That is the question. Humans want to know why something exists or happens; philosophy and the sciences have thinking processes to help us determine "why". We try to find underlying reasons "why". We do have to recognize, however, that at a deep level, some concepts are simply there - they exist.
A simple example is the number, one, i. e., 1. Asking why 1 exists is a pointless exercise in sophism. 1 simply exists as the representation on unity, the existence of something: je pense, donc je suis, or in Latin, cogito, ergo sum, or in English, I think, therefore I am. Axioms are necessary as the foundation of a system of knowledge. For you metaphor lovers, one cannot build a strong house on sand, even if you build it of bricks. A house built on sand will fall ... eventually.
Now in high school physics, one learns about conservation of energy. And conservation of momentum. And conservation of angular momentum. Those concepts are supremely useful in understanding the motion of bodies and actions of all kinds of materials and our world.
Why? Why are those quantities - energy, momentum, and angular momentum - conserved (i. e., constants of motion).
This is something one can prove from deeper, more obvious axioms. All it takes is a bit of multivariable calculus and knowledge of mechanics at the level of an advanced undergraduate or first year graduate student at a good college science program. Here is a reference: Mechanics, by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, which is Volume I of Course of Theoretical Physics (translated from Russian). In my second edition, which I read in 1974, pages 13-19 cover this material. Hmmm ... in 1974, this book cost me $10 for a hardcover copy.
I won't show you the math or how those conservation laws are derived, as typing equations and Greek letters is beyond my computer skills. Here are the results.
The more fundamental axioms upon which classical mechanics are founded are the homogeneity of time, the homegeneity of space and the isotropy of space.
Homegeneity of Time
In simple terms, homogeneity of time means that under very general conditions, the motions of particles or behavior of physical systems will be the same whether one does the experiment or actions now or next year or in ten years or in a billion years in the future or in the past. From the axiom of homogeneity of time one can prove that energy is conserved.
Homgeneity of Space
In simple terms, homogeneity of space means that under very general conditons, the motions of particles or behavior of physical systems will be the same whether one does the experiment or actions here or in Nebraska or in the galaxy Andromeda. From the axiom of homogeneity of space, one can prove that momentum is conserved.
Isotropy of Space
In simple terms, isotropy of space means that under very general conditions, the motions of particles or behavior of physical systems will be the same whether one orients the system rightside up or upside down or to the left or right or at a 30 degree angle or whatever direction. From the axiom of isotropy of space, one can prove that angular momentum is conserved.
Philosophy
At the deepest level of the tree of knowledge are sound philosophical concepts. One needs to understand what are the questions and what are the deepest concepts; scientists - good scientists - try to understand "why" by standing on solid ground. And if one finds the unexplainable, one needs to re-examine the ground for ... holes.
Skepticism is essential, but once one finds good ground, one must move on to build the structures of knowledge, and fight the good fights.
The axioms of homogeneity of time and space, and isotropy of space are good ground.
[Btw, of course all this can be extended into relativistic space-time by simple generalizations of the definitions of energy, momentum and angular momentum.]
Word of the Day
"Durst" - verb [$10] archaic or dialect
Durst is an archaic past tense of 'dare', showing the old germanic foundations of English.
Sentence: Obama durst to order the killing of a US citizen without trial in blatant violation of the US Constitution: resign!
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Who Benefitted ?
Yesterday's post proved that the common man and woman obtained zero - nada - no benefit from the massive productivity gains since 1969. Where did that increased productivity come from ? Technology. New technology from computerization permitted everyone to do more work with less labor. Machines replaced people.
Expensive and time consuming studies could prove that, but our collective memory contains plenty of proof. Remember that great musical, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?" The secretarial pool and the junior executive pool no longer exist. Remember the job of receptionist at the elevator entrance on every floor? Gone. A person used to answer the telephone and take messages. No more - voice mail. Today many lawyers do their own documents and make changes; in the past a skilled legal secretary did them.
On the factory floor, fewer skilled machinists are needed as CNC machinery does their work after the set-up. Technology permits jobs to be performed in India for low wages that used to require highly paid analysts in NYC. X-rays are read in India, instead of by a US based skilled person. Plug-in modules dumb down the job of being a technician, reducing their skill - and pay levels.
You know all this deep in your mind and memory. BUT where is the profits go? Where did the gains in national income go? Who got it? Readers of yesterday's post know the common man and woman got nothing from 40 years of increasing national income.
The cynics are right. The people on top got it all. They took it all. Data prove this. I downloaded the table, "Table 695. Money Income of Families--Percent Distribution by Income" from the Census bureau. Families making $100,000 and over (in constant dollars) increased their share of the total national income from 8.7% in 1969 to 26% in 2008. Everyone else was mostly flat or got a lot less. Remember, the median Ozzie & Harriet family got nothing - almost no income gains for almost years. The group at the top got plenty.
We even see this process continuing today. WSJ: "Lenders See Little Choice: Layoffs - The banking industry, racked by the financial crisis and facing slower revenue growth, is starting to cut costs—increasingly at the expense of jobs."
The leadership at banks failed and is continuing to fail. Does the executive suite get a pay cut? Nope. They lay off lower paid workers, cut their pay, benefits and pension. The customer gets worse service. The bosses get MORE.
All this simple research and thinking proves the 200+ year old implied social contract was broken unilaterally around 1970. The group at the top left the rest of the people eating their dust and leftovers. For all the vaunted bloviations of the revolutionary baby boomers of the 1960s, the leaders of that generation did their best to screw the common man and woman. You can see that easily in people like the Clintons, Barry and the bespectacled Republicans. They all got plenty in favors and book deals. Joe Auto Mechanic got the shaft.
We need a new social compact, a square deal for the common men and women. We need an ideology to bind together the great majority of people in the US in the middle - the center. Let them rule and get a Square Deal. Cast aside the fringe right and left. The fringe right want to let the Vikings continue to raid and loot; the fringe left wants to turn us all into serfs for the government, union bosses and trust fund brats.
Under Free Fraternalism, the middle 60% or so gets complete freedom and a square deal; the top 20% pays part of their fortunes to support the unlucky and unendowed bottom 20%. Those numbers aren't strict lines; they are just rough guidelines. BUT I've proven in other posts that national happiness would increase under this political economic system. And in the past few days you have seen data to substantiate your own memories of 40 years, that national happiness has NOT improved for the great bulk of the people under the existing classic liberal system with its socialist admixture.
The existing system has failed: Time to recognize this and fix the problem.
More to come in future posts.
Word of the Day
"Pellucid" - adjective [$10]
Pellucid means easy to understand.
Sentence: Today's pellucid post should make the nature of the problem facing America obvious. Government and its implied social compact need to be fundamentally changed Free Fraternalism is the solution - a total makeover, not simple tinkering around the edges.
Expensive and time consuming studies could prove that, but our collective memory contains plenty of proof. Remember that great musical, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying?" The secretarial pool and the junior executive pool no longer exist. Remember the job of receptionist at the elevator entrance on every floor? Gone. A person used to answer the telephone and take messages. No more - voice mail. Today many lawyers do their own documents and make changes; in the past a skilled legal secretary did them.
On the factory floor, fewer skilled machinists are needed as CNC machinery does their work after the set-up. Technology permits jobs to be performed in India for low wages that used to require highly paid analysts in NYC. X-rays are read in India, instead of by a US based skilled person. Plug-in modules dumb down the job of being a technician, reducing their skill - and pay levels.
You know all this deep in your mind and memory. BUT where is the profits go? Where did the gains in national income go? Who got it? Readers of yesterday's post know the common man and woman got nothing from 40 years of increasing national income.
The cynics are right. The people on top got it all. They took it all. Data prove this. I downloaded the table, "Table 695. Money Income of Families--Percent Distribution by Income" from the Census bureau. Families making $100,000 and over (in constant dollars) increased their share of the total national income from 8.7% in 1969 to 26% in 2008. Everyone else was mostly flat or got a lot less. Remember, the median Ozzie & Harriet family got nothing - almost no income gains for almost years. The group at the top got plenty.
We even see this process continuing today. WSJ: "Lenders See Little Choice: Layoffs - The banking industry, racked by the financial crisis and facing slower revenue growth, is starting to cut costs—increasingly at the expense of jobs."
The leadership at banks failed and is continuing to fail. Does the executive suite get a pay cut? Nope. They lay off lower paid workers, cut their pay, benefits and pension. The customer gets worse service. The bosses get MORE.
All this simple research and thinking proves the 200+ year old implied social contract was broken unilaterally around 1970. The group at the top left the rest of the people eating their dust and leftovers. For all the vaunted bloviations of the revolutionary baby boomers of the 1960s, the leaders of that generation did their best to screw the common man and woman. You can see that easily in people like the Clintons, Barry and the bespectacled Republicans. They all got plenty in favors and book deals. Joe Auto Mechanic got the shaft.
We need a new social compact, a square deal for the common men and women. We need an ideology to bind together the great majority of people in the US in the middle - the center. Let them rule and get a Square Deal. Cast aside the fringe right and left. The fringe right want to let the Vikings continue to raid and loot; the fringe left wants to turn us all into serfs for the government, union bosses and trust fund brats.
Under Free Fraternalism, the middle 60% or so gets complete freedom and a square deal; the top 20% pays part of their fortunes to support the unlucky and unendowed bottom 20%. Those numbers aren't strict lines; they are just rough guidelines. BUT I've proven in other posts that national happiness would increase under this political economic system. And in the past few days you have seen data to substantiate your own memories of 40 years, that national happiness has NOT improved for the great bulk of the people under the existing classic liberal system with its socialist admixture.
The existing system has failed: Time to recognize this and fix the problem.
More to come in future posts.
Word of the Day
"Pellucid" - adjective [$10]
Pellucid means easy to understand.
Sentence: Today's pellucid post should make the nature of the problem facing America obvious. Government and its implied social compact need to be fundamentally changed Free Fraternalism is the solution - a total makeover, not simple tinkering around the edges.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Square Deal ?
Did classic liberalism work? By classic liberalism, I mean the type of political economy proposed and explained by Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. In their theories, maximum economic freedom was supposed to work by an "invisible hand" to increase the wealth of all people, and increase their happiness. Total "utility" (implied to be happiness) was maximized in a system with this freedom; mathematical proofs of this exist and are the basis of much economic theory. I've seen versions of this proof in graduate school level textbooks and B-school classes.
The question is, though, DID it work? And IS it working? Putting theory into practice and testing under dynamic conditions could expose ERRORS and unrecognized assumptions. Astrophysicists in the 1970s found this out; they assumed that all matter and energy could be seen directly or indirectly in some manner or marker from emitted light or other electromagnetic radiation. But clear contradictions existed even then in the rotation curves of galaxies. Decades later, dark matter and dark energy were discovered. The theories were incomplete in the 1970s.
\
Now, the Panic of 2008, the Great Recession and actual events since the 1970s seems to have exposed a flaw - a contradiction - in classic liberalism. Has the utility-happiness-wealth of the common man and woman increased since the 1970s? The "purported" deal - compact - of classic liberalism was that the hegemonic (Ruling) classes working with the political bureaucracy would cause GNP to increase on and on. But to the common man and woman, GNP is a meaningless number. They care about their personal happiness - their ability to make a living and raise their families and live comfortably throughout their lives.
From 1800 until at least the 1960s, it's rather obvious the Deal did work over the long term. By the 1950s and early 1960s in America a family could live, buy a home, send children to college or to a good job in the trades or a plant, and have a reasonable retirement. In 1800 or even 1900 that was a distance dream.
BUT now? And since then? Is there DATA that this "Deal" did not work and is not working, or is it still working? The 40-50 years since 1960-70 is long enough a baseline - that's almost two generations.
This is the question of the century. Has or is classic liberalism reached a range where it fails? Theories can work for awhile, but then breakdown.
My "gut" is that the answer is classic liberalism has been failing for decades, that the lives of the common man and woman has NOT been improving since the late 1960s and 1970s. One has to measure such a concept corrected for age and family composition. From my memories, the level that a family could do and how they could live in 1965 was really far better than now. A common American family must work much harder and longer to achieve the same standard of living.
Is my "gut" instinct correct?
I don't know. I am now researching this matter and will report on the results soon. Demographics, family composition and propensity to work for wages (i. e., women in the workforce) complicate the question, but I'm aware of those factors and will try to take them into account. Meanwhile, could you search your memories about this question with an open mind?
Word of the Day
"Heterodox" - adjective [$10]
Heterodox means (of a person, opinion, etc.) not orthodox.
Sentence: View from the Bunker provides heterodox opinions on investing, government and politics.
The question is, though, DID it work? And IS it working? Putting theory into practice and testing under dynamic conditions could expose ERRORS and unrecognized assumptions. Astrophysicists in the 1970s found this out; they assumed that all matter and energy could be seen directly or indirectly in some manner or marker from emitted light or other electromagnetic radiation. But clear contradictions existed even then in the rotation curves of galaxies. Decades later, dark matter and dark energy were discovered. The theories were incomplete in the 1970s.
\
Now, the Panic of 2008, the Great Recession and actual events since the 1970s seems to have exposed a flaw - a contradiction - in classic liberalism. Has the utility-happiness-wealth of the common man and woman increased since the 1970s? The "purported" deal - compact - of classic liberalism was that the hegemonic (Ruling) classes working with the political bureaucracy would cause GNP to increase on and on. But to the common man and woman, GNP is a meaningless number. They care about their personal happiness - their ability to make a living and raise their families and live comfortably throughout their lives.
From 1800 until at least the 1960s, it's rather obvious the Deal did work over the long term. By the 1950s and early 1960s in America a family could live, buy a home, send children to college or to a good job in the trades or a plant, and have a reasonable retirement. In 1800 or even 1900 that was a distance dream.
BUT now? And since then? Is there DATA that this "Deal" did not work and is not working, or is it still working? The 40-50 years since 1960-70 is long enough a baseline - that's almost two generations.
This is the question of the century. Has or is classic liberalism reached a range where it fails? Theories can work for awhile, but then breakdown.
My "gut" is that the answer is classic liberalism has been failing for decades, that the lives of the common man and woman has NOT been improving since the late 1960s and 1970s. One has to measure such a concept corrected for age and family composition. From my memories, the level that a family could do and how they could live in 1965 was really far better than now. A common American family must work much harder and longer to achieve the same standard of living.
Is my "gut" instinct correct?
I don't know. I am now researching this matter and will report on the results soon. Demographics, family composition and propensity to work for wages (i. e., women in the workforce) complicate the question, but I'm aware of those factors and will try to take them into account. Meanwhile, could you search your memories about this question with an open mind?
Word of the Day
"Heterodox" - adjective [$10]
Heterodox means (of a person, opinion, etc.) not orthodox.
Sentence: View from the Bunker provides heterodox opinions on investing, government and politics.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
We Survived 2010
Despite all the high paid pundits and bloviators, 2010 was NOT a national disaster. Roubini, Meredith Molotova and that ilk were wrong. The stock markets made good gains. The economy stopped going down. Unemployment stopped going up. Massive new defaults have NOT occurred. The corporate bond market rallied hugely. The commercial real estate market stabilized and has rallied some.
Not all is good.
Housing prices are bouncing along the ground: no rebound is in sight, but price levels are rather affordable so further large drops will likely be temporary foreclosure rinses.
Europe is still sorting out possible solutions ... and ignoring the obvious solution, viz. becoming a United States of Europe.
Farmers & miners are making fine profits after decades of suffering; and people are griping about that.
Congress continues to be a comedy show ... or is it a cage match? No serious debate occurs regarding what kind of nation we want to be and become.
Obama is playing in Hawaii; he's now had two years in office and has shown zero ideas or leadership.
The Republicans want to turn the financial and corporate Vikings loose to raid on all of us.
The Democrats wants to turn all of us into government employees.
Neither party talks about a vision - an eschaton - for America in the 21st century.
How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing the end point for our path? How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing where we are now?
Our "leaders" have lost their way. Is any Teddy Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan on the horizon? Nope. Those people has visions of where they wanted to lead the nation; they had good understanding of what the problems were in their time.
I will give you two metaphors for a paradigm of what America need to do.
First, from John Bunyan's great book, Pilgrim's Progress. The pilgrim recognized the problems where he was and knew where he wanted to go, viz. to the great city of salvation. He struggled along a path with many, many traps and pitfalls and evildoers. This book was read by the great leaders who created and saved America: Franklin, Washington, Lincoln. Its allegory applies now.
Second, from science and the work of Richard Feynman (cf. the book, A Path Integral Approach to Quantum Mechanics or his seminal paper, Feynman, R. P. (1948). "The Space-Time Formulation of Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics". "Reviews of Modern Physics" 20: 367–387. A particle - ANY particle, with its beginning and end states set, combines all possible paths (and I do mean all - over all of space and time) to take the optimal path.
The metaphors here are definitive, spanning faith AND science: The US people - and especially its leaders - must study where we are and have vision where we want to be, and then choose the optimal path. We must combine epistemology - the study of knowledge - with ontology, the study of being - to find our path. True leadership does not come from the technocracy; it's not from technology. It's not from sloganeering. Good Leadership - the adjective is crucial - is really applied metaphysics: it applies knowledge of where we are and where we want to be in the future, then chooses the optimal path.
All these ideas are from the classics of the past 2,000+ years: Aristotle, Bunyan, Feynman. They knew these concepts that drive both the physical world and the world of the minds of men. We don't have to invent them; all we - the people - have to do is read, learn and do. Three little action verbs have the answers.
Read, learn & do.
Next year I will start with a series of posts on reform.
Word of the Day
"Zaftig" - adjective [$100] slang
Zaftig means 1. (of a woman) having a pleasantly plump figure; 2. full bodied, well proportioned. [from Yiddish 1935-40 literally juicy, succulent]
Sentence: That great beauty of the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe, had a zaftig build that modern culture might regard as fat. That's just wrong. Men - heterosexual men - are hard wired to like curves. The modern culture of excessive thinness is learned behavior from the fashion magazines that have been dominated by gay designers, who prefer boyish figures, for decades. That culture needs to be rejected; it harms young women and causes much unhappiness and pain as people try to do the unnatural. Some fat is good.
Not all is good.
Housing prices are bouncing along the ground: no rebound is in sight, but price levels are rather affordable so further large drops will likely be temporary foreclosure rinses.
Europe is still sorting out possible solutions ... and ignoring the obvious solution, viz. becoming a United States of Europe.
Farmers & miners are making fine profits after decades of suffering; and people are griping about that.
Congress continues to be a comedy show ... or is it a cage match? No serious debate occurs regarding what kind of nation we want to be and become.
Obama is playing in Hawaii; he's now had two years in office and has shown zero ideas or leadership.
The Republicans want to turn the financial and corporate Vikings loose to raid on all of us.
The Democrats wants to turn all of us into government employees.
Neither party talks about a vision - an eschaton - for America in the 21st century.
How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing the end point for our path? How can "reform" or "change" be discussed rationally without knowing where we are now?
Our "leaders" have lost their way. Is any Teddy Roosevelt or Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan on the horizon? Nope. Those people has visions of where they wanted to lead the nation; they had good understanding of what the problems were in their time.
I will give you two metaphors for a paradigm of what America need to do.
First, from John Bunyan's great book, Pilgrim's Progress. The pilgrim recognized the problems where he was and knew where he wanted to go, viz. to the great city of salvation. He struggled along a path with many, many traps and pitfalls and evildoers. This book was read by the great leaders who created and saved America: Franklin, Washington, Lincoln. Its allegory applies now.
Second, from science and the work of Richard Feynman (cf. the book, A Path Integral Approach to Quantum Mechanics or his seminal paper, Feynman, R. P. (1948). "The Space-Time Formulation of Nonrelativistic Quantum Mechanics". "Reviews of Modern Physics" 20: 367–387. A particle - ANY particle, with its beginning and end states set, combines all possible paths (and I do mean all - over all of space and time) to take the optimal path.
The metaphors here are definitive, spanning faith AND science: The US people - and especially its leaders - must study where we are and have vision where we want to be, and then choose the optimal path. We must combine epistemology - the study of knowledge - with ontology, the study of being - to find our path. True leadership does not come from the technocracy; it's not from technology. It's not from sloganeering. Good Leadership - the adjective is crucial - is really applied metaphysics: it applies knowledge of where we are and where we want to be in the future, then chooses the optimal path.
All these ideas are from the classics of the past 2,000+ years: Aristotle, Bunyan, Feynman. They knew these concepts that drive both the physical world and the world of the minds of men. We don't have to invent them; all we - the people - have to do is read, learn and do. Three little action verbs have the answers.
Read, learn & do.
Next year I will start with a series of posts on reform.
Word of the Day
"Zaftig" - adjective [$100] slang
Zaftig means 1. (of a woman) having a pleasantly plump figure; 2. full bodied, well proportioned. [from Yiddish 1935-40 literally juicy, succulent]
Sentence: That great beauty of the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe, had a zaftig build that modern culture might regard as fat. That's just wrong. Men - heterosexual men - are hard wired to like curves. The modern culture of excessive thinness is learned behavior from the fashion magazines that have been dominated by gay designers, who prefer boyish figures, for decades. That culture needs to be rejected; it harms young women and causes much unhappiness and pain as people try to do the unnatural. Some fat is good.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Don't Get Angry ...
Do something !
Over 400 years ago the famous French philosopher Montaigne wrote his essay #4 titled "How the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true are wanting" [Great Books, vol. 23, page 57-58]. In that essay he gave many examples from history how rulers misdirected anger according to superstitions and myths of the time (such as Xerxes having the waters of the Hellespont whipped for making his crossing difficult), or beating their own bodies in some manner (Augustus Caesar beating his head against the wall saying "Varus, give me back my soldiers" after the defeat at the Teutoberg Forest in A. D. 9). Or referring to a tale of a man pulling his hair out in grief, "Does this man think baldness relieves grief ?" Montaigne observes: "So it seems the soul, once stirred and set in motion, is lost in itself unless we give it something to grasp; and we must give it an object to aim and act on." If a legitimate object is not found, the soul "forges a false and frivolous one." [loc. cit.]
Now in our time currently, many of the public at large display much anger at Obama's crypto-fascist maneuvers to impose obligations on the people via sheer power politics. The "Tea Party" movement is channeling some of the anger into positive political responses. These remind me of the Howard Jarvis led Proposition 13 movement in California in the 1970s that brought real estate tax relief to California homeowners. And Barbara Anderson's similar effort in Massachusetts brought forth Proposition 2 1/2 which gave Massachusetts citizens a direct vote in their towns on real estate tax hikes over a 2.5% per annum trigger. Those were successful, peaceful rebellions against oppressive government.
Obama's shills are screeching against the efforts of the common man to regain some power. That means they are worried. A good blog I read yesterday about the Anger described a New York Times writer calling all the angry people 'racists'. That's sheer nonsense and a polemical, ad hominen fallacy to disrupt the debate. How should we interpret the anger, though ? Is it more general than anti-Obama feeling ? Yes, in my opinion. Past commentors here raised the issue even before Obama was elected. I've pondered it myself, but can't remember putting the ideas into one cogent statement that encapsulated the frustration and despair of the common man. Here's how the perspicacious* blogger cited above put it: "The real cause of the rage is the sense that money seems to be flowing only upward (away from the middle class) and not circulating in small business and consumer lending or in the form of pay raises, and the resulting fear and sense of general disease is horrifying to people." [cited from link given above.]
That sounds about right to me. The common man is getting the short end of so many sticks he is fed up ... or in despair. Government and the ruling classes have gone too far. When an average family faces a 45% marginal tax rate on income from extra effort, that's far, far too high. Obama is now resorting to mandates as raising taxes with rates already so high is soon to be counterproductive. Big corporations and the ruling classes are his co-conspirators in putting new burdens on the common man, and in sucking more money from him and his communities. It is infuriating !
As Montaigne pointed out 400 years ago, one needs to direct one's anger properly. Miss-directed anger at myths does nothing. Stop mere sloganeering & griping to your own circle of friends. Volunteer some time or money or both to help nascent movements get off the ground. Find local, HONEST candidates to support. Contact representatives with ideas. Early money donations are crucial for getting campaigns started - whether for candidates or for initiative efforts.
Stop shopping at Wal-Mart and other conduits for China. A huge amount of the money spent there flows straight to China. Cut your use of imported oil (yes, Sun Boy is right). Take your money out of mega-banks and money market funds and put it into local banks.
"Fear and rage accomplish nothing productive. But working together, we are some of the most productive people on earth. It is time to face up to what is bothering so many of us and get back to being the "can-do" nation that we are." [loc. cit.]
Markets
Ms. Market seems tired of dancing. Every jig lately runs out of steam fast. Beware of complacency. This is no place to be leveraged long. Seasonal strength runs out soon. Take some profits so you'll have some money to buy a big dip. Lots of events can cause it and it will be unpredictable. Constant Vigilance is the watch word.
Word of the Day
"Perspicacious" - adjective [$10]; "Perspicacity" - noun [$10]
Perspicacious means of acute mental vision or discernment.
Perspicacity means acuteness of perception, discernment or understanding.
Sentence: Writing a trenchant blog post requires perspicacious observation and insight, and the ability to express thoughts verbally with simpicity and clarity.
Over 400 years ago the famous French philosopher Montaigne wrote his essay #4 titled "How the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true are wanting" [Great Books, vol. 23, page 57-58]. In that essay he gave many examples from history how rulers misdirected anger according to superstitions and myths of the time (such as Xerxes having the waters of the Hellespont whipped for making his crossing difficult), or beating their own bodies in some manner (Augustus Caesar beating his head against the wall saying "Varus, give me back my soldiers" after the defeat at the Teutoberg Forest in A. D. 9). Or referring to a tale of a man pulling his hair out in grief, "Does this man think baldness relieves grief ?" Montaigne observes: "So it seems the soul, once stirred and set in motion, is lost in itself unless we give it something to grasp; and we must give it an object to aim and act on." If a legitimate object is not found, the soul "forges a false and frivolous one." [loc. cit.]
Now in our time currently, many of the public at large display much anger at Obama's crypto-fascist maneuvers to impose obligations on the people via sheer power politics. The "Tea Party" movement is channeling some of the anger into positive political responses. These remind me of the Howard Jarvis led Proposition 13 movement in California in the 1970s that brought real estate tax relief to California homeowners. And Barbara Anderson's similar effort in Massachusetts brought forth Proposition 2 1/2 which gave Massachusetts citizens a direct vote in their towns on real estate tax hikes over a 2.5% per annum trigger. Those were successful, peaceful rebellions against oppressive government.
Obama's shills are screeching against the efforts of the common man to regain some power. That means they are worried. A good blog I read yesterday about the Anger described a New York Times writer calling all the angry people 'racists'. That's sheer nonsense and a polemical, ad hominen fallacy to disrupt the debate. How should we interpret the anger, though ? Is it more general than anti-Obama feeling ? Yes, in my opinion. Past commentors here raised the issue even before Obama was elected. I've pondered it myself, but can't remember putting the ideas into one cogent statement that encapsulated the frustration and despair of the common man. Here's how the perspicacious* blogger cited above put it: "The real cause of the rage is the sense that money seems to be flowing only upward (away from the middle class) and not circulating in small business and consumer lending or in the form of pay raises, and the resulting fear and sense of general disease is horrifying to people." [cited from link given above.]
That sounds about right to me. The common man is getting the short end of so many sticks he is fed up ... or in despair. Government and the ruling classes have gone too far. When an average family faces a 45% marginal tax rate on income from extra effort, that's far, far too high. Obama is now resorting to mandates as raising taxes with rates already so high is soon to be counterproductive. Big corporations and the ruling classes are his co-conspirators in putting new burdens on the common man, and in sucking more money from him and his communities. It is infuriating !
As Montaigne pointed out 400 years ago, one needs to direct one's anger properly. Miss-directed anger at myths does nothing. Stop mere sloganeering & griping to your own circle of friends. Volunteer some time or money or both to help nascent movements get off the ground. Find local, HONEST candidates to support. Contact representatives with ideas. Early money donations are crucial for getting campaigns started - whether for candidates or for initiative efforts.
Stop shopping at Wal-Mart and other conduits for China. A huge amount of the money spent there flows straight to China. Cut your use of imported oil (yes, Sun Boy is right). Take your money out of mega-banks and money market funds and put it into local banks.
"Fear and rage accomplish nothing productive. But working together, we are some of the most productive people on earth. It is time to face up to what is bothering so many of us and get back to being the "can-do" nation that we are." [loc. cit.]
Markets
Ms. Market seems tired of dancing. Every jig lately runs out of steam fast. Beware of complacency. This is no place to be leveraged long. Seasonal strength runs out soon. Take some profits so you'll have some money to buy a big dip. Lots of events can cause it and it will be unpredictable. Constant Vigilance is the watch word.
Word of the Day
"Perspicacious" - adjective [$10]; "Perspicacity" - noun [$10]
Perspicacious means of acute mental vision or discernment.
Perspicacity means acuteness of perception, discernment or understanding.
Sentence: Writing a trenchant blog post requires perspicacious observation and insight, and the ability to express thoughts verbally with simpicity and clarity.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
We Are All ...
Bosons. At least our whole selves are.
There are two fundamentally different types of elementary particles: fermions and bosons. A fermion has intrinsic spin in half integral amounts: 1/2, 3/2 and so on. A boson has integral intrinsic spin: 0, 1, 2 and so on. Intrinsic spin is the angular momentum of the particle's intrinsic self, which is a point of infinite smallness. What causes it and what that spin "is" fundamentally is not known. For now, it just "is". It's quantized in multiples of 1/2 and it is conserved.
Fermions and bosons have extremely interesting, different properties in their aggregation. We, after all, aggregations of elementary particles, so their properties of aggregation are important.
No fermion can be in the same state, place and time and otherwise, as any other fermion. They just don't like being close to each other. They repel each other. Contrapuntally, bosons love to be in the same state. They gladly lie on top of each other [ no sex jokes, please ;) ]; they can be stacked on each other in huge numbers barring other repulsive forces.
Our world exists as it does because of the fermion repulsion: without it atoms would collapse.
Light photons are bosons: that's why light's intensity in a beam can increase on and on to extremely high levels. The photons are being stacked onto each other.
What does this have to do with humans ? I'm borrowing it allegorically to describe human natures and our history through space and time.
We are bosons by our natures. Humans form communities, social organizations, towns, cities, and nations. The history and path of these organizations tend to stick together and flow though space and time like a river.
Yesterday I was working hard on my German. German is a bit odd for an Indo-European language. The grammar of Latin is closer to Polish than it is to German. Many German verbs oddly change internal vowels in tenses other than the present. The ending on their adjectives and articles have irregular endings. Germans word order is weird. Why ? In my opinion, German got heavily modified by whatever language the original inhabitants of that part of Europe had BEFORE the proto-Germans moved in (maybe 4,000 years ago or more). For all that Nazi "racial purity" bs, German is a very, very impure mutation of old Indo-European.
Both Latin and Polish are much purer descendants of old Indo-European. I joke that Polish is mostly Latin grammar with all the words changed.
About 2,001 years ago, the Roman legions of Varus were wiped out in the battle of the Teutoberg forest by the German tribes led by Arminus. That ended the Roman effort to conquer the Germanic tribes in what is now Germany. If the Romans had won and stayed, the German language today would be a lot more like French or Italian than like modern German. And I would have a lot easier time learning it.
That single event cause the "river" of Germanic history, language and culture to flow separately from the rest of the Roman empire. Without it, the German river would have merged with that of Gaul (France), Spain and Italy. The Franks who later took over Gaul were a Germanic tribe. As were the Visigoths who took Spain. But so many of the existing sedentary peoples had lived centuries under Roman rule that their original Celtic languages changed and merged with Latin, making old French, Spanish and Italian. The Germanic of the invading Franks, Visigoths, and Lombards was mostly lost over time, overwhelmed by the vulgar language of the mass of common sedentary people.
The then separated German river flowed on its own path. The German langauge remained and evolved from its older mutant form. And I suffer daily studying it.
Markets
More up yesterday. At the prodding of a commentor yesterday, I looked at some charts. To me, the market is going where I had thought it would last fall, but took an extra six months & a twist/turn that threw me off: a "return to normalcy" pricing of around 1200 on the S&P.
The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are getting closer to their old highs as they did not have the heavy financial ("fins") weights. The effective zeroing of many fins is making the S&P and Dow look worse than indices without fins. The transports back that up, too. All those are at levels that I don't want to have any more than a "normal" long positions. I still am expecting a big pullback "soon". Krypto will be "some" equities selling every few % up, adding to cash for now.
PS: Krypto checked the portfolio this morning and then told me to sell some Pacific stock index funds & put the money in cash. The Pacific funds were 5% over their standard allocation, trigger the sell. Good doggie ... here's a biscuit.
Word of the Day
"Sodality" - noun [$10]
Sodality means a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.
Sentence: Toqueville in his famous book, Democracy in America, written circa 1840 and based on his travels in the United States, noted the plethora of clubs, fraternities, sodalities and other social organizations that its citizens formed and joined. In other words, he observed and remarked on our highly bosonic natures. Presumably, that nature in Americans was significantly more than existed in Europe at the time. American social mobility was at work.
There are two fundamentally different types of elementary particles: fermions and bosons. A fermion has intrinsic spin in half integral amounts: 1/2, 3/2 and so on. A boson has integral intrinsic spin: 0, 1, 2 and so on. Intrinsic spin is the angular momentum of the particle's intrinsic self, which is a point of infinite smallness. What causes it and what that spin "is" fundamentally is not known. For now, it just "is". It's quantized in multiples of 1/2 and it is conserved.
Fermions and bosons have extremely interesting, different properties in their aggregation. We, after all, aggregations of elementary particles, so their properties of aggregation are important.
No fermion can be in the same state, place and time and otherwise, as any other fermion. They just don't like being close to each other. They repel each other. Contrapuntally, bosons love to be in the same state. They gladly lie on top of each other [ no sex jokes, please ;) ]; they can be stacked on each other in huge numbers barring other repulsive forces.
Our world exists as it does because of the fermion repulsion: without it atoms would collapse.
Light photons are bosons: that's why light's intensity in a beam can increase on and on to extremely high levels. The photons are being stacked onto each other.
What does this have to do with humans ? I'm borrowing it allegorically to describe human natures and our history through space and time.
We are bosons by our natures. Humans form communities, social organizations, towns, cities, and nations. The history and path of these organizations tend to stick together and flow though space and time like a river.
Yesterday I was working hard on my German. German is a bit odd for an Indo-European language. The grammar of Latin is closer to Polish than it is to German. Many German verbs oddly change internal vowels in tenses other than the present. The ending on their adjectives and articles have irregular endings. Germans word order is weird. Why ? In my opinion, German got heavily modified by whatever language the original inhabitants of that part of Europe had BEFORE the proto-Germans moved in (maybe 4,000 years ago or more). For all that Nazi "racial purity" bs, German is a very, very impure mutation of old Indo-European.
Both Latin and Polish are much purer descendants of old Indo-European. I joke that Polish is mostly Latin grammar with all the words changed.
About 2,001 years ago, the Roman legions of Varus were wiped out in the battle of the Teutoberg forest by the German tribes led by Arminus. That ended the Roman effort to conquer the Germanic tribes in what is now Germany. If the Romans had won and stayed, the German language today would be a lot more like French or Italian than like modern German. And I would have a lot easier time learning it.
That single event cause the "river" of Germanic history, language and culture to flow separately from the rest of the Roman empire. Without it, the German river would have merged with that of Gaul (France), Spain and Italy. The Franks who later took over Gaul were a Germanic tribe. As were the Visigoths who took Spain. But so many of the existing sedentary peoples had lived centuries under Roman rule that their original Celtic languages changed and merged with Latin, making old French, Spanish and Italian. The Germanic of the invading Franks, Visigoths, and Lombards was mostly lost over time, overwhelmed by the vulgar language of the mass of common sedentary people.
The then separated German river flowed on its own path. The German langauge remained and evolved from its older mutant form. And I suffer daily studying it.
Markets
More up yesterday. At the prodding of a commentor yesterday, I looked at some charts. To me, the market is going where I had thought it would last fall, but took an extra six months & a twist/turn that threw me off: a "return to normalcy" pricing of around 1200 on the S&P.
The Nasdaq and Russell 2000 are getting closer to their old highs as they did not have the heavy financial ("fins") weights. The effective zeroing of many fins is making the S&P and Dow look worse than indices without fins. The transports back that up, too. All those are at levels that I don't want to have any more than a "normal" long positions. I still am expecting a big pullback "soon". Krypto will be "some" equities selling every few % up, adding to cash for now.
PS: Krypto checked the portfolio this morning and then told me to sell some Pacific stock index funds & put the money in cash. The Pacific funds were 5% over their standard allocation, trigger the sell. Good doggie ... here's a biscuit.
Word of the Day
"Sodality" - noun [$10]
Sodality means a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.
Sentence: Toqueville in his famous book, Democracy in America, written circa 1840 and based on his travels in the United States, noted the plethora of clubs, fraternities, sodalities and other social organizations that its citizens formed and joined. In other words, he observed and remarked on our highly bosonic natures. Presumably, that nature in Americans was significantly more than existed in Europe at the time. American social mobility was at work.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Just the Facts, Ma'am
That was Sgt. Joe Friday's request on the fine old TV police show, Dragnet, to a person being interviewed after a crime when they started to embellish or provide opinions or conclusions about the event. This principle needs to be applied to much of modern life. Too often we receive opinion, or worse, spin, fallacies and outright false statements from person seeking to sell their ideas. I think this is a very, very broad problem with public discourse. When was the last time you saw a true, honest debate in the major media grounded in facts ? Perhaps 30 years ? Gen Y and Z might answer never.
For me ( a boomer ), I think the last one was in 1978 when Ronald Reagan debated William F. Buckley over the proposed Panama Canal Treaty. I remember that very, very well. Point and counterpoint was presented respectfully with plenty of facts and reason. Have you heard ANY such debate over health care ? Nope.
We need to elevate the "is" over the "ought", "might", "perhaps" and "maybe". Deeds and facts trump words and images.
This problem is a very broad one in modern life, extending to the realms of art and music, too. In those fields, the connections to the "is" broke down about 150 years ago when Impressionism and Romanticism became dominant, respectively. The value of a painting or piece of music became tied to what one wrote or said about it, not what one saw or heard, respectively. The words replaced the facts _ what the work of art or music was on its face became subsumed by what what the painter or author or critics "said" about its meaning.
The huge growth in fiction in literature over that same 150 years is likely connected to this movement. Novels get more readership now than actual events or experiences. A travelogue of what someone actually experienced in Africa or Mexico - even if embellished to make it more readable - is now secondary to what some fiction writer makes up. A movie gets credence even though it never happened, or is a goulash of events from different times and places.
In the 1920s, popular culture completely misrepresented and misinterpreted the success of Einstein's special and general theories of "Relativity" to wrongly apply that term to many, many other aspects of human society and culture. Blather like "Every thing is relative" ... "It depends on one's perspective" seemed to get scientific support. WRONG ! In Einstein's Special Theory of Relative, there is absolute truth: the speed of light is a constant and is THE SAME in every frame of reference - from every perspective. All the popular blather is simply wrong.
Nietzschean perspectivism is not universal: there are absolute truths in human thought. Mathematical theorems are TRUE in every aspect and from every perspective. Events do happen. One event can cause another from ALL perspectives.
Movies nowadays are being fabricated entirely from computers: why film on location when the computer can create what one "thinks" the location "should" look like. When will people be replaced entirely in films ?
The Latin language is over 2,500 years old. Its verb for "is" or "be" has the infinitive form, "esse" from which our American word, "essence" is derived. We - the people - need to return to the "is" of our world, its essence, its facts, its reality. Drop the dreamy imaginations, reject the propaganda. Bring back the "is" to our thinking.
Just the facts, Ma'am.
Markets
More up. I sold CLF from my Fido Fund - the fund I keep old favorite stocks or moderately to long term investments - for a 100%+ gain over about six months. It might go up more, but I'm not a pig. Je ne suis pas un goinfre.
Word of the Day
"Devoir" - noun [$10] archaic [from French]
Devoir means 1. duty, one's best (do ones devoir); 2. (in plural) courteous of formal attentions; respects (pay one's devoirs to)
Sentence: Each voter will need to do his/her devoir this fall, and pick a representative who IS honest. If a politician lies to you once, why do you ever believe him again ?
For me ( a boomer ), I think the last one was in 1978 when Ronald Reagan debated William F. Buckley over the proposed Panama Canal Treaty. I remember that very, very well. Point and counterpoint was presented respectfully with plenty of facts and reason. Have you heard ANY such debate over health care ? Nope.
We need to elevate the "is" over the "ought", "might", "perhaps" and "maybe". Deeds and facts trump words and images.
This problem is a very broad one in modern life, extending to the realms of art and music, too. In those fields, the connections to the "is" broke down about 150 years ago when Impressionism and Romanticism became dominant, respectively. The value of a painting or piece of music became tied to what one wrote or said about it, not what one saw or heard, respectively. The words replaced the facts _ what the work of art or music was on its face became subsumed by what what the painter or author or critics "said" about its meaning.
The huge growth in fiction in literature over that same 150 years is likely connected to this movement. Novels get more readership now than actual events or experiences. A travelogue of what someone actually experienced in Africa or Mexico - even if embellished to make it more readable - is now secondary to what some fiction writer makes up. A movie gets credence even though it never happened, or is a goulash of events from different times and places.
In the 1920s, popular culture completely misrepresented and misinterpreted the success of Einstein's special and general theories of "Relativity" to wrongly apply that term to many, many other aspects of human society and culture. Blather like "Every thing is relative" ... "It depends on one's perspective" seemed to get scientific support. WRONG ! In Einstein's Special Theory of Relative, there is absolute truth: the speed of light is a constant and is THE SAME in every frame of reference - from every perspective. All the popular blather is simply wrong.
Nietzschean perspectivism is not universal: there are absolute truths in human thought. Mathematical theorems are TRUE in every aspect and from every perspective. Events do happen. One event can cause another from ALL perspectives.
Movies nowadays are being fabricated entirely from computers: why film on location when the computer can create what one "thinks" the location "should" look like. When will people be replaced entirely in films ?
The Latin language is over 2,500 years old. Its verb for "is" or "be" has the infinitive form, "esse" from which our American word, "essence" is derived. We - the people - need to return to the "is" of our world, its essence, its facts, its reality. Drop the dreamy imaginations, reject the propaganda. Bring back the "is" to our thinking.
Just the facts, Ma'am.
Markets
More up. I sold CLF from my Fido Fund - the fund I keep old favorite stocks or moderately to long term investments - for a 100%+ gain over about six months. It might go up more, but I'm not a pig. Je ne suis pas un goinfre.
Word of the Day
"Devoir" - noun [$10] archaic [from French]
Devoir means 1. duty, one's best (do ones devoir); 2. (in plural) courteous of formal attentions; respects (pay one's devoirs to)
Sentence: Each voter will need to do his/her devoir this fall, and pick a representative who IS honest. If a politician lies to you once, why do you ever believe him again ?
Friday, January 29, 2010
Fraternal Libertarianism
This post sketches out a proof from first principles for a coherent political economic system herein called Fraternal Libertarianism. This system has the teleological* End as the maximization of happiness of all the people under its purview.
Axiom I: Based on Aristotle’s thinking in “Ethics”: Humans seek to and make decisions to maximize Happiness.
A person acts rationally in many dimensions to maximize his happiness. Not only his actual actions, but his thoughts of possible paths are virtual explorations of other paths that will maximize his happiness.
This Axiom also connects to the “pursuit of happiness” concept in the US Declaration of Independence. Jefferson changes the Lockean “life, liberty and property” to “life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, perhaps following and generalizing “property” along Aristotle’s thinking. Individual freedom for the pursuit of happiness would be essential in a State to maximize happiness.
Generalization: The political and economic structure of a State should be such to aid or assist or promote the maximization of some kind of aggregation of the happiness of all citizens.
Axiom II: All Men are Created Equal. To generalize from that classic formulation, All People are Created Equal.
Immediate Results
1. Then applying the “all men are created equal” axiom, for the happiness of a State, the aggregation of individual happiness is a simple sum – equally weighted happiness of every citizen.
2. This philosophic system justifies crime controls as just behaviors by a few (that increase the criminal happiness) reduce happiness of many more.
3. Such a state would also permit a very large amount of personal freedom as the self-interest of each person to maximize his own happiness is then harnessed to maximize national happiness.
Assumed Economic-Behavioral Laws
These laws will be used to derive some general indication how the State would go about maximizing the aggregate happiness of its citizens.
Law of Diminishing Returns: After a moderate or large amount of wealth and power has been achieved, further unit accretions to an individual produce diminishing unit accretions of happiness.
Risk Aversion: Risk aversion is the reluctance of a person to choose an action with an uncertain addition to his happiness rather than another action with a more certain, but possibly lower, incremental happiness.
Results
4. Controls on the ruling classes would justified and necessary as they use power (economic or state) to enhance their own happiness often at the expense of the many. While the actions of a person in the ruling class would tend to increase his own happiness, by taking more and more resources and control over others, he depresses the happiness of the masses. And that aggregate amount of depression is larger than his increase, according to the law of diminishing returns for him and risk aversion for them.
5. A social support system can also increase the happiness of the entire community as the happiness of the masses is increased MORE than the costs of support system reduces the happiness of the wealthy & powerful classes (who pay for that system), also due to the principles of risk aversion and diminishing returns. By protecting the masses from the small risks of catastrophic loss and / or marginalization of their lives, the happiness of the nation is increased. The costs would be borne by the rich and powerful.
[NOTE: it also shows how a society can breakdown IFF a majority of its members become criminals – maximizing happiness then is the path of crime as in Somalia.]
This political system is called Fraternal Libertarianism, as it promotes maximum freedom for the common man, some restrictions on the ruling classes, and a social support system to prevent catastrophic individual human degradation.
One can think of this as a "trimmed" Libertarianism. The State and political economic system is largely Libertarian with maximal freedom for the common man, combined with the trimming done on each end of the distribution of happiness of its citizens. The vast middle part of the distribution is free to act according to their own individual choices to increase their own happiness. The accumulation of power and resources by the ruling classes is controlled - that is the "high end" trim. The happiness of the citizens at the lower end of the distribution is supported to reduce their degradation / poverty / marginalization. The "trimming" increases the total happiness of the State according to the laws of behavior of diminishing returns and risk aversion.
Historical support for such a System is quite strong and abundant. Innumerable great empires were destroyed by the rapacious greed of the ruling classes in creating more and more powerful aristocracies at the expense of the common man. And not aiding the masses in attaining some happiness led to inordinately destructive revolutions. And the freeing of the masses of people to lead their own lives as they chose individually (when by successful reforms or mass emigrations) led to a huge increase in happiness of the citizens.
Formerly I thought that what I called Populist Libertarianism was the correct political economic system for humanity, but as you can see, I was wrong. I had incorrectly maximized freedom, which is a means, instead of an End, which is happiness. Freedom can lead to more happiness. The above proof, however, shows that perfect freedom does NOT maximize aggregate happiness of all the people.
Markets
I re-bought some FCX and MT as short or intermediate term trade in 1-2-3 Fund. I'll buy more on a further pullback. These stocks hit my (mentally) pre-determined re-buy points. My reading of the charts suggests some support around S&P 1085. It might not hold. But I'll swing my bat here a few times to see if I can get a hit.
PS: Added to my usual suspects, the resource trading stocks. Re-buy BHP, add MT.
Word of the Day
Teleological - adjective [$10]
Teleological means exhibiting or relating to design of purpose especially in nature.
Sentence: Fraternal Libertarianism has the teleological* End as the maximization of happiness of all the people under its purview. That is its design and purpose.
Axiom I: Based on Aristotle’s thinking in “Ethics”: Humans seek to and make decisions to maximize Happiness.
A person acts rationally in many dimensions to maximize his happiness. Not only his actual actions, but his thoughts of possible paths are virtual explorations of other paths that will maximize his happiness.
This Axiom also connects to the “pursuit of happiness” concept in the US Declaration of Independence. Jefferson changes the Lockean “life, liberty and property” to “life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, perhaps following and generalizing “property” along Aristotle’s thinking. Individual freedom for the pursuit of happiness would be essential in a State to maximize happiness.
Generalization: The political and economic structure of a State should be such to aid or assist or promote the maximization of some kind of aggregation of the happiness of all citizens.
Axiom II: All Men are Created Equal. To generalize from that classic formulation, All People are Created Equal.
Immediate Results
1. Then applying the “all men are created equal” axiom, for the happiness of a State, the aggregation of individual happiness is a simple sum – equally weighted happiness of every citizen.
2. This philosophic system justifies crime controls as just behaviors by a few (that increase the criminal happiness) reduce happiness of many more.
3. Such a state would also permit a very large amount of personal freedom as the self-interest of each person to maximize his own happiness is then harnessed to maximize national happiness.
Assumed Economic-Behavioral Laws
These laws will be used to derive some general indication how the State would go about maximizing the aggregate happiness of its citizens.
Law of Diminishing Returns: After a moderate or large amount of wealth and power has been achieved, further unit accretions to an individual produce diminishing unit accretions of happiness.
Risk Aversion: Risk aversion is the reluctance of a person to choose an action with an uncertain addition to his happiness rather than another action with a more certain, but possibly lower, incremental happiness.
Results
4. Controls on the ruling classes would justified and necessary as they use power (economic or state) to enhance their own happiness often at the expense of the many. While the actions of a person in the ruling class would tend to increase his own happiness, by taking more and more resources and control over others, he depresses the happiness of the masses. And that aggregate amount of depression is larger than his increase, according to the law of diminishing returns for him and risk aversion for them.
5. A social support system can also increase the happiness of the entire community as the happiness of the masses is increased MORE than the costs of support system reduces the happiness of the wealthy & powerful classes (who pay for that system), also due to the principles of risk aversion and diminishing returns. By protecting the masses from the small risks of catastrophic loss and / or marginalization of their lives, the happiness of the nation is increased. The costs would be borne by the rich and powerful.
[NOTE: it also shows how a society can breakdown IFF a majority of its members become criminals – maximizing happiness then is the path of crime as in Somalia.]
This political system is called Fraternal Libertarianism, as it promotes maximum freedom for the common man, some restrictions on the ruling classes, and a social support system to prevent catastrophic individual human degradation.
One can think of this as a "trimmed" Libertarianism. The State and political economic system is largely Libertarian with maximal freedom for the common man, combined with the trimming done on each end of the distribution of happiness of its citizens. The vast middle part of the distribution is free to act according to their own individual choices to increase their own happiness. The accumulation of power and resources by the ruling classes is controlled - that is the "high end" trim. The happiness of the citizens at the lower end of the distribution is supported to reduce their degradation / poverty / marginalization. The "trimming" increases the total happiness of the State according to the laws of behavior of diminishing returns and risk aversion.
Historical support for such a System is quite strong and abundant. Innumerable great empires were destroyed by the rapacious greed of the ruling classes in creating more and more powerful aristocracies at the expense of the common man. And not aiding the masses in attaining some happiness led to inordinately destructive revolutions. And the freeing of the masses of people to lead their own lives as they chose individually (when by successful reforms or mass emigrations) led to a huge increase in happiness of the citizens.
Formerly I thought that what I called Populist Libertarianism was the correct political economic system for humanity, but as you can see, I was wrong. I had incorrectly maximized freedom, which is a means, instead of an End, which is happiness. Freedom can lead to more happiness. The above proof, however, shows that perfect freedom does NOT maximize aggregate happiness of all the people.
Markets
I re-bought some FCX and MT as short or intermediate term trade in 1-2-3 Fund. I'll buy more on a further pullback. These stocks hit my (mentally) pre-determined re-buy points. My reading of the charts suggests some support around S&P 1085. It might not hold. But I'll swing my bat here a few times to see if I can get a hit.
PS: Added to my usual suspects, the resource trading stocks. Re-buy BHP, add MT.
Word of the Day
Teleological - adjective [$10]
Teleological means exhibiting or relating to design of purpose especially in nature.
Sentence: Fraternal Libertarianism has the teleological* End as the maximization of happiness of all the people under its purview. That is its design and purpose.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The Way the World Works II
Last Fall on October 27, 2009 I wrote Part I of this series. This Part II tries to explain another aspect of The Way the World Works.
To understand how human societies are structured, or should be structured, and how they change with time, we need to consider what human beings in their rational dimensions are trying to do, or accomplish.
The World at its deepest, most fundamental level exists in states and changes with time according to a principle of optimizing some End over all possible paths. For classical motions of physical bodies, that is the Principle of Least Action, where for all possible paths, the chosen one is that one with the Least Action ("Action" is a combination of kinetic and potential energy). For classical electrodynamic fields and gravitational fields, a similar Principle exists from which one can derive the State of Nature and its time evolution. And for quantum physics, the states of nature are those that produce the maximum probability amplitude when all paths (real and virtual) are summed with complex number phases that are the classical action.
For human actions, Aristotle in his great work, Nichomachean Ethics, showed that human beings act to maximize their happiness. And also the State, comprised of all humans in a community, would maximize the sum of all human happiness in it. A person has various means to increase his happiness: wealth, pleasure, honor, children, family unity, friends, charity, etc. All those are means to the End, which is happiness: For no one seeks happiness for the sake of something else. People do seek wealth, perhaps thinking it will increase their happiness, or pleasure, or honor, or security and happiness for their children, or for their friends, or security and continuity for their family, or do works of charity for others. All those rational (and instinctive) actions are means for maximize a generalized happiness.
In the same work, Aristotle shows that various "goods" (in the sense of that which is good) are points of excellence between extremes. These are the moral virtues of prudence, temperance , courage and justice. For example, courage is the habitual choice of a state between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness. The point of excellence depends on the facts of each situation, which a truly courageous person learns with training. [NOTE: this concept connects to Part I of this series noted above.] Again, social custom for these virtues applies a principal of optimization.
Modern economic theory also uses a principal of optimization: a vague term called "utility" is maximized by people in their rational choices; for firms, profit is maximized.
And consider how a serious rational decision is made by a thinking person: he/she would contemplate the future course of events and paths and alternatives, real and simply possible ones; and then choose the "best" one for him. Best in what way ? Most wealth ? Nope, many actions contradict that rule. Most honor ? Nope, again, many counter examples exist. To me, Aristotle was right: a thinking person choose that action, or path that seems to maximize his happiness. Of course, he might err. The future is often unknowable and not all facts are known when a decision must be made.
At the next level, a community would, or should, seek to maximize the happiness of all people in it.
But that's the subject of a coming blog post where I will use all this to propose how one can sketch out a consistent political and economic philosophy with these principles and what a State implementing it would look like.
As a teaser, I will herewith state that my prior thinking that a Populist Libertarian philosophy was correct was wrong and that it must be modified. This is an personal example of why one must keep reading and questioning one's ideas. Reading one book [Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics] made me realize I had made a fundamental error: my prior thinking for the correct political and economic philosophy was maximizing a Means, viz. freedom, not an End, viz., happiness. Those are connected but are NOT the same.
Obama
I did not watch his speech. These State of the Union speeches have become exercises in mass propaganda. I will read accounts to find out if anything new or interesting was said.
Word of the Day
"Vulpine" - adjective [$10]
Vulpine means 1. of or like a fox; 2. crafty, cunning
Sentence: Odysseus in the Homeric epics had a vulpine nature that was both celebrated and condemned.
To understand how human societies are structured, or should be structured, and how they change with time, we need to consider what human beings in their rational dimensions are trying to do, or accomplish.
The World at its deepest, most fundamental level exists in states and changes with time according to a principle of optimizing some End over all possible paths. For classical motions of physical bodies, that is the Principle of Least Action, where for all possible paths, the chosen one is that one with the Least Action ("Action" is a combination of kinetic and potential energy). For classical electrodynamic fields and gravitational fields, a similar Principle exists from which one can derive the State of Nature and its time evolution. And for quantum physics, the states of nature are those that produce the maximum probability amplitude when all paths (real and virtual) are summed with complex number phases that are the classical action.
For human actions, Aristotle in his great work, Nichomachean Ethics, showed that human beings act to maximize their happiness. And also the State, comprised of all humans in a community, would maximize the sum of all human happiness in it. A person has various means to increase his happiness: wealth, pleasure, honor, children, family unity, friends, charity, etc. All those are means to the End, which is happiness: For no one seeks happiness for the sake of something else. People do seek wealth, perhaps thinking it will increase their happiness, or pleasure, or honor, or security and happiness for their children, or for their friends, or security and continuity for their family, or do works of charity for others. All those rational (and instinctive) actions are means for maximize a generalized happiness.
In the same work, Aristotle shows that various "goods" (in the sense of that which is good) are points of excellence between extremes. These are the moral virtues of prudence, temperance , courage and justice. For example, courage is the habitual choice of a state between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness. The point of excellence depends on the facts of each situation, which a truly courageous person learns with training. [NOTE: this concept connects to Part I of this series noted above.] Again, social custom for these virtues applies a principal of optimization.
Modern economic theory also uses a principal of optimization: a vague term called "utility" is maximized by people in their rational choices; for firms, profit is maximized.
And consider how a serious rational decision is made by a thinking person: he/she would contemplate the future course of events and paths and alternatives, real and simply possible ones; and then choose the "best" one for him. Best in what way ? Most wealth ? Nope, many actions contradict that rule. Most honor ? Nope, again, many counter examples exist. To me, Aristotle was right: a thinking person choose that action, or path that seems to maximize his happiness. Of course, he might err. The future is often unknowable and not all facts are known when a decision must be made.
At the next level, a community would, or should, seek to maximize the happiness of all people in it.
But that's the subject of a coming blog post where I will use all this to propose how one can sketch out a consistent political and economic philosophy with these principles and what a State implementing it would look like.
As a teaser, I will herewith state that my prior thinking that a Populist Libertarian philosophy was correct was wrong and that it must be modified. This is an personal example of why one must keep reading and questioning one's ideas. Reading one book [Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics] made me realize I had made a fundamental error: my prior thinking for the correct political and economic philosophy was maximizing a Means, viz. freedom, not an End, viz., happiness. Those are connected but are NOT the same.
Obama
I did not watch his speech. These State of the Union speeches have become exercises in mass propaganda. I will read accounts to find out if anything new or interesting was said.
Word of the Day
"Vulpine" - adjective [$10]
Vulpine means 1. of or like a fox; 2. crafty, cunning
Sentence: Odysseus in the Homeric epics had a vulpine nature that was both celebrated and condemned.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Way the World Works
This subject will be a recurring topic in the blog on and off for awhile, as I've been pondering aspects of it.
People seem inclined, whether genetically or by education, to see "things" as either A or B, not some A and some B. For example, when causes of the Panic of 2008 are discussed, most arguments degenerate into bipolar conflicts of (A) greedy Wall Street did it with overleverage, or (B) the government did it by mandating subprime housing finance by banks.
The World does not work as "A or B" in either its most microscopic level or the macroscopic level of humanity. People should stop trying to see the world as "A or B" - it's the wrong concept at the deepest philosophical level. In simple American language, the World is almost always "some A and some B". So stop thinking "A or B" - it just wastes time and leads to errors.
Another thing - the world is complex - literally. It involves complex numbers. Using complex numbers to explain phenomena forces one to bifurcate the phenomena into two dimensions - named the real part and imaginary part. Those are just names. But the math forces one to analyze the phenomena as "some A and some B", and not "A or B". That saves a huge amount of work and gets the answers right.
A famous physicist, Richard Feynman said once [paraphrasing from memory] that education should just teach what's right, and not to waste so much time on metaphors, analogies and simplistic models to try to "explain" the phenomena. I agree and would greatly expand that to all human endeavors, including political speech. All these endless metaphors and slogans are a waste of time and convince no one and lead to nothing.
The ancients knew this in some manner. Plato's theory of Forms involves the recognition that an object has two different dimensions, its matter and its form. A house is made of matter, the wood and nails, but is much more than a pile of wood and nails. The rules that combine the wood and nails - the architecture and construction plans - are the form.
The bifurcation of the World actually goes a lot deeper than even Plato knew. The matter itself is not one thing - "state", but is a combination of many - even an infinite number - of states. And even the form is not unitary. Matter does not follow the rules of a "wave" or a "particle", but is inherently at its deepest level both simultaneously. To be correct, one must abandon "A or B" thinking.
I'll write more about this subject soon.
Actions
I am doing nothing. Whether beefer selling or short selling, or a lack of real buyers higher, morning gains vaporized and the market ended lower by about 1%. Ms. Market stopped dancing and sat down yesterday; perhaps she needs a rest. Or needs some news to motivate her ? A good jobs number might induce her to dance the jitterbug again with some Bulls again.
Word of the Day
"Hylomorphism" - noun [$10]
Hylomorphism means the theory that physical objects are composed of matter and form. More extensively, hylomorphism is the theory that every physical object is composed of two principles, an unchanging prime matter and a form deprived of actuality with every substantial change of the object.
Sentence: [from "Great Ideas in Philosophy", part II notes, page 41] "On the question of human nature, [Aquinas] adopts the hylomorphic thesis: Man is a composite of body and soul."
People seem inclined, whether genetically or by education, to see "things" as either A or B, not some A and some B. For example, when causes of the Panic of 2008 are discussed, most arguments degenerate into bipolar conflicts of (A) greedy Wall Street did it with overleverage, or (B) the government did it by mandating subprime housing finance by banks.
The World does not work as "A or B" in either its most microscopic level or the macroscopic level of humanity. People should stop trying to see the world as "A or B" - it's the wrong concept at the deepest philosophical level. In simple American language, the World is almost always "some A and some B". So stop thinking "A or B" - it just wastes time and leads to errors.
Another thing - the world is complex - literally. It involves complex numbers. Using complex numbers to explain phenomena forces one to bifurcate the phenomena into two dimensions - named the real part and imaginary part. Those are just names. But the math forces one to analyze the phenomena as "some A and some B", and not "A or B". That saves a huge amount of work and gets the answers right.
A famous physicist, Richard Feynman said once [paraphrasing from memory] that education should just teach what's right, and not to waste so much time on metaphors, analogies and simplistic models to try to "explain" the phenomena. I agree and would greatly expand that to all human endeavors, including political speech. All these endless metaphors and slogans are a waste of time and convince no one and lead to nothing.
The ancients knew this in some manner. Plato's theory of Forms involves the recognition that an object has two different dimensions, its matter and its form. A house is made of matter, the wood and nails, but is much more than a pile of wood and nails. The rules that combine the wood and nails - the architecture and construction plans - are the form.
The bifurcation of the World actually goes a lot deeper than even Plato knew. The matter itself is not one thing - "state", but is a combination of many - even an infinite number - of states. And even the form is not unitary. Matter does not follow the rules of a "wave" or a "particle", but is inherently at its deepest level both simultaneously. To be correct, one must abandon "A or B" thinking.
I'll write more about this subject soon.
Actions
I am doing nothing. Whether beefer selling or short selling, or a lack of real buyers higher, morning gains vaporized and the market ended lower by about 1%. Ms. Market stopped dancing and sat down yesterday; perhaps she needs a rest. Or needs some news to motivate her ? A good jobs number might induce her to dance the jitterbug again with some Bulls again.
Word of the Day
"Hylomorphism" - noun [$10]
Hylomorphism means the theory that physical objects are composed of matter and form. More extensively, hylomorphism is the theory that every physical object is composed of two principles, an unchanging prime matter and a form deprived of actuality with every substantial change of the object.
Sentence: [from "Great Ideas in Philosophy", part II notes, page 41] "On the question of human nature, [Aquinas] adopts the hylomorphic thesis: Man is a composite of body and soul."
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Another $10,000 word
Yesterday I gave you "demoktesis", which is an extreme form of a democracy where every person and all the rights of every person is owned by a corporation - a governmental body - and each person holds one share of stock entitled to one vote and one share of distributed profits. So that governmental body is a democratic tyranny where a majority can do anything to anyone at anytime. Ancient Athens was close to this.
Now suppose that some people in the territory of the demoktesis don't want to be part of it - for whatever reason ? Perhaps some Gen X-ers don't like its rules and procedures and want to withdrawal ? Can they form their own corporation and live on their own, perhaps in a community where Grateful Dead music is played all day long as the members toil on their jobs, growing weed ? "Can the [super] corporation ... allow another corporation to spring up in its midst. Can it tolerate the dangers of isolated nonstockheld individuals; in a word, ancorpy? ' "
"Ancorpy" is a $10,000 word not in the Oxford English Dictionary. If you google that word, you will simply find the source where I read it and where this quote was found, viz., the book, "Anarchy, State and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, page 290 top. From the context and likely entymology, it means "existence not of the body"
The aforementioned book is quite sophisticated and is a difficult read, but quite enlightening and valuable. Nozick shows how a minimal state can arise from anarchy using first principles and how utopiae can arise. I read this book and also read "Heavens on Earth", mentioned yesterday, which is a valuable book on actual uptopian experiments in 19th century America. Both really helped me understand how some aspects of socialism really can help increase the happiness of real people if applied with restaint and the freedom to withdraw or move away. They are not marxist theoretical propaganda.
By the way, the relationship of the American Indians to the government of the United States was, and still is, is an ancorpy to a great extent although some merging has occured, but other distinctions are still being created and explored.
Word of the Day #2 - "dwam" - [$1000 - a Scottish word absorbed into English]
"dwam" is a noun and verb, also being spelled dwalm, dwaam, and dwaum.
As a noun, it means a swoon or fainting fit.
As a verb it means to swoon or faint; to become unconscious; also to sicken or fail in health.
Sentence: Will diehard Hillary supporters dwam as Obama overtakes her delegate count ?
... or ... Will Hillary dwam before the next major primary to create sympathy as her crying spells lose effectiveness ?
Now suppose that some people in the territory of the demoktesis don't want to be part of it - for whatever reason ? Perhaps some Gen X-ers don't like its rules and procedures and want to withdrawal ? Can they form their own corporation and live on their own, perhaps in a community where Grateful Dead music is played all day long as the members toil on their jobs, growing weed ? "Can the [super] corporation ... allow another corporation to spring up in its midst. Can it tolerate the dangers of isolated nonstockheld individuals; in a word, ancorpy? ' "
"Ancorpy" is a $10,000 word not in the Oxford English Dictionary. If you google that word, you will simply find the source where I read it and where this quote was found, viz., the book, "Anarchy, State and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, page 290 top. From the context and likely entymology, it means "existence not of the body"
The aforementioned book is quite sophisticated and is a difficult read, but quite enlightening and valuable. Nozick shows how a minimal state can arise from anarchy using first principles and how utopiae can arise. I read this book and also read "Heavens on Earth", mentioned yesterday, which is a valuable book on actual uptopian experiments in 19th century America. Both really helped me understand how some aspects of socialism really can help increase the happiness of real people if applied with restaint and the freedom to withdraw or move away. They are not marxist theoretical propaganda.
By the way, the relationship of the American Indians to the government of the United States was, and still is, is an ancorpy to a great extent although some merging has occured, but other distinctions are still being created and explored.
Word of the Day #2 - "dwam" - [$1000 - a Scottish word absorbed into English]
"dwam" is a noun and verb, also being spelled dwalm, dwaam, and dwaum.
As a noun, it means a swoon or fainting fit.
As a verb it means to swoon or faint; to become unconscious; also to sicken or fail in health.
Sentence: Will diehard Hillary supporters dwam as Obama overtakes her delegate count ?
... or ... Will Hillary dwam before the next major primary to create sympathy as her crying spells lose effectiveness ?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Hylomorphism
Listening to my course on CDs, "Great Ideas in Philosophy" published and sold by The Teaching Company [see http://www.teach12.com/ ], I learned an interesting concept and word: the noun, hylomorphism, and its related adjective, hylomorphic. In simple terms, hylomorphism is a theory that all physical objects are composed of matter and form. Aristotle developed this theory in his book De Anima and a few other books. I'm not going into his usage as that involves concepts of the body and soul.
Let's see how modern elementary particles fit this theory .. and stock prices !
Many have mass, or more precisely, rest mass. And they have other fundamental quantum numbers such as spin and charge. An electron has a rest mass and spin 1/2. A W and Z particle has rest mass and spin 1. A photon has no rest mass and spin 1. A quark has rest mass, spin 1/2 and charge -1/3 or +2/3. And some particles have "colors" and "flavors". A graviton (not discovered directly yet) has no rest mass and spin 2.
I suppose we could generalize "matter" to be "energy" as the special theory of relativity does by making energy the fourth component of a fundamental four dimensional vector with the three directions of momentum as the other three dimensions. But there really is a fundamental difference between rest mass and energy - that's why it's called, "rest mass".
So hylomorphism might partly right and partly wrong, or needs generalization. Not all fundamental particles have rest mass. But all fundamental particles have some fundamental properties one could characterize as "form", such as spin. I think latter day philosophers might have expected classical hylomorphism to fail on the other leg, namely that some physical objects would not have "form", but all would have "matter".
Hmmm ... can one call light a "physical object" ? Or a graviton ? We can observe light and feel gravity. But are we simply using the photon or graviton to sense a physical object that does have matter? I have to think more about that concept.
Hmmm ... what is a "stock price" ? It's the price of exchange of shares. So a "stock price" has no matter, but has form, like a photon. A stock price has two numbers, the price and the number of shares, and a time - when the transaction occurred. So it's three dimensional. The prices, share #s and times can be ordered but are not unique. At a single time, several exchanges can occur at different prices or the same price. This is analogous to a boson with integral spin - they can be stacked on top of each other while fermions with half integral spin cannot occupy the same "space". Interesting ... I'll think more about this.
Stocks:
Nothing is new. Wait for a confirmation day, or just buy dips of good stocks.
PS: I just realized my "beefer" theory of the stock market is a teleological theory - one that focusses on the purpose or design behind the actions :-)) I guess it sounds more intellectual now ;-)
PPS: I suppose if one includes the security identification number ["CUSIP" in the US], there are three numbers and a time - a four vector - asscociated with a stock price.
Let's see how modern elementary particles fit this theory .. and stock prices !
Many have mass, or more precisely, rest mass. And they have other fundamental quantum numbers such as spin and charge. An electron has a rest mass and spin 1/2. A W and Z particle has rest mass and spin 1. A photon has no rest mass and spin 1. A quark has rest mass, spin 1/2 and charge -1/3 or +2/3. And some particles have "colors" and "flavors". A graviton (not discovered directly yet) has no rest mass and spin 2.
I suppose we could generalize "matter" to be "energy" as the special theory of relativity does by making energy the fourth component of a fundamental four dimensional vector with the three directions of momentum as the other three dimensions. But there really is a fundamental difference between rest mass and energy - that's why it's called, "rest mass".
So hylomorphism might partly right and partly wrong, or needs generalization. Not all fundamental particles have rest mass. But all fundamental particles have some fundamental properties one could characterize as "form", such as spin. I think latter day philosophers might have expected classical hylomorphism to fail on the other leg, namely that some physical objects would not have "form", but all would have "matter".
Hmmm ... can one call light a "physical object" ? Or a graviton ? We can observe light and feel gravity. But are we simply using the photon or graviton to sense a physical object that does have matter? I have to think more about that concept.
Hmmm ... what is a "stock price" ? It's the price of exchange of shares. So a "stock price" has no matter, but has form, like a photon. A stock price has two numbers, the price and the number of shares, and a time - when the transaction occurred. So it's three dimensional. The prices, share #s and times can be ordered but are not unique. At a single time, several exchanges can occur at different prices or the same price. This is analogous to a boson with integral spin - they can be stacked on top of each other while fermions with half integral spin cannot occupy the same "space". Interesting ... I'll think more about this.
Stocks:
Nothing is new. Wait for a confirmation day, or just buy dips of good stocks.
PS: I just realized my "beefer" theory of the stock market is a teleological theory - one that focusses on the purpose or design behind the actions :-)) I guess it sounds more intellectual now ;-)
PPS: I suppose if one includes the security identification number ["CUSIP" in the US], there are three numbers and a time - a four vector - asscociated with a stock price.
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