily adjusted to small tribe hunter-gatherer societies. Not that that life then was long, or happy, or even particularly moral. But it worked. Civilisation since then has been a glorious and terrible experiment.

Any ism which makes the effective power structures larger than a small tight-knit tribe is liable to go wrong. So we are still trying to find some way in which, with the aid of an apparently almost infinitely malleable cortical structure, and external technology that has revolutionised our environment, we can coexist with each other satisfactorily.

There is no law to say that this should be possible, or the reverse.

Best wishes, Tom

I have long said that communism is an idea that works within a family structure, but not with any group of people who don't feel strong kinship for each other. People will sacrifice and support their family for the common good, but strangers? Not so much.


David

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