Re: Mind's Eye Re: Good and bad

One organization seems to rear its ugly head at the forefront of the
most sweeping mass propaganda operations of our time, and has been
linked to the creation of the most atrocious military methodologies,
including the use of false flag events - the Rand Corporation, a
California based "think tank" whose influence reaches into nearly
every sphere of our society, from politics, to war, to
entertainment. The goal of the group from its very inception was to
promote a social atmosphere of moral ambiguity in the name of personal
and national priority.  They did this first through the creation of
"Rational Choice Theory"; a theory which prescribes that when making
any choice, an individual (or government) must act as if balancing
costs against benefits to arrive at an action that maximizes personal
advantage.  Basically, the ends justify the means, and moral
conscience is not a factor to be taken seriously if one wishes to be
successful. I assume rigs doesn't mean this when she mentions pros and
cons.

Rational choice theory has been attacked in the past by pro-socialist
(collectivist) critics as "extreme individualism"; a philosophy which
gives us license to be as "self serving" as possible while feeling
patriotic at the same time.  This is thought by some psychologists to
be typical of a lot of moral reasoning.

Selfishness is very difficult to pin down and can be thought as
central to socialism.  At the onset of any communist or national
socialist society the masses are first convinced to hand over ultimate
power to the establishment in order to safeguard themselves. The
common collectivist person chooses to hand over his or her freedoms
and participate in totalitarianism because he or she wants what is
best for the world and because he or she wants what is best for him/
herself with as little private sacrifice as possible. I don't hold
with this, but on can see how a concept like selfishness can pretty
much overtake itself in argument. In biology, altruism becomes a self-
interest of the wider gene pool and so on.

My own feelings about this kind of stuff lead me to believe we are
usually stuck with fixed choice situations (a bit like my tackle
situation - but think any episode of 24, many in NCIS and even in the
derisory Castle - where 'greater good' allows killings, torture and so
on). Even in Castle, essentially some drawn out wuckfittery about a
couple who should really just get on playing happy families, has WW3
about to come about through the murder of the daughter of a Chinese
guy who will bring down the USD in revenge! The problem of
dictatorship is the problem of dictatorship not selfishness. To offer
us either a dictatorship of the people or the rich is to offer no
choice at all. We want another political institution.

James has more or less summarised Bill Black's 'The Best Way To Rob A
Bank Is To Own One' in which bankruptcy is now a way to hollow out and
loot the organisation one runs.
I wonder what we are afraid of in a modern world in which all could
live free of most material want. Do we think work motivation would
collapse and we'd all starve, doing nothing? Do we think it would be
impossible to organise work at all? Would it lead to massive over-
breeding - a problem 'aid' has brought about anyway?

I worked with some people who had no time to be concerned with the
daily evil their jobs entailed and purposely kept themselves from any
real knowledge about poverty other than as to be personally avoided.
They sucked up to the nearest boss or money all week and spent
weekends drunk or high. Some of them were bright and witty, others so
dull I'm not sure the could mist a mirror. Academics were very
similar - just a niche version of the total grey immorality of
rational choice. At least some of the people I worked with in
management buyouts admitted their greed. I lingered a bit with the
anarcho-existentialists before self-ridicule moved me on! I have
shaved in the mirror of madness, wondering if so many can be so wrong.



On Feb 1, 6:34 am, James <ashkas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Wow, that example about sums up the stories I hear about big companies
> and lawsuits. They gain more by not dealing honestly if they can
> dominate the markets, and have deep pockets to drive the squeaky wheels
> into bankruptcy. If they get caught I get the feeling many are probably
> extorted into civic duty by doing little humanitarian stuff that makes
> the public feel all warm and fuzzy. Truth is the judge probably gave
> them a deal, the people going bankrupt got a fraction of lost value and
> damages and can't speak out due to a SLAPP suit. What a rosy picture, it
> could be an industry standard! ;-)
>
> On 1/31/2013 11:13 AM, archytas wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > People like simplistic morality.  In the real world it's different -
> > see the discussion herehttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/
> > on dirty hands.  I abhor violence and torture - but friends could rely
> > on me to use both in certain circumstances.  Usual discussion here is
> > stuff like the Allies bombing German civilians was justified at the
> > beginning of the war (because the Nazis winning was unthinkable) but
> > not the later bombing at the end of the war when Germany and Japan
> > were all but defeated (the excuse then being merely saving our
> > soldiers' lives rather than all civilisation).
> > There are, in fact, multiple issues, at apparently inconsequential
> > levels.  As fullback at 5ft 9 and 12 stone 8 you face a rampaging 17
> > stoner 6 ft 4 high as the last line of defence.  If you take him high
> > he will run over you and score - if you take him low you will bring
> > him down but his momentum will take him to the line and score.  An
> > alternative is to take his head.  This will incur and penalty (two
> > points) and your sending off.  There are two minutes left and you are
> > winning 10 points to 7.  Winning pay is 300 and losing pay 35.  What
> > do you do?  What might be going through your mind?
>
> > Most fullbacks in this position go for the head.  The cheating and
> > risk to the big guy are justified by such as:
> > 1/. You won't play nest week if you don't stop him
> > 2/. You won't be popular with your mates
> > 3/. They would do the same to you and so on.
>
> > I never did this.  Dad would be in the crowd and his disapproval
> > outweighed all other considerations.  Morality is difficult and we lie
> > to ourselves about it.  We often won't even admit to the bad as in
> > believing our foreign policies are ethical against all evidence.
>
> > On Jan 31, 1:30 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I like the divine right analogy rigs.  I don't favour capitalism for
> >> much the same reason.  Much discussion of right and wrong is stuck in
> >> a past we need to escape.  Origin is difficult.  Born a Scot I might
> >> revere our heritage - but 3000 years ago 'we' were likely German
> >> farmers eating 'grass porridge'.  Capitalism broke up much of
> >> feudalism, but I suspect it was no more than a revision of Domesday
> >> Book accounting and labour exploitation.  Much of what actually goes
> >> on is not capitalism but the establishment of rents through financial
> >> manipulations - essentially a control fraud by the rentier-class.
> >> We've been had on a butty - and need more modern argument based on
> >> what we know, facts shared in a common language.
> >> There is a literature suggesting our environmental knowledge is now
> >> important in moral decision-making   I think we have missed a lot
> >> before this.  Current technology is good enough for us to create self-
> >> sustaining communities and give up on empire.  We need to re-evaluate
> >> our morality against this.  I don't see this leading to socialism and
> >> any aim seems to me to be about considerably more freedom - from such
> >> things as war, work ethics formed in times of shortage and need for
> >> hard labour and so on.  The Soviet empire was much like the Tsars it
> >> replaced - we used to call the KGB 'Checkists' after the Tsar's secret
> >> police.
> >> I suspect capitalism - unless used as a pejorative - is little more
> >> than an accounting system.  The problem lies in its corruption.
> >> People cheat and cheats like crimogenic systems that allow work in the
> >> dark.  The umpire in cricket is now redundant - machines are better.
> >> We could have had a machine accounting system on a global basis by now
> >> - instead machines play a bigger role in cheating.  Capitalism with
> >> fair accounting presents few problems except for losers in the
> >> competition.  In sport we have competitions that allow losers first
> >> draft picks and our course there is no competition if one eradicates
> >> the competition.  Wigan's dominance of the Rugby League was truly
> >> horrible - it was hard t turn up to watch knowing every other team
> >> would lose.
> >> The pathway to Hell is lined with good intentions Gabby - we are
> >> scared of change.  Does anyone now believe that rule by the Guardians
> >> of future socialist paradise can be established to wither away?    Or
> >> that the rentiers will wither away as Keynes hoped?  And are such
> >> matters not the same coin, merely opposite sides?  Capitalism has run
> >> up a lot of debt - are we so sure of it we can do away with time-
> >> honoured debt jubilee?  Would it not make more sense to give away what
> >> we have built already to the people, have something of a leveling and
> >> start again with a new focus on sustainability?
> >> The genuine capitalist firm treats finance as a cost - it is difficult
> >> to see from this how the vast transactions of financial services are
> >> not parasitic on such firms and all of us.  The bubbles created cause
> >> much misery and form part of a vast Ponzi scheme we have no need of.
> >> Beyond this, capitalism is really assumed to be a dirty game of beggar
> >> thy neighbour we are ahead in and need to stay ahead in or we'll lose
> >> military edge (and so on).  We end up justifying doing bad things for
> >> the greater end and rationalising this as moral.
>
> >> On Jan 31, 9:14 am, gabbydott <gabbyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> The way you contrast socialism and capitalism is like contrasting
> >>> creationism versus evolutionism. And by the natural law that the fittest
> >>> will survive you are right to have decided for the evolutionary view.
> >>> I don't think - and the exchange in this group has helped me a lot to see
> >>> this clearer - we should forget how tempting the search for the right
> >>> answers is.
> >>> 2013/1/31 rigs <rigs...@gmail.com>
> >>>> I am a fan of capitalism. I consider Marxism and Fascism as an
> >>>> extension of socialism which is an extension of divine rights,etc.,
> >>>> i.e. theft, redistribution of another's wealth and labor, weakening of
> >>>> the body politic (a form of serfdom) which turns governments into
> >>>> bloodsuckers via taxes and debt.//Do you think economics is a valid
> >>>> science? Why, when it has flopped so many times.//We need production
> >>>> and labor plus consumption so there is a need for immigrants into
> >>>> white industrial countries to make up for the decline of white births
> >>>> (55 million abortions plus birth control). But I wonder if illegals
> >>>> will pay back taxes and bother to learn English. It might go smoother
> >>>> if we learn Spanish and Europe learn Arabic.//Family can also hurt
> >>>> people but sometimes that hurt teaches valuable lessons. It is easier
> >>>> to leave some people and events to Heaven though it would probably
> >>>> spell the end of the legal profession.
> >>>> On Jan 30, 4:56 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> I'm not sure the audience is as wide as your estimate rigs.
> >>>>> Technically I am hospitable to any theoretical view from marxism to
> >>>>> fascism - though I tend to dislike theoretical views - and hospitable
> >>>>> to Islamic theory/s in business analysis - and to guests in my
> >>>>> classrooms from all backgrounds.  This is easy enough - as easy as
> >>>>> offering to put you up if you were travelling in the UK.  The
> >>>>> difficult bit is in reciprocity - here we might think of the Maussian
> >>>>> concept of the gift and many examples in 'stoneage economics' - what
> >>>>> is expect of a guest in return.  One gives freely - a few nights stay
> >>>>> is not given for a return of a few nights stay and so on - yet one
> >>>>> does not generally keep giving to inhospitable guests.  One can
> >>>>> discuss racism yet not tolerate racists - but to brand people
> >>>>> concerned their opportunities for homes and work are disappearing in
> >>>>> immigration flows as racist who raise these issues with some hatred on
> >>>>> the people taking them is also wrong (particularly if done by
> >>>>> politically correct idiots whose homes and jobs are not under such
> >>>>> threat).  Hospitality is sometimes easy, sometimes very hard work, can
> >>>>> be a treat or pain - but is always already reciprocal in intent even
> >>>>> if no commodity exchange is meant.  I prefer to be hospitable to you
> >>>>> rigs than tolerant - tolerance has pratronising aspects - and this is
> >>>>> my general approach to things intellectual.  It's easy with you as I
> >>>>> like what I hear.  I have lost hospitality to politics.  Left to typo
> >>>>> as it hits the meaning better than the word I intended!
> >>>>> People hurt us Andrew.  We hurt them.  Some is intentional some not.
> >>>>> Gossip is often vicious from the pub to academic cloister.
> >>>>> Transactional analysis isn't a bad place to look at how rigs'
> >>>>> "balanced score card" builds up in personal relationships - Eric
> >>>>> Berne's 'Games People Play' is still. the best book.  Only friends can
> >>>>> generally hurt us as we come to expect better from them, value them
> >>>>> and so on.  Friendship is easily mimicked and sometimes that small
> >>>>> thing you mention may reveal the charade.  Sometimes we take things
> >>>>> too hard and should just let an incident wash away.  This can be
> >>>>> particularly hard if you've been collecting brown stamps (been shit
>
> ...
>
> read more »

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