Right, but the luck was that the lords were born into good families and peasants not. And like today, where people like Dubya got to their position by being born to a famous wealthy family.
LOL. Free will is no less a fairy tale than Satan. You might as well tell me anthropogenic global warming isnât an actual thing as tell me the contents of your head are somehow acausal.
Gee, mister - thatâs a pretty damn special bunch of particles, I thought it was just crazy complex.
Claiming free will is claiming magic. The subject is a blind spot for rational thought.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html
Look, youâre [right to be wary][1] of the notion. But donât worry, I doubt itâs possible to feel this particular truth in your bones.
[1]: http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/03/24/study-examines-free-will-motivation-and-the-brain/24641.html[quote=âaikimo, post:59, topic:19515â]
Either way, it doesnât really change my point that capitalism, like government, has been shown to produce good results when good people are involved.
[/quote]
From that last link:
âIf we are not free,â he says, âit makes no sense to put effort into actions and to be motivated.â
I disagree, but itâs certainly a vast challenge for our entire ethical framework, and one we shy away from at the expense of justice. Recognising thereâs no evidence to support this superficially mild yet fundamentally radical claim should prompt at least a subtle re-figuring of many aspects of oneâs stance.
And Iâd hazard a guess your âgood resultsâ ignore a long list of problematic âexternalitiesâ.
Iâm sorry, but youâve missed the point.
I agree itâs good that we arenât rational actors in the economic sense of trying to maximize money. Our values are, and ought to be, more complicated and diverse than that.
But for any goal you set for yourself, for any value or ideal you want to believe in, there are effective and ineffective ways to achieve that. Instrumentally rational actors would choose to act so as the best achieve their own goals. We demonstrably (as in, it has been shown again and again and again) donât do that, even those of us best equipped to do so. So either we donât know what we actually want, or we we donât actually have preferences in the conventional sense, or we are generally incapable of figuring out what is best for us given our own unique values and preferences. I donât see a fourth possibility, and each of these three provides a basis for a strong argument in favor of benevolently-intended well-planned outside intervention.
That doesnât necessarily mean coercion, either. Something as simple as a switch from providing an opt-in to an opt-out retirement plan can have enormously beneficial long-term economic effects at no cost to individual choice. And yes, the fact that a switch from a check box that says âenroll meâ to one that says âI decline to enrollâ can change the apparent preferences of a vast fraction of the population does indeed mean that the person who wrote the form understands our biases, values, and mind better in key ways than we individually do. Even if, seeing the form, the part of my brain that thinks in words recognizes why theyâre doing it that way.
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Whether or not you want to call it free will, I do in fact make choices. Those choices are, I hope, made for reasons determined by my values (which I acquired based on previous choices and on observations of my environment) and current/historical observations. The alternative to deterministic is random, and I only rarely want to act at random. That my mind exists within physics rather than alongside it is irrelevant - an ensouled rather than an embodied mind would still need to choose and will for causal reasons, even magic wouldnât actually help. To the extent that the determiners of my choices exist within the structure of my mind, I call those choices free.
This choice of definitions, conveniently, provides a natural path for making my choices more free - by lowering the impact my immediate surroundings have on decision making (the opposite of what marketers want to do, btw). That might include everything from reliable nutrition, which makes me more free than a peasant farmer, to high quality education and universal health care.
Having a hard time understanding the crucial bit here.
Iâve often encountered the idea that humans have free will (and other organisms donât) because we have souls, or lack free will because we donât. But whether my mind is made of atoms or something supernatural, whether its workings are available for inspection or not, there exists a process that generates an answer to the question âWhat will I do next?â That answer might be random, the result of information from outside my mind and body, the result of information stored in my mind and body, or a combination.
The first and second are less satisfying to me than the third. Iâm not sure what people want from their free will, if none of these options satisfy them. I havenât been able to find a coherent fifth option, and not for lack of trying and of exploring othersâ attempts. But I still find the concept of free will useful as a description of how I and other humans perceive our relationship to our world. If so, where does the sensation from? I postulate it is from making choices based on the contents of my own mind - the feeling of self-actualization.
Did you happen to miss the rise of the right in some countriesâincluding supposedly democratic and inclusive ones like France and Sweden, both of which passed religiously discriminatory laws? Or have you missed the wave of anti-Islamic bigotry on the continent? Does the Yugoslav wars not count because âthose people arenât REALLY Europeansâ? Letâs not forget that much of Europe is not âfree marketâ in the same way we areâthey all lean more towards a socialist/capitalist hybrid. As for here: No fly lists here? Stop and Frisk? NYPD spying on Islamic groups? No ground zero mosque? Stand your ground laws? The elimination of worker and consumer protections as antithetical to the new neo-liberal, libertarian, free market regime? The rash of anti-woman laws based around restricting reproduction rights? Much of this is all post-Cold War.
I think we can debate about whether or not the post war rights based regime is evidence of progress or not, but you seem to be glossing over the post-9/11 tensions and the post-obama tensions. Of course there is an official doctrine of rights and inclusiveness, but this has been a frought process and I donât think itâs entirely clear that there is a singular direction it is all going in. Plus, such language is often used to dismiss non-Western cultures and societies, ignoring the realities of those societies and how they work or the very real discrimination in our midst.
Iâm a big fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates and I think heâs one of the best writers today who incorporates historical thought on issues like this. He has recently been reading and commenting on Tim Synderâs book Bloodlands, which Iâve been dying to read but have not had the time. In one of his recent posts about he talks about Kingâs phrase about the arc of history and justice, and he said that heâs an atheist in that, that there is no arc of history that bends towards justiceâif we want it to do so, it is us that must make it so. Sure, we may live in a world without segregated lunch counters and water fountains, where a black woman raped by a white man can bring that man to justice (sometimesâalthough often any woman, black or white who is raped is still dragged through the mud), where I can be at least know I shouldnât get fired for being married or having a kid⌠etc. Sure, things might be better, but I donât find that good enough and neither should you. It shouldnât be good enough until we scourge these evils from the face of the earth as far as Iâm concernedâif that means that we need to radical change or radically end the capitalist system, I donât really know. Saying itâs better than it was yesterday just isnât good enough for me, and frankly, I donât think it should be good enough for you. I think I do see the trees and the forest. A more lush forest doesnât mean the nasty clumps of blight should be ignored, because that blight can always come back and take out the rest of the forest. Iâm not saying we shouldnât celebrate the good, but that doesnât mean the job is done.
Casinos arenât taking advantage of human traits they are taking advantage of statistics. Really it falls into the realm of quantum mechanics. No one can predict the outcome of an individual event. But you can predict the outcome of a large number of events as they aggregate over a period of time. Just as no physicist can tell you exactly where an electron is going to end up when you shoot it through a double slit. But when you shoot millions of electrons through the double slit you can start to say with confidence that a certain number of electrons will hit a detector on the other side in the center, a smaller percentage to the left and right of that, and a tiny percentage to the far edges. The games at the casino are setup to take advantage of this overall distribution of individual outcomes. There are certainly a good number of buyers who are leaving with fair more money than they came in. Otherwise, they would never be able to draw people in with the enticement of beating the odds. Itâs just that the games are designed such that there is a slightly larger percentage of losers than there are winners. So, in the long run the casinos come out profitable. A business that isnât profitable doesnât stay in business very long. And whoâs to say that the buyer, even when they lose, doesnât get something out of it. The adrenaline rush and excitement that builds up to the final toss of the dice, or roll of the ball, or flip of the card is why they call it entertainment. Win or lose you are paying to be entertained and so you as a buyer are getting something of value out of that transaction.
So, you didnât see the part where I wroteâŚ
I havenât âglossed overâ anything, because Iâm not arguing that there are no civil rights violations or bigotry in the U.S., or that new problems donât arise on occasion (even under leaders adored by liberals). Iâm only pointing out the simple, documented fact that every year gets slightly better. There will continue to be flare ups of bigotry in the U.S., as well as Europe (parts of which, like Italy, are much worse than the U.S. in terms of racism), and we must remain vigilant in our fight against bigotry and civil rights violations, but that doesnât change the fact that things are better.
Racism and bigotry have always existed outside of and independently from economic structures. At the same time, bigots and racists will attempt to exploit whatever structure is prominent to further their goals. There is bigotry in socialist countries and capitalist countries and countries with both. Pretending that one economic system is worse for civil rights and bigotry than another is, I think, a distraction from the problem.
Also, I enjoy Mr. Coatesâ writing, myself, very much. Always educational, that guy.
Thanks VERY much for that link. My brain hurts already, damn you.
I will say that global warming is on much steadier ground than âScientists think they can prove that free will is an illusion.â
Iâll remain skeptical, while reading more on the subject. You might have made an agnostic out of me!
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I saw it and Iâm not dismissting that⌠but I do think you are downplaying the level of vitrole in our society and the fact that it could be argued that we are in a âretrogradeâ situation, in regards to the rights regime. But this might be a point we have to agree to disagree on.
Do you think that because the numbers are better and if so, what numbers? What are you using to measure better here? I think the question of how we measure that is important here, donât you. The systems for understanding how the world is doing is not value free and what that means changes depending on how you ask the question. Iâm glad you agree about vigilance, but maybe not everyone agrees with you that things are âbetter nowâ than they were 10 or 20 years ago and should we dismiss this because you see it as better and the ânumbersâ or whatever supposedly objective measure of better says otherwise? Iâm not arguing the past is rosier, I am arguing against an positivist view of historyâthat there is a course of history and that itâs always progressiveâbecause I think history tells us that is patently untrue. Gains made were made through blood sweat and tears of the oppressed, not because things just got betterâbut I suspect you realize that and am not arguing otherwise. Still, I think remember that is crucial and itâs a point we need to hold onto at all times.
I donât think I agree. Racism is a relatively modern concept, because race as we think of it is a modern concept (meaning in the past 2 or so centuries). This doesnât mean that people were not victimized in prior historical periods, but that how people differentiated themselves was different and they interacted in different ways. Again, we are talking about modern sorts of concepts.
Iâd argue that the structure itself is built on bigotry and racism, and it will be as long as we live in this particular society. It will take something special to make it anything other than this society, because of how the underlying structure was createdâit was built on the exploitation of people of color, the poor, women, children, and others who are disadvantagedâagain, I donât think thatâs controversial point to make about the modern capitalist world, itâs just the nature of the current division of labor. It is the system we live in that helps create bigots and racists. Power in the modern era is created via a regime of discursive power that organizes everyday life, if I may get all Foucauldian right now. The knowledge produced within various contextsâin the media, in education, by the law, etcâshapes how we experience and understand the world. Foucault would argue that there is not outside of that, just ways to shift it around a bit here and there, the small acts of rebellion.
Coates rules the school⌠have you read his book, The Beautiful Struggle? Itâs awesome.
Thatâs a failure of imagination rather than a lack of alternatives. I have trouble conceiving how the current economic setup is the final end state of human civilization. Unless it destroys us.
Youâre missing my point. Iâm not arguing that all bosses are jerks to their employees, but that the relationship is based on economic factors which create contradictory goals for both parties. If you have reached your comfortable income level, are you going to turn down a raise? Couldnât the boss grow his business faster by keeping wages low to reinvest the higher profits back into it?
I never claimed that businesses werenât disposable either, but that they have an advantage in the relationship. What Iâm arguing here is that this relationship is not conducive to overall human welfare. As for morality, economic systems are not gravity, they are human institutions giving them an inherent moral dimension. If we have a system which creates the circumstances that make people disposable, why do we have to abide by this? Itâs not any more eternal than all of the previous economic systems capitalism supplanted.
Currently we are mired in the worst economic crisis in 80 years. Waves of revolutions have swept across the Middle East. In the developed world, austerity has seriously bitten into ordinary standardâs of living, causing protests and riots. Wealth inequality has soared as real wages have stagnated for decades. This is not exactly comfortable stability. Most people would prefer a system that doesnât have immiserating cyclical crisis as an integral part of it. I agree that capitalism is a way amongst others, but currently there are no existing alternatives, and since capitalism is a world system it is very difficult for alternatives to exist alongside it. If anything, stating that there is no viable alternative to the status quo is a deeply ideological position.
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http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/12/11/3036671/2013-certainly-year-human-history/
Maybe the better word, the more universal word to use is âbigotry?â
Well, the infrastructure may have been built on bigotry and racism, but the freedom for people to voluntarily exchange goods and services exists outside of these concepts. There are, right now, people from traditionally oppressed groups who are improving their lives and the lives of their families because of this freedom (we are still arguing about whether or not capitalism is a viable system, arenât we? Iâve sincerely forgotten, but itâs fine, because youâve got my brain thinking of all these other things, now!)
Itâs on my list. In the meantime, I try to keep up with his work at the Atlantic. I really love his writing.
Lesser evil voting is still picking the side you have the most in common with, even if that isnât very much at all. And the situation where youâre voting against a party instead of for another is an issue with the US two party system. And the Democratic Partyâs behavior really isnât out of line with its goals. That any organization can behave in ways out of line with itâs goals is undeniable, but doing that often will lead to a change in goals.
Iâm not arguing in favour of American over Chinese workers here, but that economic liberalization has lowered barriers to the movement of capital and goods, but not those barring the movement of labour. This means that manufacturing can be easily shifted to low wage countries, but labour cannot emigrate to high wage countries. That this undermines American workers is undeniable, and it hurts Chinese workers because they canât threaten to leave if they donât get paid more. Also, consensus is not really a big feature of academic economics. Some economists still think empiricism has no place in their discipline.
Missing my point. That ordinary standards of living are improving doesnât contradict increasing inequality. If the distribution of growth were more equitable in China living standards would be rising even faster. Thereâs not really any reason why a tiny number of people have to appropriate the majority of the economic surplus if the actual point was to decrease poverty.
I donât think it is. I think there will be variations and experiments forever.
This is demonstrably false. I have been in many situations where my employersâ desires matched my own. I know many people in that situation. Itâs not pervasive, but it exists.
Everythingâs a situation. There are no rules about what a successful business MUST do, as long as different people with different personalities and goals and values are involved.
There is no evidence that it is inherently detrimental to that welfare. People starting businesses and hiring people to work in those businesses have done good and bad things depending on the people involved.
There are lots of problems to be sure. But here are the facts.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/12/11/3036671/2013-certainly-year-human-history/
I only said I donât know of a viable alternative to allowing people to freely exchange goods (within reason: no nukes!) and services (within reason: no murder for hire!), along with an essential underlying social safety net. Iâm sure there are things that can be added to make it work better, but I canât think of just what. There are many things I canât think of, because, despite my insisting attitude, Iâm woefully ignorant about most things.
That Costco is doing well doesnât disprove my point about competitive advantage. Lowering costs relative to competitors increases advantage. Wages are part of these costs, but not the only one. Costco can offset higher wages by having more efficient logistics than competitors for example. But all other things being equal the company with the lowest wages has a competitive advantage, and Costcoâs competitors arenât sitting still. Wages at Google are related to the market price for the labour of computer engineers and programmers. Googleâs not being overly generous here, theyâre responding to the market. If there was a huge glut of computer engineers, wages would go down. In fact Google is currently being sued for conspiring to suppress wages, so obviously their wages donât represent actual generosity.
This emphatically never been my point. The relationship between employer and employee is fundamentally an economic one and therefore is ultimately determined by economic factors. Good people, bad people, greed, generosity, whatever, doesnât really enter in to it. Iâm critical of capitalism because the entire system is predicated on maximizing profit, which means that people are compelled to start and end relationships necessary for their survival based on whether or not itâs profitable. This has led to tens of millions of people starving to death over the past two centuries because it was literally unprofitable to feed them.
Why did your employer hire you? Because youâre likable? Does your inherent value as a human being generate revenue for the company? You were hired because it was profitable to do so. Relative to other applicants, your likability probably was a factor in getting the job, but thatâs not the underlying reason why you were hired. That there are going to be situations where your desires match doesnât mean you arenât both pursuing contradictory goals.
There are rules about what businesses must do. A fundamental one is make a profit. As for successful businesses, they have more freedom with respect to market conditions, but by that same logic there is no compelling reason why a successful business would increase wages. Diverse personalities, goals and values only really matter if a business is a democracy. If most were, a lot of my criticism here would be irrelevant.
So relationships were one side always has the advantage arenât inherently detrimental? Itâs not about good or bad people, itâs the power imbalance.
I donât deny there is progress in the world, but rather that this is definitely attributable to capitalism (the article says nothing about the subject). Furthermore, my point was cyclical crisis doesnât have to be a necessary part of progress. Plus the article is cherry picking and obfuscating. I got a laugh when it said how amazing the world is now, because slavery is globally illegal, and itâs linked source agrees, but goes on to note that the number of people in bondage probably exceeds any other time in history.
Now we loop around to my original criticism, that what we have isnât actually free exchange because of the inherent power imbalance. Much like slavery, formal declarations of freedom must be examined for the concrete reality. Just because your employer can no longer compel you like a feudal lord to work doesnât make the relationship actually free, in the same sense that outlawing slavery doesnât actually eradicate it.
Since you asked, things that can improve this relationship, are stronger employment law, increased unionization, better safety nets, and probably the best one, a universal basic income. That means everyone gets enough to live on, so people can truly choose not to work. When survival is no longer an issue for people, a lot of the unequal power an employer has disappears. The incentive to work is of course more disposable income.
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Ha ha ha, you arenât really clear on the history of the social contract as concept are you? It was conceived of as an end to feudalism, not an endorsement of it. What part of âpolitical authority should exist to maximize individual rightsâ sounds like serfdom to you? The part where you canât be the libertarian lord?
Of course; itâs pretty tough to operate without it. But if we recognise that praise and blame have a slightly different basis than weâve supposed, it frees us to be more thoughtful about how we apply them, and I think this is very important.
Consider the backlash against insane libertarian individualism, for example - itâs peripheral to this discussion, but relevant: you have all these privileged wingnut scumbags saying they donât want to pay tax to support the society theyâre part of, due to this âself-made manâ myth promulgated in the pursuit of social Darwinism, a twisted concept treasured by these parasitic predators⌠and now you have the Dems (or âmoderate Republicansâ as Chomsky calls them) shooting that crap down in flames by asking how theyâd go without roads and cops and stuff.
Which raises the issue of how much credit or blame you can correctly ascribe to anyone for anything.
I think this is actually pretty radical considering the lie of the land over there, and how potentially erosive this concept is for the neo-feudal establishment. Obama et al might just have opened a can of worms (by now Iâm pretty damn cynical about his agenda) by finally uttering the obvious retort to the GOP madness⌠although given folksâ general inability to put two and two together, Iâm not gonna hold my breath waiting for em to realise theyâre living in a matrix of self-serving liesâŚ
But we live in hope.
If I came up to you and said I have a box that can generate perfectly random numbers, that would be a big call, and youâd want me to prove it. So why is the onus on scientists to prove free will is an illusion? Shouldnât free will have to prove its own existence?
Unfortunately, this seems difficult given the lack of a savegame feature in Reality 1.0⌠we await a version update with bated breath.
Maybe the part where that gets twisted to mean political authority exists to serve the elite once more? The guys who get paid to wear guns seem to do a whole lot more destructive stuff than serving the public interest.
The social contract got lip-service from our overlords during the cold war because it was effective propaganda, but now weâre looking at Zappaâs bricks at the back of the theatre.
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