[pfiir at pfinr.org: [ PFFR ] Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral']

[Steve Kinney]

On 08/07/2017 05:33 PM, juan wrote:
> On Sun, 6 Aug 2017 19:27:23 -0400
> Steve Kinney <admin at pilobilus.net> wrote:
>
>
> The Nolan test indicates what people believe
> about themselves, not the actual motives that affect their actions -
> otherwise, the inevitable conversion of our society to a Libertarian
> model of governance would have happened decades ago. 
> 	
> 	I'm not following. Are you saying that most "healthy adults" are
> 	libertarians? If that was the case, then indeed we would expect
> 	 society to be libertarian. But since the US (in this case) is
> 	anything but libertarian, then your premise is false? It seems
> 	kinda obvious that most 'healthy' adults are either left wing
> 	fascists or right wing fascists. Not healthy at all of course.

I would not say that most healthy adults are Libertarians; I would say
that the Nolan Chart should diagnose most healthy adults as
Libertarians.  That's what makes it a high value recruiting tool for the
Libertarian Party.  "What you always were has a name, and even a
political party working for what YOU want!"  Anyone working for any
Party can /say/ that to anyone else, but the Libertarians present a
convincing illusion of objective proof. 

Whether the likely outcomes of implementing the Party's policy agenda
resemble the promised results, bears no relation to the recruitment
process.

>> http://pilobilus.net/Political-Power-Spectrum.png
> 	Looks good. However, the term "capitalism" isn't the right one
> 	I think, because it's too ambiguous. More accurate terms :
> 	mercantilism or corporatism, which in practice lead to big
> 	businesses and monopoly. 

Any analysis at this level of abstraction will have plenty of
ambiguities.  I was aiming for "common sense" a.k.a. propaganda driven
terminology, with breaking certain "common sense" paradigms in mind. 
Filling in the details is up to the individual.  That's where the fun is.

> 	It's true that there are people who defend the current fascist
> 	system and claim that big businesses are a poor oppressed
> 	minority and the government should stop taxing goldman sachs
> 	and google and raytheon. I'm referring to the randroid scumbags
> 	of course. They certainly beong to the far right, but they have
> 	obviously nothing to do with 'anarchism'.

In a context where ownership of capital is highly concentrated in the
hands of a small minority, but access to armed force is widely
distributed across the population, you might get Robber Barons:  More or
less the "Right."

In a context where ownership of capital is highly concentrated in the
hands of a small minority, and access to armed force is highly
concentrated in the hands of a small minority, you might get
NeoLiberals:  More or less the "Left."

These outcomes are not inherent in the model, but given that the Left
and Right as described here already dominate the playing field... 

>> If most people who identify as Libertarian would rather live in the
>> lower right quadrant of the above graph, so sorry.  That Party offers
>> no such program or agenda:  
> 	well, the US libertarian party is really a non-entity so their
> 	offerings don't really mean anything...

The Libertarian Party does divert a lot of bright, capable people down a
blind alley.  They are presented with a believable ideology that, if
adopted as national policy, would remove present restraints (such as
they are) from our Robber Baron capitalists.  Whether this is a good or
bad idea is left as an exercise.
>> Only a hollow promise that incorruptible
>> Civil Courts will deliver equal justice to penniless individuals and
>> corporate cartels, and that the infallible invisible hand of the Free
>> Market will prevent systemic abuse of corporate power.  
>>
>> 	well, that's indeed the philosophy behind "anarchist free
>> 	enterprise". If on the other hand, you think that a free market
>> 	will NOT prevent abuse/concentration  of economic  power, then
>> 	you'd need to call the state to 'regulate' the market....and
>> 	stop being an anarchist.

Again, a lot depends on the definitions of highly abstract terms.  In a
localized, decentralized system of governance, the inhabitants of any
given self governing region could do whatever they damn well please
about regulating commerce and addressing the impact of industrial
processes on resources of value to the community, i.e. what the folks
upstream are doing to the water you irrigate your fields with.  In the
event of conflicting interests some sort of settlement will be worked
out, with or without resort to brute force.   

The definition of anarchy as the absence of governance would be a joke,
if it was not a very well established article of indoctrinated faith,
bestowed on us by our forbears' authoritarian rulers.  People organize
into groups and make collective decisions; those who don't have that
trait went extinct ages ago.  How they do that, and at what scale, have
varied widely.  In my view, the smaller the units of governance, the
more widely distributed the decision making process, and the fewer
barriers to participation the better.  To err is human and every form of
governance fucks up; but, generally speaking, tribal councils that act
by consensus seem to have done the least harm. 
>> That is why I call my own orientation and agenda Anarchism.  My
>> preferred quadrant of the above graph is the lower right one:  Broadly
>> distributed political and economic power among autonomous local
>> communities.  Clockwise from lower left, I associate the quadrants
>> with Free Market Capitalism, Socialist State Capitalism, Feudal
>> Aristocracy and Tribal Federations.  
>>
>>
>> 	Sorry, the red (lower left) quadrant is not free market
>> 	capitalism at all. The red quadrant is an absurd position IF we
>> 	use your definition of capitalism. You can't have state
>> 	privileges(capitalism) if there's no state. 
Let's see:  The red quadrant indicates high concentration of economic
power in the hands of a small number of people, plus distribution of
power mediated by armed force across a large number of people.  The
power of a wealthy minority, not restrained by rules enforced by an
armed central authority, sounds like Free Market Capitalism to me.  With
that concentration of wealth, it should be no problem for an economic
ruling class to hire enough mercenaries to protect their interests from
all those armed citizens. 

Note that capitalism != corporatism, it only indicates a specialization
in acquisition and growth of private wealth. 

> 	Free market capitalism is basically the green quadrant. But you
> 	are referring to it as "tribal federations" which is term you
> 	just made up...
Made up?  Far from it.  A tribal federation is a group of local
councils, coordinating regional relations with other councils by treaty
agreements.  It was the dominant form of governance in North America
when the Europeans showed up in force with superior technology.  We are
not taught about the tribal council and federation model, because it is
important for us to understand that the natives were "ignorant savages,
incapable of organizing and governing themselves."  Otherwise, what
becomes of Manifest Destiny and the White Man's Burden? 
> 	Your red quadrant and your violet quadrant are absurdities
> 	and not recognized in 'standard' political philosophy, plus
> 	your classification can't account for  plain old state
> 	socialism/communism.
The graph seems to account exactly for plain old state
socialism/communitsm:  See the dot marked "Left."  Maximum concentration
of economic power in the hands of a minority (State appointed
functionaries), plus maximum concentration of coercive force in the
hands of a minority (State legal, police, and military activities).  How
is that inconsistent with plain old state socialism/communism? 
>> All loosely defined, as is
>> proper with high level abstract labels.  All have their upsides and
>> downsides, but Tribal Federations have, so far, produced the least
>> harmful results overall. Can that model make a comeback in the
>> post-industrial world?  
> 	Are you assuming this is a 'post industrial' world? Or are you
> 	talking about some hypothetical collapse of the industrial
> 	world? 
>
> 	I've bad news for you (and me). The industrial world isn't
> 	going away anytime soon.
Depends one's definition of "soon."  I do expect today's global economic
system to crash, hard, within 10 to 20 years, taking "heavy industry"
and long range transportation of bulk material commodities with it.  Not
completely, but sufficiently to cause a domino effect leading to a
significant human population crash. 

I could be wrong in this case, but exponential growth inside a closed
container usually ends badly for whatever is growing exponentially,
and/or for its container.  In the context of human affairs, that end
typically comes as a shocking surprise because exponential growth
functions are counter-intuitive; our normative bias leads us to expect
linear change where we anticipate any change at all.  The immediate self
interest of millions of human actors whose combined decision making
drives the exponential growth of industrial process, biases the lot of
them toward magical thinking - even those who /can/ accurately imagine
exponential processes. 

Just now, peak extraction rates for many non-regenerating environmental
resources are arriving at the same time; the humans have been spending
down their 'natural capital' faster than Donald Trump spending down his
inheritance to maintain the illusion that he is a brilliantly successful
businessman.  One of the more alarming features of material economics
today, is that the rising curve of food demand and falling curve of food
production rates are presently crossing, while essential inputs to
agriculture (and animal husbandry) - potable water, topsoil, phosphates
- have reached or passed peak utilization rates.  Worldwide, food
reserves are at historic lows and resupply is not expected. 

Our industrial civilization is brittle, but the humans themselves are
very resilient.  Although I do expect Very Bad Things to happen, I see
lots of room for very good long term outcomes. 




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