On Friday, September 7, 2012 6:50:54 AM UTC-4, gabbydott wrote:
I am missing +Molly in this thread here. Molly, what do YOU think, the--
language that the world is talking in is turning into? How much more
does the image of Clinton and Obama embracing each other count
compared to all the nope-facts that have been listed here? Ain't that
a show with the quality of Shakespearian dramaturgy, being able to
keep the Dark Lady at bay? Connectivism yes, with the right
connectors? Do you see where I see you coming in?
On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:45 AM, Don Johnson <daj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wonderful to see the old crew at work talking about something I'm
> hugely interested in. I can't wait to read your book archy. Be sure to
> set up a website so you can sell signed copies. I'm going to be all
> over it.
>
> My aunt and uncle were just in London recently and I told them "to
> avoid the chavs." Youngsters here are pretty much the same. Just read
> a bio on George Washington and it was amusing to read some of his
> letters to his adoptive son's school master and others bemoaning his
> charge's lack of ambition and disgusting personal conduct. The more
> things change the more us humans never do. I, of course, was a model
> adolescent that never got into trouble. Ahem.
>
> I've been focused on my country's choice of leader of late.
> Conventions and what not. Folks talking alot and saying less then
> nothing except basically "My opponent sucks ass." Well, they have
> others do it for them but it's the same.
>
> Yeah, y'all are stuck with the dollar. I know it gives us the
> advantage in some respects but if the trend of downsizing our military
> continues I suspect Fran's more pessimistic fears may come to pass.
> This is in no ones best interest except the crazy Anarchists. The
> eternal optimist in me suspects that with a little government show or
> restraint(stop hemmorhaging my hard earned cash) folks(including the
> much maligned .01 percenters) will be more willing to pay up to start
> paying down the debt. We don't need another Terror. No thank you. I
> happen to really like most rich people and would prefer to not see
> thier heads removed from their bodies.
>
> As usual I read nothing in your posts about the problems we face that
> I disagree with. It's only when we talk about solutions that we
> differ. I see massive fraud here in the USA. Everybody wants their
> turn on the tit and those that have been on the longest are the
> hardest to drag off. Incidentally I just watched Cinderella Man about
> John Braddock's heavy weight fight. This was back in the Depression
> when folks were shamed about taking public asistance. Now, folks brag
> about how much they get. The Culture has changed somewhat and short of
> censorship(which I hate) I haven't a clue how to fix it.
>
> I hope to find some time Sunday to delve into this topic further and
> perhaps be more careful to spell better(no speel check) and not
> over-use parenthisis. I was a lazy child in English class.
>
> dj
>
> On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 10:20 AM, archytas <nwt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The problem is that once the government or the rulers gain control of
>> money, it progressively ceases to be a medium of exchange and becomes
>> a medium of control. That impinges on the functioning of markets which
>> in turn impinges on the maintenance of property rights. Thus, we come
>> full circle from a free society to a command society. There has never
>> been any shortage of those who want to rule. The problem has always
>> been with the vast majority who are content to be ruled. Today's
>> global outcry for the manufacturing of more and more "money" out of
>> thin air is an eloquent testimony. It shows that most people have no
>> understanding of freedom, markets or money. Lacking such understanding
>> - and having no desire to gain it - most people have accepted
>> government as their masters.
>>
>> As Robert Heinlein stated the problem - it is impossible to free a
>> serf or a slave. He or she must free themselves and most are much more
>> terrified of that prospect than they are resentful of being ruled.
>> Sometimes Gabbers sounds like one of those women who sit around
>> looking pretty John Cheever used to write about. I know she isn't, a
>> matter for taking either way and one end against the other. The
>> Germans have no sense of humour we Anglo-Saxons can understand because
>> it just isn't funny kind thing. I too am part post-modern text
>> engine. Did you know we are probably 'related' Gabs? A whole pile of
>> your guys invaded Scotland with farming about 3000 years ago. It
>> seems the Germans are responsible not only for bad opera and the
>> interminable Mahler, but also porridge.
>>
>> The blueberry pie is spot on rigsy - even if you give me the recipe
>> I'll probably foul-up the cooking. Much complexity in maths comes
>> down to formulating the sum so we can count - the modern solution to
>> Fermat's last theorem is an example, however cunning. My suspicion is
>> there is no pie to bake with the arguments about. Wittgenstein used
>> to take apparently very different arguments and show they were based
>> on what in my everyday I'd call the same shit. No doubt some would
>> prefer 'root metaphor'. This is merely an application of set theory,
>> and eventually leads to the notion the universe is just the history of
>> an electron over time, or Barthes' idea text is all about seduction.
>>
>> My suspicion is we are lost in world-views of the slave and serf -
>> though I don't end up as a libertarian. Most people don't work very
>> hard. Otherwise my novel will sell in millions (it's finally at the
>> agent's - friends will be able to download it free at some point).
>> Most people, in academic terms, can't "read". Even I don't do
>> 'misucation'! Though I note it may be more descriptive than ejucation
>> on the forced processes of childhood. I don't just think money has
>> become the means of control - the whole process of making argument
>> accessible to only a few is part of that spreadsheet.
>>
>> Trying to get people to do things as a manager or teacher often left
>> me feeling it is cruel to have to do such work unarmed. These days I
>> think we'd be better off with a less gruesome system than money-
>> misucation that kills and impoverishes in millions to deal with
>> laziness. Anyone else hate teenagers? They are lazy, dirty, loud,
>> littering scum. I even had to take my grandson and his two mates to
>> Blackpool Pleasure Beach - the notion of just going on the train was
>> beyond them. We even have to force people to be clean. No amount of
>> soldierly ear-wax is going to stop me getting a hygiene message
>> thought of someone I have to share the intimacy of a tank with.
>> Deontological liberalism won't do Gabby.
>>
>> On 3 Sep, 13:09, gabbydott <gabbyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> People being too taken up with survival and 'homeward mobility' to
>>> want to listen to the wise men's advises and sermons coined the
>>> corresponding German idiom which literally translates: To understand
>>> only train station
>>> (http://german.about.com/od/idiomsandproverbs/a/German- ).Expression-Nur-...
>>> German WW I soldiers did the Odysseus thing and put wax in their ears.
>>>
>>> Now, what exactly do you have to do in order to not mistake the
>>> messenger for his message? You need to know how the distillation
>>> process works! Repeating or pushing up what the seemingly best has
>>> said and loading it up with your own history only fosters the
>>> development of the fool's gold production technique.
>>>
>>> If you use fear as a transport means for your message instead of using
>>> it as a catalyst for progress, I'd call this a systemic misucation of
>>> fear that you are propagating. The system is rotting, let's rot the
>>> next!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 8:17 PM, Vam <atewari2...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Neil, 'many likes' and 'much love' ... for bringing this crux to focus.
>>> > Fran, you hit it on the head about our times.
>>>
>>> > Maybe, Don will take it forward with his passionate disputation.
>>>
>>> > The puppeteers have "unlocked" the value, they say.
>>> > Means, people have been effectively harnessed into the system which reaps
>>> > the 'value' they create in a high-GINI hierarchical structure, in which too
>>> > they are made to pay for their needs at costs that leave them poor. Except
>>> > for the smart few who agree to actions they might be indicted by law for or
>>> > stoned to gore by the people !
>>>
>>> > The whole of education serves to provide an inexhaustible stream of such
>>> > 'whizkids.' The entire environment is made subtly captive with massive
>>> > obfuscation of meaning, PR, propaganda, paid media and editorials,
>>> > legislatures and senates, and 'iconic' bizwigs.
>>>
>>> > And people... remember, most of them are too taken up with survival and
>>> > 'upward mobility' !
>>>
>>> > On Saturday, September 1, 2012 8:03:18 PM UTC+5:30, frantheman wrote:
>>>
>>> >> It's a rigged game, Neil, with rigged rules, from beginning to end. One of
>>> >> the excellent points made by Graeber is how little of that which is really
>>> >> important to us in life lets itself be quantified in monetary/economic
>>> >> terms; things like love, honesty, beauty, trust. Trust ... ? The strange
>>> >> thing is that any monetary system is based on trust - yet what exemplifies
>>> >> the current financial roulette systems which dominate the global and
>>> >> national "markets" is a complete lack of trust. He who trusts will be
>>> >> conned.
>>>
>>> >> The system is rotten, played to the advantage of the 1% (or the 0.001%
>>> >> globally). Unfortunately we are all caught up in it, are dependent on it,
>>> >> suffer from it (or even - in the case of those of us living in the rich
>>> >> countries - occasionally profit from it). There are plenty of models for
>>> >> ways of doing things differently. What I can't see - without systemic
>>> >> breakdown and the immeasurable suffering and death of tens, even hundreds of
>>> >> millions - is how to move from where we are now to where we could be. In my
>>> >> more pessimistic moments, I fear that this systemic collapse is probably
>>> >> inevitably imminent anyhow.
>>>
>>> >> On 1 September 2012 14:35, archytas <nwt...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >>> A common phrase in my childhood when we couldn't understand something
>>> >>> was 'it's all Greek to me'. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy are all
>>> >>> Euro periphery nations now on the brink of collapse. I've been trying
>>> >>> to explain what's going on in a series of lectures recently. I start
>>> >>> from the premise that economics is all Greek to me. This is some
>>> >>> combination of me not understanding the muck and my belief that what
>>> >>> it's all about is a politburo imposing the Greek fate on us all.
>>> >>> Michael Hudson has written extensively on this.
>>>
>>> >>> Most of us can't debate economics because we can't get our attitudes
>>> >>> out of the Idols that generate our 'understanding'. I usually start
>>> >>> with a few questions about debt and what money is. It's rare anyone
>>> >>> has much sensible to say on either, let alone knowledge of the history
>>> >>> on might find in, say, David Graeber's 'Debt: the first 5000 years' or
>>> >>> Paul Ormerod's 'Dr Strangelove's Game'. I veer off a little and
>>> >>> explain that when I started university teaching, you could base a
>>> >>> course on text like this aiming at truth than than quantitative
>>> >>> manipulation. These days, education has shifted towards producing
>>> >>> technocrats with instantly transferable job skills. Teaching doesn't
>>> >>> get much further than compiling and manipulating spreadsheets.
>>>
>>> >>> Ask yourself who owns the debt, what is its size in comparison with
>>> >>> the productive economy. The answers are startling, but less so than
>>> >>> the general ignorance in which we have been educated not to know. I
>>> >>> test the latter with a bit of computerised button-pushing before I
>>> >>> start.
>>>
>>> >>> The debt is several times the productive economy - or rather the
>>> >>> consuming economy. It's owned, in the main, by a small number of
>>> >>> people through stock markets and bonds (bonds are much bigger than
>>> >>> shares these days). As few as 92,000 people own most of it around the
>>> >>> world. These are the politburo or alien lizards who run the show.
>>>
>>> >>> I venture off into some Thorstein Veblen and a book on Germany and the
>>> >>> world wars by an Italian - 'Conjuring Hitler'. This is really to show
>>> >>> that current economics isn't new at all. I run through some economic
>>> >>> modelling and then ask what results we'd get if we designed our
>>> >>> spreadsheets from history rather than theory, including a turn on
>>> >>> delta, gamma and Poisson leap hedging.
>>>
>>> >>> My last question is 'where did the money go'? You see, all the
>>> >>> spreadsheets work, but they don't show what money is or where it ends
>>> >>> up. Something called the Cantillon effect helps here. Money is
>>> >>> effectively 'radioactive' and the plan worldwide Greek. We cut
>>> >>> schools, police and welfare services and the money goes to a rich
>>> >>> oligarchy who fund our politics, destroying the hope of democracy.
>>> >>> Viewed as a physical system, economics is a control system that uses
>>> >>> more resources in control than in production. We don't go for this in
>>> >>> science, except in highly complex experiments as at CERN and
>>> >>> Fermilab. The essence of economics is a plot by a government of he
>>> >>> rich to own everything and rent it back to us. This is the essential
>>> >>> Greek model.
>>>
>>> >>> It's easy enough to get to this stage. The arguments can be made very
>>> >>> accurately. This is only stage one. Underlying the argument are the
>>> >>> Idols - complex soaked-up collective ignorance that actually prevent
>>> >>> economics as a science and our recognition that finance is a
>>> >>> complicated, religious control fraud (Veblen comes free on the Net).
>>>
>>> >>> Lecture two starts with the question 'what is our evidence that
>>> >>> private sector disciplines work better than the public sector and if
>>> >>> so, why is the private sector so interested in running the public
>>> >>> sector rather than producing radical, innovative, better
>>> >>> alternatives'? This is something of a Wittgensteinian turn as I think
>>> >>> organisation itself is misunderstood in private versus public sector
>>> >>> debate. Underlying this is the ideology of meritocracy and its
>>> >>> contradictions that money buys unfair advantage and wealth results in
>>> >>> rents the rest of us pay.
>>>
>>> >>> Is your country turning Greek?
>>>
>>> >>> --
>>>
>>> >> --
>>> >> Francis Hunt
>>> >>http://francishunt.blogspot.de/
>>>
>>> > --
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
>
>
>
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