It doesn't need to be a lot to make a problem, a few is sufficient. — RussellA

How many, exactly? What were the outcomes?
I mean, are teenaged boys' and girls' locker rooms really open to the general public in the USA and UK?
I heard the artificial ruckus about public toilets and the huge enormous giant problem of boys and girls wanting to compete in each other's sports, but I've heard no scandals involving random adults walking into kids' change rooms. All the youth-molesting I've heard of was done by coaches, scout leaders and pastors who stuck staunchly to their birth-gender. Of course, transgendered people are harassed and abused all the time, wherever they try to relive themselves.

That there are not a lot of deaths in road traffic accidents in London on a particular day does not mean that deaths in road traffic accidents is not a problem. — RussellA

And yet the city fails to make changes to intersections where no accidents have taken place, but some imaginable accident might on some future Thursday. (How many roundabouts will Londoners tolerate?)

The difficulty is being able to distinguish between someone identifying as something and someone pretending to identify as something, which is one of the themes of this essay "The Authoritarian Liberty Paradox". — RussellA

Exactly!
Some crimes are committed by some transgendered people, who must therefore all be judged, punished and prevented from being able to commit potential crimes.
Most crimes are committed by some birth-gendered people, who must therefore be judged and punished individually.
By their actions shalt thou know them. And according to their actions - rather than your imagination or their rhetoric - should you judge them.

She has walked the common path undisturbed, and exactly this wellness has made her sick: normality is a paved road—it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it 1. — Moliere

What happened to bring about this state of affairs? What should the author's soul have been walking on that he was prevented from walking? What prevented it?
I see a painful, self-destructive situation, but I do not see its cause, and without the cause and history, I can't comprehend it.
Why is this soul sick from ordinary living? Is there something unusual about the author that he can't tolerate living among us mortals, or is there something different about him that we ordinary mortals don't tolerate? To me, it matters which is meant. It matters what the demons are and what the Devil wants. No answers are forthcoming.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

This was a response to serious illness and a leg amputation - in a Victorian medical facility. So it's about overcoming pain, disability and fear of death. But then he goes a little further, contemplating Hell. I can just about imagine what sins a sick young man may have committed. The poem is coherent without any background, and can be taken as a diatribe against an arbitrary god, if we choose to.

I understand that. And, though it reverberates with the same tone, I don't understand this essay. I can't place the suffering in any context I recognize. I can't evaluate his case if I don't know what he's complaining about.

I have always wondered whether there is an objective quality. Specifically for different forms of art and such. — Red Sky

Not a single one on which there is full consensus. There are criteria on which the majority of academics, or critics, or authors or editors or readers agree, though two or more of those groups might not agree with one another. Craft is high on the list: the author should have a strong command of language, its structure, deployment and nuances; should be able to plot a compelling story and invent relatable characters, then give them appropriate dialogue; should understand the setting and historical background of the story, and weave all these elements into a well-paced and balanced narrative. Content is also important: the author must have some message worth conveying. For me, emotion is not enough; there must also be something worth my time thinking about.

Would I still be able to call something good if nobody liked it? — Red Sky

If you want to call it good, then at least one person liked it.
But then, there are different kinds of liking. I can admire something I don't enjoy or enjoy something I don't admire. Timothy Findley's Headhunter was a critical success but not very popular. It is one of the most terrible stories I've ever read, and one of the most absorbing novels. I read it two decades ago, and I keep harking back to some aspects of it to explain what I see happening in the world. The reason this is uppermost in my mind: Earlier today I was bemoaning the absence of birds in the clear blue June sky and also reflecting on toxic teenage social media, and I saw a copy in a used bookstore. I picked it up, put it back, picked it up again, put it back and hurried away. Chickened out. Now I regret it. Book that leaves that kind of impression has to be doing something right.
Some madly popular literature, oth, even if competently written, as well as some highly extolled examples, leave me cold.

Just ask a man!!! — RussellA

Have a lot of men pretending to identify as women asked to be in the teenaged girls' dressing rooms? Or maybe they all snuck in via the public toilets. What did they do? Anything a man who didn't claim to be a woman wouldn't do?

Was extreme collectivism also criticized? — Harry Hindu

Why, in an essay about one ideology would the author be criticizing another ideology? Shouldn't the essay be about what the author says it's about? There will be plenty of critics to drag in completely unrelated topics.

Not wanting a man who self-identifies as a woman into teenage girls' changing rooms is more an example of common sense than authoritarianism. — RussellA

Why would a man be in a teenaged girls' changing room? Are random women welcome? If there is a boy who aspires to be a girl is in their gym, the girls already know him. If they feared him, they'd say so. What's the transgendered individual expected to do in there that would harm the girls? Is it just the odd glimpse of bare flesh you begrudge The Other? As if not enough of it were available on the internet?
How much molesting actually takes place in public rest-rooms? If a person with a penis sits down in a cubicle in the women's washroom, what bad thing happens?
I wonder why conservatives are so potty-obsessed.

In general, it does seem that since the time of the pandemic the liberty/authoritarian paradox has become more apparent. It is as if the restrictive rules to protect others have ushered in a speedy form of authoritarian compliance. — Jack Cummins

There is more to it than that. Some minorities are always suspect in the mind of ignorant masses, who are always eager to find a focus for their failures and frustrations. The authoritarian keeps a pocketful of witches and infidels in reserve, to use as scapegoats whenever they want to rile up the pitchfork-mob. While they're howling after the goat, the authoritarian's minions are quietly fastening in their leg-irons.

I find the Google bot a handy interpreter sometimes. If the subject is important or interesting enough, I follow it up on institutional or encyclopedic sites, but it's a good signpost to start an investigation. It does, however, often misinterpret the question.

As for the subject of the essay, I suppose we're about to witness some major ructions in that global techno-economic system. Who knows how things will have changed by the end of this decade? There must be some accessible mental tools for regular people to cope with the approaching turbulence.

No, it's too sad, painful and hopeless. It reminds me of too many instances of real, physical suffering that I've witnessed, and I have no will to witness another. I have to leave this one alone.

The ongoing dialogue between science and philosophical reflection may give some 'breathing space' for synthesis of ideas and perspectives. — Moliere

Indeed. The problem is, and will be for some time to come, that in physics and cosmology, science isn't exactly on solid ground today. It's heavily theoretical and not available for direct observation; much of it exists in the form of mathematical formulas with no physical confirmation or experiments with no conclusion. And the practitioners don't necessarily agree among themselves.
Neither do philosophers, I imagine. So, I can see a one-to-one dialogue between a quantum physicist and a metaphysician who speak the same language, but not one between the two disciplines. Neither conversation would yield useful results.

However, it seems to me that the majority of philosophers today are concerned with mind, ethics and social organization, while the majority of scientists are in biological and earth sciences. I can certainly imagine some lively and productive discussions there.

Imagination and creativity are central. Not the parroting of old texts by rote for the purpose of passing exams. Not thumping people over the head in another kind of narrow 'religion'. It is climbing out of the box of rigidity to flex your mental muscle. To shake off the dust, put on your red shoes and dance the blues. — Amity

That's a good paragraph, that one! Without freedom from the traditional form, there would be no new philosophers or philosophies at all. I'm pretty sure Nietzsche wasn't hampered by formal rules. Aristotle and Hobbes were not too bothered by the absence of firm factual grounding. And the religious ones just went with their dogma as a basis for truth.

The experience of being on the forum the first time can be put into information via a thought.

Whether it's true or not, it's still your internal knowledge, unless and until you are convinced otherwise. You cannot communicate it by thought: you have to say it, write it, type it or send it as some kind of code. Correct or not, true or not, but it doesn't become anyone else's knowledge without belief, verification and processing by another intelligence.

I was arguing your idea that my proposition regarding me being new was "made true by direct experience" — Jack2848

If it is true, it was made true by taking place in your consciousness. It still your knowledge, and no one else's, so stop dancing around that mulberry bush.

The experience of being on the forum the first time can be put into information via a thought. It's equivalent enough. I agree that I have direct experience but it might be my memory is incorrect so it's not necessarily the case that me having the experience — Jack2848

Why should I care how true it is for you? You made the statement and I had no reason to disbelieve it. That's where its importance begins and ends.

Hence that [the cat] is on the mat is true not if you believe or not believe it but if the cat is on the mat. — Jack2848

I don't see a cat or a mat. I have only your word. I have no reason to doubt your statement and, since its truth or unrtuth doesn't matter to me, I am not motivated to investigate further. Whether it's true or false, I don't know. However true the information may be, it is not part of my knowledge.

It's true BECAUSE it is in the experiencer and not true for anyone else.
Then hopefully you mean that it is true regardless of anyone. And it is perceived of true or not true depending on a subject — Jack2848

Yes, it's true for the experiencer. It may be absolutely true in the universe. I just can't know whether it is.
There is an infinite number of facts in the universe outside our direct experience that are absolutely true regardless of our apprehension of them. These facts include the experience of other sentient beings. When we receive information about one of these external facts - cats, stomach aches, the speed of trains or supernovae - we can interpret it, we can accept or reject it, we can use it to base further investigation on, we can compare untested information what we already believe, we can commit it to memory - but we cannot know it until all that has been done and the new information integrated with our body of knowledge. Even then, it is provisional; any 'fact' we know today may have to be discarded or revised later, in the light of fresh evidence.

How do we know if a word necessarily means what you say it means? — Jack2848

We don't. Word meaning are by convention and consensus. If we wish to communicate, we must have a strong enough belief in our current understanding of words to use them.

You're moving the goal-posts. You asked:
I wonder about that assertion without some context and citation. — Vera Mont — Harry Hindu

in response to this:

The left was willing to accept money from Trump and accept Musk's electric vehicles until they decided to run for president as a Republican and supported a Republican president. The outrage is selective. — Harry Hindu

My objections were that the persons you mentioned do not represent "the left", and you have not shown that any of them personally accepted either money from Trump or gift cars from Musk. What you cited was legitimate contributions to earlier political campaigns. How's that relevant?
And how does that constitute being

just as self-centered and manipulative — Harry Hindu

on par with the Trump&Musk act of the past year?

Plus, you've got the essay all wrong. He's comparing rhetoric to reality.

Your focus is biased. There are plenty on the left that are just as self-centered and manipulative. It has nothing to do with political ideology.

I'm not aware that there are any Libertarians, or politicians using the libertarian memes in their speeches, anywhere on the left. So why would the author focus on them?
Perhaps the examples are less appropriate than they could have been; they were probably chosen for their high public profile. But there was no perceptible outrage. So what are you still on about?

A kind of pyramid is envisioned, with two oppositionals and two transitionals that cross to generate the humans’ being, via this and additional pairings of necessity derived that are basic, not complicated. — Moliere

Yes, it is! Much too.
But I like the rap.

The fact that you can't do this yourself is evidence that you aren't willing to question your own party. — Harry Hindu

The fact that you either do not have or refuse to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by these examples from the so-called 'left' that would in any way approach the wrongdoings by the examples of the so-called 'right' is evidence of something off-topic.
Is Trump's change of party attributable to the Clintons in some way? Do his political contributions attest to criminal behaviour? If so, it was perpetrated by Trump, not the candidates. Does receiving campaign contributions equal the 34 felonies of which Trump was convicted and the thousand more, including treason, that he hasn't been charged with?

Trump is not right-wing. — Harry Hindu

Obviously. Neither is the Republican party, anymore; they're a cult (unless they wake up soon and feel around under the bed for their lost vertebrae). How is that relevant to the discussion of hypocritical libertarian rhetoric?
I'm bored with this non sequitur now.

The left was willing to accept money from Trump and accept Musk's electric vehicles until they decided to run for president as a Republican and supported a Republican president. The outrage is selective. — Harry Hindu

I wonder about that assertion without some context and citation. And of course, about how accepting a car is on par with mass deportations to a foreign prison without due process. Of course, one time, Trump called himself Democrat, so maybe it has to do with labels. There was nothing wrong with the cars, btw, many people still like them today; it's the Musk they enrich that smells bad.
Let us keep in mind that the people you mentioned as representing "the left" are not and have not claimed to be socialists. That false perception became prevalent only when the right was pushed so far that conservatives were dragged to the middle (unless culled entirely) and the beneficiaries of Corporateland found themselves on the 'left'. And a former state attorney-general was even branded a radical left lunatic. Funny how extremes are categorized.

On the whole, though, I'd prefer a return to the OP essay, rather than our subjective notions of the political spectrum.

In conclusion, any idealisation of liberty expressed within a state lies exposed to the slippery slope of utopian engineering. Therefore, true individual liberty, through Schiller’s aesthetic sensibility, provides a mediating association that can inculcate necessary changes to institutions and prevent them from stagnating by facilitating a means of universal discourse between a plurality of ideas expressed within the public sphere. — Moliere

Where does the concept of liberty originate? Who came up with the idea in the first place? In what circumstances?
I strongly suspect it was a civilized man who had never seen anyone living in 'a state of nature'.
The slaves in that civilization didn't discourse upon liberty: they just wanted to run away home. The overlords didn't need to think about it: they could do as they pleased.
It was that third man, the observer, sitting on his shaded front porch, watching the slaves haul logs and rocks for the king's mighty tower under the whips of their drivers, who began to think about personal liberty.
In a state of nature, you do what you need to for the survival of your family, shun predators and stalk prey; co-operate, compete and form bonds within your pack. The question of freedom doesn't arise. Nor does the question of governance, because rules of behaviour and leadership grow organically from the life of the clan.
The nature of Freedom is only contemplated in complex societies, where bondage exists. That is, dysfunctional societies. All that can be negotiated is how to mitigate the imbalance.
It's nice to have an overview of how philosophers have dealt with that question.

I've been thinking about the political use of 'common sense'. Its appeal to the common people. Individuals who know what they know and are happy with that. What they know is what is best for them. — Amity

'Common sense' validates common nonsense. Not knowing is all right with them. In fact, they'll go out of their way to avoid knowing tings: they're happy to turn off all but one source of 'news', forbid courses in school or keep their children out of school altogether, ban books - or burn them, right alongside the elitist eggheads what rote them - and shout down anyone who tries to explain why something is good or bad for them.
What they generally want is to be able to bully other people, as they imagine their kind (whatever they identify as - in this instance, white christian males) once used to do. Populists always appeal to this stolen past greatness that never was.

Anyone believe DT's read Atlas Shrugged? Betcha Rand Paul knows John Galt's 52 page rant off by heart. But he didn't get to be president, did he?

I other words the concept does exist in nature. — Harry Hindu

'Property' no. Animals compete and fight for things they need and want; they have no 'right' to them. But, according to libertarians,

the state is presumed coercive unless confined to protecting contracts and property. — Moliere

Other animals have concept of 'state' and 'contract'.

Mankind is a natural outcome of natural processes. Everything humans do is natural for them, which includes staking one's territory. — Harry Hindu

You mean, if I build a wigwam on a Mar A Lago putting green, it's mine as long as I can successfully fight off anyindividual who tries to take it from me?

But it is like a nation using it's might to protect it's territory. Why wouldn't the same concept hold true for individuals too? — Harry Hindu

Because of the law. Guys who are stronger and better armed than the millionnaire still aren't allowed to take his stuff.

Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons and all those that kept Biden's condition from the American people as well as those that manipulated the Democratic primary in 2016 sidelining Bernie Sanders. — Harry Hindu

Of those people, only the last mentioned is on the political left.
Even the middle-ground Clintons and Pelosi are nowhere near equal in self-service to Trump and Musk.

The only reason one would continue to support one side or the other would be because of some emotional investment they have in supporting the party. — Harry Hindu

I think maybe people have reasons beyond labels for supporting a political party. Don't you? I do: it's their policies and track record.

Competition is what allows a level playing field, not using government to artificially prop up one group or another, or one institution or another. — Harry Hindu

I thought, having resulted from nature, humans couldn't do anything artificially.
Fine. Prove it by abolishing inheritance, subsidies, lobbies, private funding of political campaigns, 'tax incentives', corporations, investment, inequality of prenatal and childhood nutrition and education. Or, you could stage hunger games.

On their view, they are saving those institutions. That's pretty clear from the rhetoric. — Count Timothy von Icarus

And you're quite sure that rhetoric is sincere, in light of the acts?

You obviously know nothing about nature. — Harry Hindu

You might be surprised.

Most organisms are territorial.

Most sentient organisms. Grass, not so much, although it can be 'invade' the artificial domains of mankind.
Defending one's home, feeding grounds and cache of winter supplies against rivals and enemies is not much like holding the deed to an estate - or ten estates - stocks and bank accounts, a vault full of fur coats, pictures and diamonds to which the government is expected to guarantee your absolute right, including the maintenance of legal institutions in which to squabble with one's mate over them.

Your focus is biased. There are plenty on the left that are just as self-centered and manipulative. It has nothing to do with political ideology. — Harry Hindu

Of course it has nothing to do with ideology: they believe in nothing but self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement. They just proclaim that it is in order to get people to obey them. I agree that Peterson was an inappropriate inclusion. So, could you please name two of the contemporary examples from the American left who are equal to them in self-centered manipulativism?

Do institutions inherently endow individuals with fortune, power and fame? — Harry Hindu

Institutions inherently allow individuals to do what their fellow men on a level playing field would not.

It seems to me that Musk and Trump have created their own institutions. — Harry Hindu

Trump created the monetary system that let him receive $400 million without contest or effort, and the legal system that protected him from the victims of his various flim-flam operations. Then he went on to invent network television, the US electoral system, racism and sexism.
I'm skeptical.
And far too impatient with this topic to delve into Musk's genesis. I hope those poor endangered Afrikaner refugees are managing with no help from any institutions.

I find it very hard to believe that Musk, Trump and Peterson reject institutions in theory, as each of them clearly depend on institutions for their livelihoods. — RussellA

That's pretty much the point. Institutions brought them fortune, power and fame and they're busily attacking and tearing down those institutions, in order to deprive other people of the protection they offer.

There is only a paradox when the paper describes Musk, Trump and Peterson as holding opinions that they in fact don't hold, such as the dismantling of democracy. Where is the evidence that this is something they have promoted? — RussellA

All over the news over the last six months.
(Peterson doesn't really belong here. He made a mediocre living as a psychologist, but he's cleaning up as a big-time hot air machine. I don't know whether he has a political ideology; he just knows what to say to audiences who'll shell out 2-300,000 to feel good about their privilege.)

Superb! Well organized and thorough.

The political and cultural individualism of Musk, Trump and Peterson follows a script rooted in Nozick’s Entitlement Theory. In Anarchy, State and Utopia Nozick defends a minimal state limited to protecting property and voluntary exchange.... — Moliere

There it is, right there: the hard kernel of contradiction. What is property? The concept doesn't exist in nature; it's a social convention, underpinned and guaranteed by Law, that giant edifice maintained at public expense, and which functions only so long as a large majority of the population is not free of its constraints. If property were acquired through individual effort and voluntary exchanges, the profits and losses* should not be heritable. Every infant should start life in equal swaddling, perhaps under the care of robots or professional nannies, so that they have a "level playing field", where no person or group is in a position to manipulate the rules.

I recall a popular libertarian argument about a rich man talking to his university student daughter who'd been exposed to egalitarian ideas: "You study hard and get high marks. Your roommate Audrey doesn't. Should you be forced to share your grades with her?" The argument ends there, cutting off the daughter's response: "She gets lower grades because she works two part-time jobs to pay the tuition. Audrey wouldn't need my grades, if I shared your money. "
Here's some graphic commentary.

Essentially, minimal governance means rich people, with material wealth in excess of their requirements, enlisting poor people, with insufficient material wealth to meet their requirements, to protect rich people's stuff from one another and compete for the remote little carrot of becoming rich themselves. *Voluntary exchanges are either fair - that is, both parties are equally free to accept or decline an offer, or they impoverish one party (loss) to enrich the other (profit). This means 97% of any population is denied the freedom of choice. The trend can only go one way, unless organizations such as government regulators and trade unions step in. Libertarians oppose both, attempting to equate a giant corporation and an assembly line worker.

Property is treated as legitimate unless clearly stolen. — Moliere

Yet no holders of inherited wealth (and its considerable dividends) seems eager to embrace the doctrine of restitution to enslaved Africans or displaced Natives.
Anyone who steals my stuff should be punished by law, even the theft of a pizza that took place five years ago, but my acquisition of that stuff should never be questioned. Or mentioned in history classes.

The ideal individual needs nothing, owes nothing and answers to no one. — Moliere

Not even robots to thank for raising him to adulthood; he just growed out of the sidewalk and started a business.

Our support systems can either reflect justice and reciprocity or leave people behind. Radical individualism refuses to face this reality. It offers not freedom but a denial of the human condition. — Moliere

As a not-so-great actor said in opposition to government poverty relief programs:

I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No. They gave me hope, and they gave me encouragement, and they gave me a vision. That came from my education.
Craig T. Nelson

That's not a paradox so much as it is simple blatant hypocrisy, covered by noisy rhetoric.

I hope all authors are being patient. There's a whole world of reading in this event. It's only the 4th. — Amity

Agreed. I'm having to do some slow, careful work here, but it's worth every minute.

Universities have been conducting research in political science, statistics, etc. for a long time. Whether this system exists or not, the relevant inputs have always existed. This system only gives them a research direction and incorporates existing research results into the system. — panwei

I'm sure it will helpful to know what people wanted 20 years ago! Universities can't conduct new research, whoever directs them, without funding.

Tasks can be integrated. For example, questionnaires can be directly integrated into the contract signed between the people and the government. The questionnaire only has this question: What public demands do you think need to be promoted by the government at present, and what are your requirements for these demands? — panwei

That's a multi-part, ambiguous question. Even so, somebody has to ask it, figure out what different people mean by their answers and tally the responses. Integrated with what contract? Has it been written? All the people don't use one signature; they'd have to line up, be given the paper, hand in a copy, which would have to be filed.

Chinese civil servants themselves need to pass exams, and their promotions themselves need to go through internal examinations. — panwei

So do other nations' civil servants - within their own special area, judged by their instructors or supervisors - not the population at large. Are you saying only people already in the civil service are eligible for office? That would be a closed system, with no input from from the governed. It could work, as long as all the department and agency directors are able to communicate effectively, agree on priorities and procedure, then allocate resources and co-ordinate their efforts. In that case, all you need from the people is a year-end review.

That would be much like an election, only with no campaigning. The people would be passing judgment on the performance of entire departments. Presumably the most capable department heads could then be promoted from municipal to county office and from there to federal. In that case, they'd need a replacement from inside the ranks, by seniority or chosen by their peers, because the general public doesn't know what each civil servant contributed to the success of each project. Or the decision can be whether department heads are left in their place or fired. Successful federal level directors would, I suppose, keep their office until retirement or death.

So you've given up direct access to the administration? Okay.
I still think governing could be done more efficiently and cheaply by one big central AI.

I don't know why you think the budget will be so large, — panwei

I don't think the budget will be larger; I think you're using it up on unproductive programs. You hire a bunch of academics to set standards and make up questionnaires, then you hire a bunch of clerical personnel to collect and tally the results of the questionnaires, more people to list the citizens who need to be notified, distribute, collect and mark the periodic report cards, and now a bunch more people to devise a curriculum, teach courses in administration, test the candidates, then keep track of their performance and award points. All of these new employees will need office space and computers, heating and light, bathrooms and lunchrooms. Then you hire people to conduct the election of qualified candidates. This is all before anyone gets elected or promoted to anything at all. That will leave the elected officials unable to do anything but suppress projects, because there's no money left.
Your plan is far, far too heavy on surplus bureaucracy.

I will suppress its budget. I have the right to decide how to assign tasks within the county government and how to set points. In order to avoid failure, I will suppress its budget. — panwei

That I think may be too big a job for one person - even for a kung fu panda. You suppress the budget for public works, no public works get done. There will be no workers to assign tasks to and no report card, because nobody put "Raise my taxes" as top priority on their questionnaire, and you've used up all the money, so can't pay salaries.

Yes, people without experience in governing cannot directly compete for national leadership positions. — panwei

We usually start political careers by running for town or city council in a municipality where the candidate is known personally or at least by reputation among their fellow citizens.
With exams, presumably preceded by courses, and assigned tasks and counting points, you're complicating the process even more; creating a bureaucracy of such enormous breadth and range, it will gobble up the national operating budget even before embarking on a single project demanded by the population. Moreover, you'd be regressing to the ancient imperial civil service - except that, in ancient China, public servants were required to adhere to rigid traditional procedures; they didn't need to adapt to changing conditions or be responsive to the people.
Anyway, who'd want to jump through all those loops, just to be under constant critical scrutiny by people who are not themselves faced with the challenges - and, indeed, may well present impediments to the performance they judge.

I love it! A profound debate wrapped in a gentle fable. I'll have to come back and read it again, for the sheer pleasure of it. I have no comment; it needs none.

Freedom is the ontological condition of ethics. But ethics is the considered form that freedom takes when it is informed by reflection.” — Moliere

I had to ask the Google bot what this means. The concept seems to be eating its tail.

That is, there has yet to be a society that directly arranges itself around the development of free subjectivity, its spectrum of affordances and capacities, and, above all, its essential creativity. — Moliere

How would that happen? Would the result still be identifiable as a society?

Ostensible freedoms are ideologically shepherded towards freedom of consumer choice, with the unspoken proviso that one must continue to consume. — Moliere

And a loudly spoken corollary that we continue to produce, whether the products are useful and beneficial or not. Beef, guns, litigation, money-lending are all part of the GDP; as long as their arbitrary price tag keeps rising, there is growth. I submit that no person who has to work 10-12 hours a day to service his debts can be said to be free in any sense.

In this respect, society itself seems to be suffering from the same irrational self-defeating compulsivity it inflicts on its members — Moliere

And that its members inflict on society. It should be mentioned that a small minority of individuals has a wildly disproportionate influence on the direction both of economics and culture.

Whether or not we can turn this situation around and create social structures based around the fostering of subjectivity is open to debate. And, as mentioned, any theory espousing this, even as a potential, must stand against self-dogmatisation in order to present itself seriously as a path towards self and social transformation. — Moliere

It doesn't present itself: a human person like Like George Mitchell, Karl Marx and Jacques Fresco have to introduce an idea. They were pretty serious and widely ignored, misrepresented or denigrated by large societies intent on different paths.

I found this essay both compelling and off-putting. The central idea, if my understanding of it is correct, does certainly fit my perception of the world in which I live. However, the language is ten degrees too abstruse for me and some of the concepts, beyond my ability to visualize. I don't recommend it as a tool-kit for the average producer, voter and consumer.

Therefore, it is a reasonable arrangement to be eliminated if you fail, except that your current elimination criterion is votes, while the criterion I advocate is "the extent to which the people's public demands are realized." — panwei

Except that nobody who hasn't conducted an administration can be evaluated on performance; thus, no new government can ever prevail.

It's beautiful, evocative, intimate and disturbing.
It will take a long time to translate to my pedestrian, materialist language, and in the meanwhile, it will haunt me.

It may offer adaptability advantages and that may be what has preserved it up until now, but that does not mean culture cannot theoretically leave freedom behind to a large or even total degree even if that ultimately means culture becoming so rigid it destroys itself as recognizably cultural and reverts to something more akin to insect sociality along the lines of Star Trek's “Borg”. — Moliere

The Borg are a better analogy to ossified cultures than are ants, although the Borg, too, have a degree of adaptability. Ants do it through chemical communication and social engineering, Borg do it through adaptive technology. Human societies can be destroyed utterly by sudden changes in climate or the inability to change strategy when confronted by superior force.

Though meaning is preserved at all levels, freedom in both directions from the subject is decoupled from meaning-making with the operation of communicative code instead enacting it. — Moliere

This, I don't understand at all.

When these processes dominate society, we fall into what Stiegler refers to as a “proletarianization” of mind, a general mindset unaware and / or unwilling to potentialize itself except as a function of the system in which it partakes — Moliere

This is observably true, not only in technological societies, but in all societies with a rigidly imposed top-down value system, such as monarchies, theocracies and ideological dictatorships. Economic oligarchies use more subtle means and allow some internal movement, because they need innovation and skill from masses.

EKMs can be defined as abstract machinic assemblages of functional conceptual elements that are designed to be “plugged in” to psychic systems with the explicit goal of transformative catalyses that are reproduced outwards from subjects to culture. — Moliere

How does this plugging-in take place?

TBC

I feel people are not as educated as they, not only used to be, but could be. — Outlander

That's no accident. A great deal of effort by governments, commercial media, churches, mass entertainment, propagandists and sloganeers, over several decades, has been devoted to the dumbing-down of American voters. More recently, the megaphones of social media.

I'm a "what you don't know can in fact not only hurt, but kill", kind of guy. If that's alright? — Outlander

Sure. I'll join you in that assertion. But I don't blame the victim who has been tied to a chair in a dark basement for being short-sighted. It's not just because he's stupid and self-centered; it's also because he's been fed so much tainted meat, he can't tell what's good anymore. One of the most successful items on the freedom-suppressing and thought-obfuscating agenda is is the systematic vilification of intellect and expertise, labeled 'elitism'. Another is the selling the idea that any empowerment of an oppressed group must be subtracted from the autonomy of the enfranchised group. And more memes like that. But the most pernicious one is the destruction of communication between people of different interests and opinions.

I can back up my claim. — Outlander

I'm not clear on what your claim is, but if that bit I quoted is an itemized list, I can probably find counter-examples to each. Besides the selfless activists and risk-taking protesters.

This essay amounts to a critique of a consumerist culture that is driven by technology and rooted in capitalism. — Moliere

You've got my vote right there! The rest of that first paragraphs elicits interest, curiosity and brings a host of long-held beliefs and long withheld doubts to the fore. I find myself lining up possible responses even before I've read the arguments.

The essay is challenging and rather long, so I shall have to read it in sections, reflect and comment before continuing.

It hardly seems an exaggeration to claim, for example, that globalized technocapitalism is engaged in a form of hyper-symbolization that is overwriting individual cultures and the values they inhere — Moliere

I wholeheartedly agree with this observation. Moreover, it seems evident that the globalized symbology is a superficial palimpsest that merely obscures the cultural ones, so that, whatever mitigating effect it has on conflicting values doesn't equal the blurring of integrity.

So, we cannot fully pin down or exhaust the meaning of a word, for example, through a dictionary defnition; there is always an excess to meaning that can expand or redirect itself. The fact that words change meaning over time, sometimes very quickly, is testament to this. — Moliere

The problem here is that when the meaning of a word changes very quickly, that rarely happens by the mutual consent of all speakers of that language. It is either deliberately directed by a powerful interested party, or the new meaning is introduced by an influential technological entity. So, the change does not reach all users of that word at the same rate, isn't accepted by all and becomes contentious. This is an impediment to intelligible communication. When many words are altered rapidly, the shift can cause breakdowns in communication at every level of society.

But culture does not replicate itself with full fidelity because its subjects are not entirely defined culturally. And because of this, it can mutate quickly, especially when under stress — Moliere

It bacame more difficult for each generation of parents in the 20th century to prepare their children for a successful adulthood. The world in which the parents were grounded had changed, changed radically or ceased to exist by the time the children reached maturity. Now, it's difficult even to communicate between generations, let alone share values in a coherent culture.

Social systems use communication as their particular mode of autopoietic reproduction. The elements of the system are produced and reproduced by the system itself.” — Moliere

When communication breaks down, the culture also becomes fractured. If there are more than a few superficial fractures, the culture is in danger of imploding. Ant colonies are highly adaptive (hence the ubiquity of ants in all environments) while human ones can only take so much stress, so many shocks and still function.

TBC

By the way, I'm inclined to think that the only way to get clean, incorruptible governance is not through rules and standards, but objective rule-making. This would be require an independent (not owned or controlled by oligarchs) super AI with control of a global administration.

But yes, free, legal, and demonstrably free and legal, elections are an absolute. When the election process is not seen as legitimate, or it is not legitimate in fact, it all falls to crap. — Fire Ologist

To which we can bear witness. We can also see the progress of human rights, general standard of living, literacy, equality and fairness in reasonably - though not absolutely - clean democracies in Europe and North America between 1950 and the present. We can also trace the events which subverted and corrupted the process in some nations more than in others. We could probably pinpoint what factions in each nation were instrumental in the decline.
If laypeople got dumber and more selfish, look to the system in which they live.

I'm not sure what's so controversial or insulting about what is generally considered commonly held and widely-agreed upon knowledge — Outlander

I'm not sure who considers this:

Oh all the laypeople want are their short-sighted desires met. The layperson seeks not truth but mere empty validation, and so finds neither. No matter how ridiculous and hazardous to all around or who will come after it may be. Literally F all to what comes later. Any real election you might as well offer each and every citizen a rope to hang themself. Because that's all they would ever accomplish without the educated, intelligent class to show them that impulse is not intuition, pleasure is not purpose, and childlike emotion is not passion or knowledge. Laypeople need to be governed. Immensely. Lest they die by their own hand -- or worse, forever live in a Hell of their own making. — Outlander

generally agreed on knowledge.
I do feel that's insulting to the majority of citizens. Certainly, the American public has been woefully let down by the professional politicians, professional jurists, professional journalists, professional law-enforcement officials that money could buy.
That doesn't mean people want what's bad for them; it's means the choices and information available to them has been corrupted.

1. Establish an academic public opinion institution. — panwei

Who does the establishing? The present government, yes? How are the academics chosen?

2. Find out the specific public demands of the people through questionnaires and other means. — panwei

What other means and how are the results of these other means meshed with the questionnaire results? How do they finance such a massive undertaking? On what basis do you decide who gets the questionnaires? How do you get it to the citizens, so that each citizen has input, but only one?
Who tallies the results and classifies the demands, by what method?

It's not a bad idea, but some difficulties do arise.
Is any government likely to be motivated to make such a fundamental overhaul of their system?


I didn't understand most of that. But I have read some history in which caesars, kaisers, queens, prelates and emperors played a prominent role and know something about those alternative forms of governance and their effect on the populations thus governed. I don't see the advantages. I don't see the qualified candidates or any process by which qualified and willing candidates for kingship would be put forward.
Panwei offers a viable, though problematic alternative to both representative and government and monarchy. All you did was insult the electorate.

Earlier you said something is made true by direct experience. — Jack2848

Not that much earlier, and not quite as you put it. The experiencer of a sensation knows that sensation to be true, without making any statement. It's not made true and it's not information; it's true because it's inside of the experiencer. It's not true for anyone else. It can be communicated to others and they may believe it, but they cannot know it.

But since from what you said it follows that you're position at least how it's presented here is that 'the truth maker' is not something like 'p if p'. But rather direct undoubtedable experience. Or justified true belief. — Jack2848

Truth-maker? No, I never referred to any such thing. What I said was that a statement may be true and we can believe it, which makes it our belief. But information doesn't become knowledge until it's been verified and incorporated with our data base.

Truth is not the issue. The issue is the difference between belief and knowledge. When you say "justified true belief", that's the same as a belief that has been verified so that it can become knowledge. That's far beyond a simple fact "true information".

I meant to show how people use the same words with different meanings. — Jack2848

I'm all too keenly aware of that. If it gets much more lax, we might as well give up on verbal communication, since any word can mean whatever anyone chooses.

Life is also necessary to disagree with axioms like "life is good". Some lives are good; some lives are mediocre; some lives are terrible. We who are alive judge from where we each experience and observe life.

LIFE AFFIRMS ITSELF, OR IT DIES. — Moliere

No. Life doesn't do anything; it simply is. So is inevitable death at the end of it. Those living a particular life affirm or reject it, live or die.

Where is this parsimonious sentiment of yours coming from? — Outlander

Parsimonious?? Sentiment??
I merely listed, factually and without embellishment, a few people who were not looking for validation, happiness or

... and that requires ignorance. At least, minding one's own immediate affairs. — Outlander

Sometimes they actually care, and care deeply enough to put themselves in harm's way. They don't need a king to tell them what's good for them.

No, I quite agree, the system is best as it is, such as it is, of course. That doesn't mean we don't live in a compromise whose downsides are not on full display at every turn and perhaps can be improved. Do you not agree? — Outlander

No, I quite agree, the system is best as it is, such as it is, of course. That doesn't mean we don't live in a compromise whose downsides are not on full display at every turn and perhaps can be improved. Do you not agree? — Outlander

I don't agree that the system is best as it is; it would be best if it were uncorrupted by people who wish to be kings, people who think what people want is bad for them and they themselves know better, or people who simply want more of the nation's wealth than they already have. Compromise is inevitable in any system, since people who want different things at different have to coexist. The downsides of the current system are very much on display atm.
None of that justifies calling voters self-destructive idiots who need a monarch to govern us immensely.

And that is the basis of all kingly authority. Well, at least, it used to be, once upon a time. :grin: — Outlander

That's not true of most historical monarchs. They received their authority from primogeniture and some putative divine being, whether they were competent or not, wise or not, fair or not, sane or not.
Very few were actually good rulers. Compared to elected heads of state, their record is piss poor.

Well, so much for Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Eleanor Roosevelt, César Chávez, Malala Yousafzai Greta Thunberg... who needs 'em. We're all just selfish little lay-people, looking to the next tax break

If human rights are so important, why don't we just let toddlers walk around free and unrestricted from the moment they're allowed to walk?....And that is the basis of all kingly authority. — Outlander

Is it that you overestimate toddlers' ability to negotiate traffic, underestimate adults' ability to express political views, or have historically unfounded faith in the ability of monarchs?

Knowledge of sculpting is revealed in sculpting. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Revealed to witnesses by the product, yes. But the sculptor's knowledge was acquired gradually, by learning the concept of sculpture, assimilating information about the potential, properties, vulnerabilities and hazards of the medium, the tools and the processes, perhaps watching someone else do it, integrating this multitude of facts (true information) into his neural network, with tags for retrieval at need, and then practicing the required actions on real materials, until finally a sculpture emerges.

This is just to say propositional truth need not be how-to truth, and taking the position it must be in 100% — Hanover

Lots of things are 100% true that I can never know. More things are true that I believe with 90-99% certainty, but don't know. There is an even greater number of facts of which I am in possession, which are at some stage of the verification and integration process on their way to becoming knowledge... unless I forget them before the process is finished.
My objection is not to the truth value of a proposition, but the assumption that true information is knowledge.

Knowledge doesn't need to be about how; that's just one kind - practical knowledge. The input of one's own senses and internal functioning is another kind - direct internal knowledge. The second kind doesn't need further study, since it's already integrated: it's established in the material body as well as in the mind. Sensations are known without reference to language or concept.

Statements about the mechanics of a bicycle and how riding one is done may all be true information, and you may grasp the concepts and believe the statements. You can justify that belief by checking whether the source has been reliable (memory), comparing it with other independent sources (validation) and examining an actual bicycle for congruence with the description given and watching people ride bicycles (observation). You can know that bicycles exist, are intended for transportation and powered by a rider. You still won't know how to ride a bike until you learn the necessary physical actions. They're different categories of knowledge.

Theoretical knowledge doesn't require the last step, but any information that cannot be verified physically still does require checking against background information (what you already knew), the credentials and possibly the motivation of its source (judgment based on knowledge of external factors) plausibility (prior familiarity with the concepts, logic and context) and then integration into one's cranial data-base before it's one's own knowledge.

Huh. What I heard was:

Oh all the laypeople want are their short-sighted desires met. The layperson seeks not truth but mere empty validation, and so finds neither. — Outlander

I.e. Voters are emotionally immature idiots and we need the guidance of someone ordained in something.
That is:

Laypeople need to be governed. Immensely. — Outlander

Sounds an awful lot like a philosopher king is available to keep us all in line. There are plenty of volunteers for that function; one has recently conquered the White House.
I didn't choose the extreme example: he's much in evidence.