Compartmentalizing

[tomclarke]

I don't know where the stupid idea of passing laws to fix things caught on.

It caught on in ancient Babylon. It's called the Code of Hammurabi.

Then some Bedouin by the name of Moses hallucinated about a burning bush (must have been some good argot-based LSD in his rice) and he got the funny idea that the big man upstairs having rules to fix things might make men more obedient, if it hinged on whether you got to enjoy paradise after you died.

True progressives are about "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".

Neo-moralist progressives are merely deluded atheists who are closeted cheated chiliasts that project the same religious cultism onto their new gaiaist-collectivist religion.
It's really a revival of the old Asherah wife-of-El goddess religion that was suppressed out of the pre-Torah protoisrealite culture, complete with the Maypole (i.e. Asherah Tree) dance on Mayday (now become Earth Day).

Laws only work where 99+% have no beef with the law.

I have been an adherent to the Law of Thelema for a very long time. I'd hardly consider myself a progressive.

Another name for progressive (when they were more unified esp.) is statist.

Now imagine depending on the Post Office or the DMV for moral uplift.

Liberty is generally recognized as a bad thing and rightly so. The only thing worse is the kind of government required to eliminate its bad effects.

It is not so simple. For example, in this country we used to have an idea that driving when drunk was OK - if you were careful. It has become progressively more illegal, with higher penalties, as time continues. Public opinion has more or less tracked the change in law - now it is considered a really bad thing to do.

This is an example where people's idea about what is an acceptable limitation on personal liberty to keep others safe has varied. And real laws, with enforcable teeth, have been part of that variation.

Which comes first? the change in public mood or the law with teeth? They go together, but laws can lead a change in mood as long as they do not go too far from what is thought reasonable.

In this case:
(1) the law works
(2) the current law would have been regarded as unacceptable by most if introduced initially, without a long period of social & legal change.

However, it is true there are some laws where non-compliance creates major problems trhat would not exist without the law. Drugs. That is a different kettle of fish.

[tomclarke]

Just to return to the topic:

Compartmentalisation


We are all subject to our prejudices. Good engineers and physicists know this and value facts above opinion (even their own!).

If you don't realise your ideas can be quite likely wrong then you are not a practicing engineer. I am less sure this applies to physics since a single lucky guess can get you a long way - but it certainly applies to great physicists.

Some problems are well defined and maybe our intuition in that area will be reliable. Some are so complex that it requires immense effort to workout "best guess" probabilities. It does not mean you cannot or should not do it, just that the facts are not easy.

Climate change is such an issue. And without immense effort prejudice will win all the time.

With Polywell most on this site are biased, wish PW to succeed, probably rate chances of success much higher than is realistically the case.

I get really annoyed with Economists. As a group they seem unable to acknowledge the extraordinary weakness of their theories which depend (explicitly) on unrealistic assumptions. Nothing wrong with such a theory, it can give insight, but for economists then to treat the theories as though they were bound to be applicable is madness.

Anyway, physicists and engineers have less temptation to do this because the numbers matter, and are verifiable.

Best wishes, Tom

[MSimon]

tom,

The most critical thing is how non-compliant people feel (in general) about their non-compliance. If they are unrepentant (drugs) they are harder to cow and enforcement becomes a problem.

Another example: Sarbanes Oxley is onerous and causing us no end of venture capital problems. But the number of people directly affected is small and from the outside the rules do not look too bad. So enforcement is not going to be seriously obstructed.

In general: the fewer the rules the better. It makes adapting to changed circumstances easier.

[Diogenes]

Well, first of all, it didn't get censored, and Secondly, it's not speech or an idea, so the concept of censorship doesn't even apply.

I guess words on paper are not speech. They could have been speech. They may yet be speech. They could even now be speech. But marks on paper? Obviously a visual representation. And Chinese ideographs are just pictures. And use pictures to express ideas? I dunno. It doesn't seem possible.

Are you nuts?

Maybe.

I am an originalist. I am someone who believes that words and sentences are the weak embodiment of concepts and ideas, and that words (as ineffective as they are at representing concepts) happened to be the only means available to the founders for passing those ideas to the future.

The words must be interpreted in accordance with their meaning when they were written. It is the idea which is important, not the words used to describe the idea.

My understanding is that Freedom of speech, and of the press, exists for the same reason as the right to bear arms. To curtail government abuse by insuring people have the means to criticize it. It is a refutation of the "Lese Majesty" concept.

I have no doubt at all that those Towering figures of the founding of America would have wasted no time whatsoever in throwing Robert Mapplethorpe in prison.

BTW I happened to see at least part of the Maplethorpe exhibit. I liked his style. Not all of his work appealed to me.

This proves my point that it was not censored.

I must say if the government is going to waste money on art they could have and usually do a lot worse than Maplethorpe. The usual is to prefer talentless hacks. Less chance of losing the funding.

Ole TJ summed up my opinion pretty well.

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."


The Federal Government has no business funding art.

[Diogenes]

The primary benefit of allowing convenience abortions is that it reduces the incident of false reporting of rape in order to obtain an abortion.

One other thing it does is that it keeps government out of reproductive choices.

Reproductive choices? What a Newspeak term!

It is not a reproductive choice. THAT choice was already made. It is a choice to kill one's own offspring after already having chosen to reproduce.

It is the same as invoking a right to eat , and then vomiting out the food.

The other thing it does is prevent the formation of a black market.

And 95% compliance is not enough if you want to live in a limited government Republic. Mexico (and soon America) is being overrun with violent criminals based on only 5% non-compliance.

Americans are ungovernable simply because they will not obey laws they don't believe in. My kind of people.

Not true. Many Americans have long obeyed laws they don't believe in. They even obey laws that they don't believe are the slightest bit legal. (Mandatory Insurance e.g.) Eventually, Americans lose faith in illegal laws, and if they are onerous enough, eventually they stop complying with them. It is the Criminal minded that disobey laws immediately.

For the sake of the rule of law such laws ought not be passed. And when passed they should be quickly repealed. If respect for law is worth anything.

The abortion "law" was not enacted. It was imposed by troublemakers who were the product of FDR/Truman damage to the Legal system.
At the time it was imposed, the vast majority of Americans thought it was wrong, but lo and behold, they accepted the court's ruling and complied for awhile. Eventually they manifested that Rebelliousness that you are fond of, and fought back against this illegal "law", making them your "kind of people."

[Diogenes]

As George Will pointed out, if you believe that Witches are the servants of Satan, and they will do something evil to you if they are tolerated, then killing them is indeed a reasonable thing to do.

Well believing in the supernatural and satan is a thing christians do. It comes with the believe system (any believe system actually).
So they automatically accept the existance of witches, which means they are all for burning them at the stake.

Monkeys are the same as people.

No, people have evolved to have greater skills and perception.


Just so with Christians.

[Diogenes]

All this petty bickering reminds me of human behavior when there is no fundamental crisis, no peril at the bottom end of Maslow's pyramid, so that people are milling around aimlessly in made-up conflicts over trivial matters. What the USA seems to need is something to polarize it; to polarize the whole of the USA together, not more self-perpetuating partisan nonsense.

For decades, I have always speculated that the world would be better off if we were attacked by Aliens. It would give us a common non-human foe to unite against.

[Betruger]

It would be a positive, but overall just more of the same. What the USA needs is a culture change, to move it clockwise or counterclockwise on that cycle in the other thread.

I think, personally, I might be completely out of patience for politics. It's a waste of time so long as people in general are so complacent and apathetic.

[Skipjack]

For decades, I have always speculated that the world would be better off if we were attacked by Aliens. It would give us a common non-human foe to unite against.

There is a German sci fi novel series where pretty much that happens.

[DeltaV]

I have always speculated that the world would be better off if we were attacked by Aliens. It would give us a common non-human foe to unite against. :)

H.G. Wells and Psy-Ops agree. That's why they've been using the orbiting masers (in low-power mode, of course) to prime the collective consciousness.

[Diogenes]

For decades, I have always speculated that the world would be better off if we were attacked by Aliens. It would give us a common non-human foe to unite against.

There is a German sci fi novel series where pretty much that happens.

Though i've never read it, I believe it is also the basis for L. Ron Hubbard's (Religious confidence man extraordinaire ) book 'Battlefield Earth."

It is also part of the plot of one of my favorite SciFi books, "Pandora's Planet" by Christopher Anvil (Science Fiction comedy at it's finest!)

Harry Harrison (Bill the Galactic Hero, The Stainless Steel Rat series) and Keith Laumer (Retief to the Rescue,It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Galaxy ) both wrote various books in the SciFi comedy genre.

Haven't done much book reading in recent years. Haven't had time for escapism for awhile.

[DeltaV]

I grew up reading sci-fi. I stopped in adulthood, when I realized reality is even stranger...

[MSimon]

It is not a reproductive choice.

Has been for at least 2,500 years that we know of. Either openly or black market.

First comes the denial of reality. Then you make up any thing you want. I don't see how that helps you solve problems.

Because we love this idea of prohibitions, we can't live without them. They are our very favorite thing because we know how to solve difficult, social, economic, and medical problems -- a new criminal law with harsher penalties in every category for everybody.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm

[choff]

I liked this old sci-fi novel where a businessman wanted to unite the world by creating a Martian invasion. So he kidnaps people from around the world, then transports them to Mars, brainwashes them, arms them with flintlocks. He sends them back to earth, where they tell humanity to 'surrender or die.' Can't remember the name of it now.

[MirariNefas]

Ever see the movie Watchmen? Humanity is united after a mastermind nukes several cities and frames a godlike superhero as the common enemy of mankind. In the original graphic novels (I'm told), the plot went that the mastermind instead framed fictional aliens.

It's much better than really being attacked by aliens. Any aliens capable of reaching across the stars would just dump thousands of tons of relatavistic projectile and cause a mass extinction. Fake aliens offer all of the benefits with none of the end of humanity.