Our Problem Is Debt

[Stars]

No, the attack is the root.

The rest is the excuse.

Does the institution rest upon attack or the attack rest upon the institution?

Edited August 7, 2009 by Stars

[MarkG]

There is no moral underlying code. Just a series of pragmatic judgements made in terms of satisfying that self interest.

Which is why trying to build a moral famework out of self-interest in the form of anarcho-capitalism is as doomed to abject failure as any other systematic, abstract framework for describing, predicting and proscribing human behaviour.

It's probably fortunate that anarcho-capitalism is an economic framework and not a moral one, then.

I am amused to see you claim that a system based on the assumption that people will generally follow their own self-interest is doomed because people follow their own self-interest. Not surprised, though.

The future is absolute minimum government or electrodes in the brain: there is no longer any prospect of safe middle ground (if there ever was). The power an individual can wield through modern technology is simply far too great for anything else.

[Injin]

I fear you are confusing the concept of "optimal" with that of "maximal" behavioural strategies. In terms of human behaviour, the latter only works if you live in a world where you have access to all information. However, the former works when you live in a world where you have access to only limited information.

Guess which world humans live in?

Violence, force and coercion can soimetimes be optimally useful whilst simultaneously being maximally less so. However, in the absence of complete information, an optimal strategy is better than nothing.

The real world, injin.

As it is.

That's right.

But now you have the information.

[Injin]

Does the institution rest upon attack or the attack rest upon the institution?

The institution is the excuse - it would be - it's a fiction.

The attack is real.

[SNACR]

The psychology of your presence here relates to your need to have your crackpot ideas validated by frequent iterations of the same discussion. As for the institution, you certainly belong in one.

Are you auditioning for the Blue Man Group?

[Tonkers]

Are you auditioning for the Blue Man Group?

He is an analysist and a therapist, an analrapist.

[SNACR]

He is an analysist and a therapist, an analrapist.

I keep forgetting how funny that series was

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknjhnywGGI...feature=related

[roman holiday]

Replicating genes build a breeding population of socially interacting phenotypic survival vehicles, each including a large brain that produces a complex, plastic but ill-understood psychological "self".

Lots of possibilities for both intra-level and multi-level interactions here, plus environmental influences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6FDvH0b7II&feature=fvw

[roman holiday]

It (human behaviour) is not about philisophical/ideological/moral consistency. It's about maintaining one's self interests.

How about the behaviour of sitting at the computer reading posts for hours on end?

Does that reflect "self interest"? I think it would be more reasonable to say it reflects intellectual curiosity. I mean, if you really believed those absolutist claims about self-interest then why would you bother learning anything... out of curiosity and as an end in itself.

Edited August 7, 2009 by roman holiday

[Stars]

The institution is the excuse - it would be - it's a fiction.

The attack is real.

And if you pick apart the moral legitimacy of the institution, the attack is revealed as an attack, otherwise it isn't.

You intend to talk about attacks vaguely and not bother specifying the institutions that involve attack?

That Seem like an obtuse way of going about things..good luck with it.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Stars

[Where is my pen?]

Bill

I think the Mods have a policy for newcomers to be on probation with acceptance of new threads subject to their scrutiny.

Your new threads should appear in due course and any posted after your probationary period should then appear almost instantaneously.

BTW, I think that you and hotairmail are both correct, but from different perspectives, as I tried to explain in posts #119 and #130.

It's a restless hungry feeling

That don't mean no one no good

When ev'rything I'm a-sayin'

You can say it just as good

You're right from your side

I'm right from mine

We're both just too many mornings

An' a thousand miles behind.

Bob Dylan

There is nothing in life more cringeworthy than middle age men quoting song lyrics. ew!

[Where is my pen?]

You miss an important point in all this. Currently our money supply is created out of debt -- at interest. However, the interest is not created, therefore the system is chronically unstable and is nothing more than a fancy pyramid scheme because the interest money is never created. Therefore to prevent collapse, the system must always bring in new borrowers at the bottom. There is NO WAY such a system can endure. A Biblical Jubilee period is already taking place with bank writedowns, and will continue for many years to come as the system's only answer is to try to re-inflate the bubble.

Bill, listen my friend, please. What you just said there, hilighted with bold, is so UTTERLY STUPID that I am embarassed for you!

Your difficulty stems from not understanding the difference between money and credit. That is all too common a fault, sadly.

[Authoritarian]

Hi Bill

1. I didn't say I had. Please don't be sensitive.

2. Should I take offence?

3. I'm assuming that is not meant to be a double negative in which case you seriously need to do some more homework on this for the sake of your credibility. You are clearly wrong about interest creation. I urge you to reconsider.

I used to agree with you on this but now I'm not so sure. If I set up a bank and lend someone a credit note promising the holder £10 then that is my liability. What I want is that note back so the borrower goes chasing round doing work in order to get that note so I can tear up. Well there's still the issue of the interest, the borrower has the capacity to pay the interest through their labour but they still need £'s which can only be issued by a bank to make the exchange happen.

IMO a fiat currency is ideal as it allows a transfer of goods backed by the promise of goods and services in the future. But I'm starting to rethink about who should benefit from the issue of the currency, is there a cheaper more responsive way for going about things? In theory I could issue my own currency if wanted too, I could promise somebody future labour or future crops without the need to invlove the banking and tax systems which just add layers of paperwork for (potentially) little more in the way of value added. The interest would still be there, if I purchase something off you now in exchange for future stuff you may charge a little bit more as there's always a risk I may not make good on my promise. But the gains are wholly passed on to the person taking the risk.

It may be that on balance the system we have now is the most desirable one, I'm no money reformer. But I'm going to go back over this stuff slowly and logically to see where it takes me

Edited August 7, 2009 by chefdave

[Guest Steve Cook]

I feel sure injin would argue that the pursuit of self interest balances - if you push your interests to exclude mine, i push back and a natural equilibrium is met whereby we end up not with rights codified by laws but rights codified by the empirical experience you have, that when you push your interests over my rights you end up with costs that make it not worth your effort, so you don't bother.

I think it is a beautiful theory and to a large degree it makes sense - my beef is that it just doesn't appear to be empirically true; there is something balsing that up. My suspicion is that a large part of what makes it empiricaly untrue is the fact that a domination of new territory gives way too much advantage to the victor and commensurate, ongoing and unavoidable cost and weakening to the loser, for attack to be deterred on those grounds.

This is precisely it. Once structural inequalities of opportunity to act become embedded, they will not be given willingly up by those who hold that advantage.

Of course they wouldn't. Why would they? To do so would be in direct contravention of the fundamental imperative to service their optimal and immediate self interest. Economic agents in an economy, just like genetic agents in an eco-system, cannot afford to think ahead that far. They must simply react to the world as it is.

This is our tradgedy. We know, at the abstract level, how to achieve a maximal outcome for all of us. However, the real world, with all of it's imperfect information forces us to mostly take the optimal option when dealing with it.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Steve Cook

[Bloo Loo]

I used to agree with you on this but now I'm not so sure. If I set up a bank and lend someone a credit note promising the holder �10 then that is my liability. What I want is that note back so the borrower goes chasing round doing work in order to get that note so I can tear up. Well there's still the issue of the interest, the borrower has the capacity to pay the interest through their labour but they still need �'s which can only be issued by a bank to make the exchange happen.

IMO a fiat currency is ideal as it allows a transfer of goods backed by the promise of goods and services in the future. But I'm starting to rethink about who should benefit from the issue of the currency, is there a cheaper more responsive way for going about things? In theory I could issue my own currency if wanted too, I could promise somebody future labour or future crops without the need to invlove the banking and tax systems which just add layers of paperwork for (potentially) little more in the way of value added. The interest would still be there, if I purchase something off you now in exchange for future stuff you may charge a little bit more as there's always a risk I may not make good on my promise. But the gains are wholly passed on to the person taking the risk.

It may be that on balance the system we have now is the most desirable one, I'm no money reformer. But I'm going to go back over this stuff slowly and logically to see where it takes me

you could issue your own currency.

trouble is, when the government man demands his tax of your labours, CD$s are not going to cut it.

[Guest Steve Cook]

How about the behaviour of sitting at the computer reading posts for hours on end?

Does that reflect "self interest"? I think it would be more reasonable to say it reflects intellectual curiosity. I mean, if you really believed those absolutist claims about self-interest then why would you bother learning anything... out of curiosity and as an end in itself.

It's all about the averages, I'm afraid.

Also, the tendency of humans to be curious "for its own ends" is only something that appears to be so in the short span of a human lifetime. Over the millions of years span of existence of the genes that make those human lifetimes possible, the end is clear and unambiguous.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Steve Cook

[Guest Steve Cook]

It's probably fortunate that anarcho-capitalism is an economic framework and not a moral one, then.

I am amused to see you claim that a system based on the assumption that people will generally follow their own self-interest is doomed because people follow their own self-interest. Not surprised, though.

The future is absolute minimum government or electrodes in the brain: there is no longer any prospect of safe middle ground (if there ever was). The power an individual can wield through modern technology is simply far too great for anything else.

I am claiming that a system based on the assumtion that people will generally act in their own maximal self interest is doomed to failure since, for them to be able to act in such a way, they would need to be privy to all relevant information in relation to their action. They never are.

People do, of course, mostly act in their own optimal self interest.

Which is why we are where we are.

It is also why anarcho-capitalism is no more or less a fantasy than any other abstract description, prediction and proscription of human behaviour

Edited August 7, 2009 by Steve Cook

[Bloo Loo]

Bill, listen my friend, please. What you just said there, hilighted with bold, is so UTTERLY STUPID that I am embarassed for you!

Your difficulty stems from not understanding the difference between money and credit. That is all too common a fault, sadly.

just a mo, even BoE MONEY is created by government issuing bonds..AT INTEREST.

so to pay the private lender who bought the bond with MONEY, not credit, back, the government has to issue another bond later at the face value PLUS all the interest.

money supply is increased. The BoEs job is to ensure the interest (new money) generated bears some semblance to the wealth created with the money.

If not, the INTEREST the government pays to the buying entity of its bond is inflationary without wealth backing it.

there can be no CREDIT where gilts and BoE IOUs are concerned.

[Bloo Loo]

snip

What I thought interesting though in your piece above is the aspect of labour. Clearly this is not traded on the commodity markets yet.

(btw - scrub your mind....payment is effected in base money, credit includes both principal and interest and there exists a match between assets and liabilities...payment of the loan principal is effected typically with base money, as is any net amounts arising from the interest portion. The borrower doesn't see that but it doesn't mean it doesn't reach the wider economy in other ways. There is never enough base money - it circulates)

at the end of the day, MONEY IS the trade in labour.

as I say, a Gilt can only be settled and all its interest paid by the raising of another gilt. thats why inflation is important to the system, and the GROWTH must be maintained, otherwise the system will collapse under its own devaluation..

as you say, there appears to be a shortage of money with which to settle debt. QE starts to fill this gap....but is not issued in the same way as normal....it carries no interest. why would anyone buy a thing that earns them nothing unless it had some other value?

[sleepwello'nights]

Bill, listen my friend, please. What you just said there, hilighted with bold, is so UTTERLY STUPID that I am embarassed for you!

Your difficulty stems from not understanding the difference between money and credit. That is all too common a fault, sadly.

Showing myself to be UTTERLY STUPID, what is the difference between money and credit?

As I see it credit can only be converted into money before it can be used as a token of transfer, and it is in effect the same thing. Money is the store whether it be for past effort or future effort. Or is that the distinction you're trying to make - credit is future effort?

[roman holiday]

It's all about the averages, I'm afraid.

Also, the tendency of humans to be curious "for its own ends" is only something that appears to be so in the short span of a human lifetime.

This "appearance" reveals itself directly to your consciousness.

Over the millions of years span of existence of the genes that make those human lifetimes possible, the end is clear and unambiguous.

This is a theory based on theories... by consensus it is the currently accepted cosmology [a thorough going skepticism is always suspicious of what is commonly accepted... and would accept there is no certainty here... maybe we are not quite so skeptical as we like to think we are].

This cosmology does not reveal itself directly, or existentially, to consciousness like intellectual consciousness does... rather, quite the opposite, this very cosmology was itself formed by a process of such intellectual curiosity.

Conclusions of evolutionary cosmology can not undermine the validity of intellectual curiosity because that would undermine reason and the conclusions of reason... and the evolutionary ones included.

To take reason and its conclusions seriously, reason has to be thought more than a secretion of the brain. Reason must somehow have some objective connection to reality. Don't you find something curious about that?

Edited August 7, 2009 by roman holiday

[Guest Steve Cook]

This "appearance" reveals itself directly to your consciousness.

This is a theory based on theories... by consensus it is the currently accepted cosmology [a thorough going skepticism is always suspicious of what is commonly accepted... and would accept there is no certainty here].

This cosmology does not reveal itself directly, or existentially, to consciousness like intellectual consciousness does... rather the very cosmology itself formed by a process of such intellectual curiosity.

Conclusions of evolutionary cosmology can not undermine the validity of intellectual curiosity because that would undermine reason and the conclusions of reason... and the evolutionary ones included.

Don't you find something curious about that?

Not really.

That sounds far ruder than it is intended to be.

Sorry.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Steve Cook

[Guest Steve Cook]

To take reason and its conclusions seriously, reason has to be thought more than a secretion of the brain. Reason must somehow have some objective connection to reality....

Though I would appreciate it if you were to un-pack this a little...

Are you saying that logic cannot exist independantly of emphirical obervations?

Edited August 7, 2009 by Steve Cook

[roman holiday]

Though I would appreciate it if you were to un-pack this a little...

Are you saying that logic cannot exist independantly of emphirical obervations?

1] A scientific theory makes objective claims that are to be considered universally true.

2] "Human consciousness and intellectual curiosity is a historical accident and the outcome of blind natural forces of struggle and survival" is a scientific theory.

2] undermines 1] because reason can not now be considered objectively true but relative to humanity in our small part of the universe, in our small part of time. How can its conclusions be universally true? Reason is now in a flux without anything unchanging to "latch onto". Scientific theory, itself the product of historical chance, can now no longer provide absolute truths.

The logic of all this is a descent into irrationalism where power is seen as more primordial than reason. Politically, it translates into the difference between barbarism and civilization.

Or again, scientific reason becomes like the maniacal grin of the cheshire cat which slowly disappears... or cannabilizes itself.

Edited August 7, 2009 by roman holiday

[Injin]

And if you pick apart the moral legitimacy of the institution, the attack is revealed as an attack, otherwise it isn't.

No, if you pick apart the subject the vioolence is aimed at, the violence remains, it just changes what it is pointed at.

You intend to talk about attacks vaguely and not bother specifying the institutions that involve attack?

Institutions do not exist. Only people do.

That Seem like an obtuse way of going about things..good luck with it.

It's working fantastically well so far.