You missed the point, or else you're intentionally ignoring it (which seems likely based on the intellectual dishonesty of your recent posts). — jamalrob

What's dishonest about repeating my argument and dealing with criticism?

How do you know it's not that you have missed the point and how is argument I'm intentionally missing the point more credible than the argument you're intentionally missing the point and pre-emptively accusing me of what you're doing as a Trumpian-style diversion tactic that has proven to be extremely effective on those that lack critical thinking skills?

Please, share your reasons why we should assume prima facie that your argument throwing shade on my intentions is more credible than a similarly structured argument throwing shade on your intentions of throwing shade on my intentions.

The point is not simply that millions disagree with you, but that those millions disagree with you because they have benefited from the massive improvements that I mentioned. — jamalrob

This is in no way a problem for my argument. Drawing down the capital of a company to increase the income of executives, or even workers, benefits those executives and workers. If they have no analytical ability to question the long term affects of this or if they simply have no interest in the long term affects, then it's perfectly reasonable that they see such a management decision as beneficial to them and would be willing to argue it's "just a good thing in general".

Their lives have improved. For example, they have lost less children thanks to their improved access to improved healthcare, they've been able to send those children to school, they've lived longer and healthier lives, they've been able to buy washing machines to release women from day-long drudgery, and so on. In saying that these millions disagree with you, I wanted you, or people reading this, to see what you are saying, namely that these improvements are not really improvements at all--and thus to see just how misanthropic and reactionary your position is. — jamalrob

I totally understand that you want to play this gotcha game of catching me denying "children not-dying is good". And I totally get why you will simply continue down this path rather than engage in the criticism of this analytical framework I have brought up. The myth of progress is a foundational myth of our society, as with foundational myths in the past, society simply no longer makes sense without it and undermining the myth is to undermine the prevalent conception of society and invite disruption (and potentially the loss of what people who believe in the myth view as the ultimate purpose of society, and therefore cannot conceive of any change with respect to the myth as a good thing under any circumstances; i.e if you believed in sacrificing to the gods the whole purpose of society is to sacrifice to the gods and there simply is no potential criticism of the status quo of sacrificing to the gods from within the mindset of belief in the myth). However, as with previous foundational myths, the fact that "millions believe it" doesn't make it true.

The mistake you are making is only considering local rate of change. I believe the local rate of change of infant fatality is decreasing, I I believe this "all else being equal" or "without considering other metrics" is a good thing (decreasing child fatality is one of my priorities, just not the only one and improving this metric in a way that works only over the short term is in my view not a real improvement), but if the system that has made these changes brings us to an ecological collapse then we are worse off than we were before, the short term benefits were illusions in any general sense.

A CEO that embezzles money from their company and gets away with it is benefiting in a local sense -- I am not denying that there is a benefit from the perspective of the CEO, a benefit does exist in at least one conception of the world -- and if that CEO shares the loot around (perhaps to undermine people's vigilance to question him or go over the books that they otherwise might do) then those people benefit too in a local sense, but it is false to then infer there is a global benefit to the company, much less humanity as a whole.

There is simply no way to divorce the concept of "life improvement" from the concept of sustainability; you can say "well, maybe our system is not sustainable but it's improved my life and some other people's lives and that's what I care about" but that is to admit that there is no improvement in a general sense and also to admit that one's argument is by definition not compelling to people who do not exclude future generations from the concept of "what improves people's lives". If you tell me "look, the boomers made bank and capitalism was the main cause of that and a lot are now dead or will be dead before we even see what happens to the environment when pushed to the limits" I would agree with the conclusion that therefore, capitalism was good ... for the boomers (who only cared about themselves), I would not agree with any attempt to generalize to young generations now that will experience the consequences of past resource extraction and pollution dumping nor subsequent generations.

That is why the myth of progress is foundational, once the claimed progress has a cost attached there is no way to short-circuit the argument to "therefor capitalism is good" in any form of modernity, it becomes necessary to look into this cost and do a cost-benefit analysis over the number of generations that you care about. If capitalism comes at a cost of corruption and tyranny down the road as the concept of civic duty is dissolved in a corrosive sea of self-narrow-material-interest, ignorance-praise and wage-slaves simply not having the time to understand their political situation, or transferring a large proportion of the global means of production to communist China, then that cost has to be understood and factored in; one has to actually go and check what kind of system capitalism creates down the road, the argument that "well these metrics have gone from here to there" doesn't tell us what will happen in the future about other metrics nor even that metric!

If capitalism is not sustainable then by definition it cannot be good in any sense for future generations; so, again, one has to actually go and check if it's sustainable or not. You can argue capitalism is in fact sustainable, but this is a empirical argument that has to actually be made; you can argue that you don't care whether it's sustainable or not, you just want people to agree that some metrics have gone from A to B so far, but then you can't expect people to conclude anything particular about the system as a whole and its future.

What the myth of progress provides the proponents of the status quo is a reason to not check; if we believe some things have gotten better and those some things represent the whole and if we believe the future resembles the past then we conclude things will continue to improve and don't need to check any of the available empirical checkable things about the whole other than a few "some things" that serve as input to the argument, and if anyone disagrees we first accuse them of not caring about that metric (the gotcha I'm referring to) and then second we wave our hands around and claim science and technology will solve all problems in the future as they arise, even getting off planet if need be, while simultaneously dismissing the work of any scientists that claim our problems are here and now.

Well, only if they agree with her, haha. I get that even if one disagrees, Ayn Rand is inferior philosophy, but she spews some crazy shit that could spark philosophical interest — ZhouBoTong

Though we agree on what's wrong with Ayn Rand's arguments, I disagree here that Ayn Rand is "useful to get interested in philosophy". Ayn Rand is simply propaganda and Randians form what is in essence a religious cult. Saying Rand is a segue for "serious" philosophy is like saying Scientology is a segue to serious history or Mormonism a segue to serious theology. Now ontologically we can accept "Randianism maybe true" or "Scientology maybe true" or "Mormonism maybe true" but if they are, separately or together, the true-true would then be completely incompatible with "serious" philosophy, history or theology; to entertain these religions is to entertain the idea that serious philosophy, history and theology are totally wrong (otherwise academics, or whatever your standard for serious is, would be devoting a lot of time to the analysis of Rand, Scientology and Mormonism as a serious way to approach philosophy, history and theology).

All three groups operate as a cult, protecting members from outside criticism and the main reasons for joining the cult are either being born into it or nebulous notions of "benefit and community" apart from the content of what the cult professes to believe. When the Randian SCOTUS judge makes Ran prerequisite reading to be a clerk, it's an invitation to join the cult and not an invitation to disagree and seriously debate what Rand preaches and go over the criticism found on forums like this; if you come back a "Rand fan" then you maybe of some use to the Randians, as your behaviour can be controlled insofar as it leads to the most money compared to the alternatives (no principled objection would oppose bribes or blackmail) which the rich and powerful are in a position to engineer, and if you are already a Rand fanatic you maybe very useful indeed willing to do anything for money without any other ethical ideas that might muddle you up.

Are you saying that these are not improvements at all, because other problems somehow make them illusory? Millions would disagree. — jamalrob

Millions disagree with a lot of things I believe, doesn't bother me. I'm pretty confident we can find many things you believe where we can see millions disagreeing with.

Yes, other problems make many increased metrics (not all, specifically facets of industrialization) under modernity illusory (whether you attribute the increase to capitalist or socialist policies, or a mix leaning on way or another; which is also an important debate).

If an increased metric is due to a system that is not sustainable, then the idea that the increase in that metric (the objective observation) is actually an improvement (a moral judgement that what we are seeing is actually good), then it is an illusion that the metric increase represents an actual improvement.

It is a trivial exercise for an organization to draw down capital and spend the proceeds in a way that seems like income; but it is not the case that the organization is improving through such a process.

Executives and even workers may benefit in the short term by selling or mortgaging core assets and paying themselves a higher wage or even reducing the cost of their product or service (and so buyers also seem to benefit), but it is simply unsound to look at such metrics and say "things are improving; this is good business".

Of course, organizations do sell and mortgage assets, moving that money to the revenue side of the books is not what we'd base a judgement of whether it's a good idea or not: but rather, is that part of a sustainable plan? If it's not sustainable we'd say it's bad business, criminal if the plan wasn't even trying to make the business sustainable but just embezzling money out of the business to benefit a few, we would say it is then defrauding the shareholders.

The shareholders in this analogy are the people alive today but also future generations. If what we do today is liquidating the earth's assets and calling it income, we are defrauding future generations of those assets. It's trivial to show that by liquidating assets we can improve quality of life metrics in the short term (just as it's trivial that management can liquidate assets and pay themselves, and workers if they feel like it, a great salary today), and the faster we draw down those assets the higher the quality of life in the short term we can create.

For a while (since capitalism emerged) the organization "western civilization" and later "humanity" was doing bad business, drawing down assets without realizing it's not sustainable (not creating equally good assets for future production), but now the evidence is overwhelming that our plan isn't sustainable and so we have moved since a few decades to the defrauding the shareholders side of the analogy.

I said that "economic growth in capitalist form has made life better in several measurable ways", not that "there has been an overall improvement". If you accept that some metrics have increased, and that these increases have improved life, then you agree with the statement you said your were debating against. — jamalrob

This is the myth of progress in a nutshell.

The mistake you make is "that these increases have improved life". This conclusion does not follow from the premise "some metrics have increased".

A patient who's fever has gone down has this improved metric, so the patient does indeed have this going for them, if the patient's fever is decreasing because the patient died (which other metrics tell us) we cannot conclude the life of the patient has improved. The "improvement" of the reduction of fever is an illusory improvement, it "would otherwise be a good thing" if the patient was recovering.

You must add the qualification of "all else being equal" or "insofar as we are only looking at these metrics" to "that these increases have improved life" to turn it into sound tautology of just reiterating that the metrics have indeed increased.

This is the bait and switch fallacy, you are in the first part of the argument considering a narrow definition of improvement and then switching the meaning to "improvement of life" which is far more general. You want to catch opponents of the myth of progress in a "gotcha" of saying that the metrics in question are not an improvement; the way to deconstruct the myth is by proper analysis of what we might otherwise include in the idea of "life improvement" (such as social wealth) and that even if we agree on "human quality of life" what may seem like quality of life improvement, if is only short term, is potentially a metric of harm and not benefit; the local rate of change of a metric does not inform us of where that metric is ultimately going (the distance as the crow flies between you and your destination does not necessarily indicate how quickly you will get to your destination nor whether you will go over a cliff on your current distance-minimizing rate of change).

First you say you're arguing against the claim that "economic growth in capitalist form has made life better in several measurable ways" but then you appear to accept it in the next sentence. — jamalrob

I don't accept it in the next sentence. I accept that some metrics have increased, that is not the same as saying there has been an overall improvement. I go onto explain how this is possible with the example of the nurse and then later again with the example of cocaine.

I was trying to point out that any critique of capitalism that doesn't accept, or that disapproves of, the improvements that capitalism has enabled is worthless, or worse, reactionary. — jamalrob

I agree that we should look at whatever historical metrics are available objectively. Pretty much every post I've made has aimed to dismantle the myth of progress you are inferring here: that a few metrics prove a general point (a few cases a generalization does not make).

I do not view improvements that are not sustainable as improvements, they are the illusion of improvement, just as the rate of walking or running on the wrong path is not advancement; the more you go the wrong way the worse off you are regardless of how efficient you travel.

Otherwise I completely disagree with your basic argument that industrialization and urbanization are bad, but I didn't really intervene here to debate it. — jamalrob

The badness is in the non-sustainability of these systems, that has simply been the empirically verifiable result of what has happened in developing these systems. "You cannot argue with nature" as Feynman reminds us in the context of a small technological disaster, and industrialization is (in the context of human history) an argument with nature we are losing incredibly fast.

Marx does not use "fetishism" in this sense, and he arguably doesn't even use the word pejoratively. — jamalrob

I would argue Marx uses the term pejoratively (just not only pejoratively), and of course not using the sexual connotation "fetish" has today but the connotation the word had in the 19th century, which I agree you correctly refer to as "reification".

But to those not aware of the context of fetish when Marx was writing:

A fetish (derived from the French fétiche; which comes from the Portuguese feitiço; and this in turn from Latin facticius, "artificial" and facere, "to make") is an object believed to have supernatural powers, or in particular, a human-made object that has power over others. Essentially, fetishism is the emic attribution of inherent value or powers to an object.

The concept was popularized in Europe circa 1757, when Charles de Brosses used it in comparing West African religion to the magical aspects of ancient Egyptian religion. Later, Auguste Comte employed the concept in his theory of the evolution of religion, wherein he posited fetishism as the earliest (most primitive) stage, followed by polytheism and monotheism. However, ethnography and anthropology would classify some artifacts of monotheistic religions as fetishes. For example, the Holy Cross and the consecrated host or tokens of communion found in some forms of Christianity (a monotheistic religion), are here regarded as examples of fetishism. — Wikipedia

I completely agree with Marx's use of the term fetish, the basic point that money becomes "a human-made object that has power over others [...] the emic attribution of inherent value or powers to an object" and that this psychological relation to money in a capitalist society is why it makes sense to accumulate money indefinitely "for the purpose of accumulating yet more money" being sufficient reason to do so (that there is never "enough", no other natural end point of capital accumulation other than what is possible to accumulate), whereas other commodities it would be bizarre to devote one's life to accumulating and storing a maximum quantity of grain or copper or beanie babies (without making any use of such commodities other than to accumulate more of the same); that if anyone one in capitalist society that met someone who lived meagerly and efficiently to simply increase a large store of beanie babies we would view as wack, accumulating a large store or grain when people are hungry we'd view as immoral, and someone just making a giant store of copper we would suspect of perhaps illegally trying to corner the market -- but if we met someone fully devoted to simply making as much money as possible we'd view as completely normal, in fact laudable.

I think we agree on this point.

It is this same psychological relation I levy at Marx's idea of a industrialized scientific society which he takes for granted as a good development. Marx does not realize that science and technology also has this fetish kind of power over us. What is the material view of history other than this fetish.

Generally, economic growth in capitalist form has made life better in several measurable ways for people all over the world. — jamalrob

This what I'm debating against. This argument reduces to "measurable if you choose to measure metrics that have increased", which, sure, I grant that. But that some metrics have improved is not sufficient reason to conclude capitalism or modernity in general has been an overall improvement. For instance, a nurse that measures a fever has gone down in a patient is right to note this change as a good thing ... but if the nurse then measures that the patient's heart has stopped, there may not be overall improvement.

This is the core of the myth of progress, of using very broad terms like "wealth" and "life improvement", then choosing a narrow metric of measurement of one or a few aspects included in these things, and then claiming that any arguing about other metrics is immature and childish and shutting down the discussion.

My view of capitalism, or just modernity in general that would include soviet communism, is that it is akin to ever increasing doses of cocaine; there are short term "good effects" but at a massive long term cost; the short term "life improvement" is an illusion. If you have ever argued with someone in the honey moon phase of cocaine or other stimulants who think it's great and made their life better, you get the exact same structure of argument as the myth of progress (it's seems pretty good right now bro) and my argument against capitalism and modernity is exactly the same as you will be trying to make cocaine.

Yes, productivity has gone up (just like with cocaine) but if it is a dynamic that moves towards ecological collapse (cardiac arrest) then the goodness of this productivity is wholly illusory (just like cocaine addiction). Marx and Marxists after him were keen consumers of the cocaine of industrial civilization. That the soviet union devoted itself to industrialization is not a rupture with Marx; where we can argue Marx would not have approved of the soviet union is not "endorsing forced collectivization, terror, and the use of slave labour (and environmental devastation, as you point out)" as you point out.

The industrial revolution and urbanization, in my view, are entirely a mistake, the pathway to the destination that goes over a cliff and breaks all your bones.

In saying this, I am not against literacy, democracy, medicine, science and increasing our technological powers; but all these things are independent of industrialization in my view (they are historically tied together, but not intrinsically tied, we can have these things without urbanized industrialized civilization; and we will have these things without industrialization as it is unsustainable and so will come to an end one way or another: localized decentralization of production or complete ecological collapse is the choice facing us, from my point of view).

I haven’t attempted to debate. There is no tactic. I was gauging the worth of a discussion with someone whose opening gambit to me was to call me mind-bogglingly naive. — I like sushi

Well if you really are not concerned about debating what's true and what's false, great tactic to avoid challenging your own beliefs and assumptions.

Or make your own suggestions? I don’t care what you don’t agree just yet. I’m only interested in what we can agree on (see above). — I like sushi

This is really a poor debate tactic to avoid clarifying your position.

I've already stated that if you're not making a distinction between capitalist and socialist policies then you're essentially just referring to modernity (whatever happens to be out there in recent times).

My position is that your position is inherently contradictory, you want to support the statement "things have gotten better for people due to capitalist economics" while appealing to performance under a mixed economy a la "Social policies are predominant in all capitalist economies (that’s why they’re referred to as ‘mixed economies’ - which is a very mixed bag from nation to nation and trade deal to trade deal)".

And you want to avoid teasing apart what is due to socialism and what is due to capitalism.

So, I disagree with the analytic framework of viewing contradiction as totally fine.

I also disagree with the statement that life has gotten better. If you spend all your capital today on renting a yacht and champagne it maybe true that today life is good, but it doesn't follow from this that your life has gotten better if you are destitute tomorrow.

Sustainability is inherent in the notion of wealth. Someone who is spending "like a rich man" but unsustainable we would not consider to actually be a rich man, rather creating the illusion of being a rich man.

We do not agree that life has gotten better for most people. This is the myth of progress, it is essential to nearly all arguments supporting the status quo, because the status quo today is inherently dynamic it is required to assume that this dynamic change is good, is progress towards better things. If you start with the premise the status quo is good, of course you quickly end with the conclusion that the status quo is good. The myth of progress is that starting assumption that the status quo is good.

Knowing this, you will now be able to spot it whenever you hear things, such as has happened already in this conversation, that 'child fatalities have gone down' due to progress, due to capitalism, therefore progress has been good and capitalism also, or 'people are wealthier' on average, or 'our technology is super good'. The goal in all these arguments is to short circuit the concept of wealth, which has a broad meaning basically representing "good things", and tying it to a single metric that has increased, such as child mortality, and excluding things like political wealth (one's power to affect government, in other words ownership of your government, and in turn what your government owns that you therefore share if you have power over it) and sustainability.

Note: If you don’t believe things have gotten better for people due to capitalist economics then the worlds problems must be due to socialist economics or communism. — I like sushi

This is not a logically sound argument. If A is composed of B, C, D and you discover A is poisonous, it does not follow that B, C and D must all be poisonous.

'Communism' as represented by totalitarian Soviet Stalinism, definitely was no more ecologically sound than capitalism, being just as dependent on oil and doing things like draining whole lakes to grow cotton along with other catastrophes. (And there is a seed of this in Marx who does not question the goodness of industrialization; an industrialization fetishism to use Marx's language.)

However, the ecological failure of totalitarian Soviet Stalinism does not provide much evidence against proportional democratic socialism with heavily regulated markets. These proportional democratic socialist countries with heavily regulated markets nations are, however, a small minority of economic systems, so it's difficult to argue are a cause of global ecological exhaustion. Furthermore, if you go to these countries, there is far sounder ecological policies internally than compared to countries where capital dominates policy making; the theory lines up with what we find in practice.

Wealth, in term of economics, is not a broad term. We’re primarily discussing economic theory, so I meant value of assets owned. — I like sushi

Wealth is a broad term, your share in public institutions is part of your asset base. Public institutions are assets owned by whoever controls those institutions.

I certainly wasn’t equating ‘wealth’ with ‘income’, but they’re are inevitably related. — I like sushi

I am not equating wealth with income either, I don't know where you get that.

I will say though that painting proponents of capitalism as being against social tools is pretty much the kind of talk I was looking to avoid. Social policies are predominant in all capitalist economies (that’s why they’re referred to as ‘mixed economies’ - which is a very mixed bag from nation to nation and trade deal to trade deal). — I like sushi

I've already said that if you want to discuss "what's happened" without making a distinction between capitalist policies and social policies, then a better term is modernity.

What is a "mixed economy" a mixture of? It's a mixture of capitalist and socialist based policies. The proponents of a mixed economy are not the proponents of capitalism, they are the proponents of a mixture.

The proponents of capitalism want to minimize the socialist part of the mixture, if not get rid of it entirely, that's what makes them proponents of capitalism and not proponents of a highly regulated welfare state with very strong unions.

At the same time, proponents of capitalism want to claim basically all good things are caused by capitalism (market forces). If Finland is the happiest country in the world ... well that's because of capitalism! nothing to do with strength of social democratic institutions, welfare state policies, rehabilitation based justice system, publicly owned utilities and other market intervention, or that unions have increased in number and power over the last decades rather than decrease.

But, as I have gone over, modernity is not sustainable, what economists that support status quo capitalism (i.e. paid propagandists) identify as private wealth represents converting humanity's capital base and spending it (i.e. destroying the resource base) and calling that process wealth creation. Wealth creation, under any definition of wealth private or social, must be sustainable to have really been created. A company that is drawing down it's capital faster than it makes income can appear stable in the short term but is, by definition, going towards bankruptcy. The faster an individual or a company liquidates assets the more, in the short term, that company or individual can appear to act like a truly wealthy individual or company (doing things expected of the truly wealthy), but it is an illusion (the "truly wealthy", in a narrow materialistic sense, buy the startups and the yachts and the champagne and throw the parties with income that their capital base yields not by liquidating that capital base overall; if humanity as a whole is liquidating it's capital base to pay for the party, this is not real wealth but illusory wealth).

I’ll wait for some response to my request for common ground. — I like sushi

There is essentially no common ground along the lines you point out.

The myth of progress is just that: a simplistic myth, essential to short circuit any thorough analysis and to conclude "well, whatever modernity is, it's been pretty good!" which is why you wait for the myth of progress input to carry out further reasoning for the desired outputs. Without the myth of progress, all sorts of claims must actually be checked empirically (can private wealth increase at the expense of public wealth? must be checked. Is wealth production, of any kind, at the expense of the resource base happening? Must be checked.).

To make an analogy, if you are trying to get to next town over and plot a course that takes you over a cliff and instant death, moving towards that cliff is not progress towards the next town. Status quo economists (i.e. paid propagandists) want to be able to simply measure how fast the economy is walking (how much is being produced) and claim that therefore that's how quickly it is progressing; that the purpose of an economy is to progress in this way and that lot's of progress has already occurred. However, if this rate of change of production represents a process that brings disaster relentlessly closer, rather than farther away, then it is progress towards disaster.

Wealth is not a narrow term, it basically represents "goodness", but by defining it narrowly in it's measurement, economists that are proponents of capitalism (i.e. paid propagandists) can use all sorts of bait and switch fallacies (don't we want to be more wealthy? don't we want to support wealth creation? aren't therefore wealth creators good things and we should let them create more wealth? all of which is garbage-in-garbage-out arguments if the measurement of wealth is only one narrow aspect of what is meant by wealth) and also derail any constructive conversation into meaningless imaginary games of moving wealth around in charts that represent no actual data points about the real world.

I’m not entirely sure what this means. — I like sushi

"Wealth" is a very broad term, and proponents of capitalism generally only focus on privately held wealth, usually material things and their direct proxies. However, if this isn't the whole story of wealth, then it's not straightforward to say when and where "wealth has increased".

If we can be both materially poor as well as politically poor (disenfranchised), then it is not clear if one improves at the expense of the other that wealth has really increased. For instance, consider a political revolution that brings democracy but not very strong democracy (high likelihood of a coup bringing things back to despotism) and during this revolution many things and livelihoods were destroyed; it may not be clear that the slight increase in political wealth compensates the large decrease in private wealth (people may say "we are worse off than before"). Likewise, consider an increase in private wealth in a despotic state that reinforces that despotism (because the state is now also stronger), people who don't like that despotism may feel they are actually worse off than before (democracy is actually further rather than closer and they are more, rather than less, likely to be imprisoned and tortured for their political beliefs).

Now, if a country has both very strong democratic political institutions and also a high average private wealth, then I would definitely agree that country is very wealthy. But how many countries are these? Not very many. A key contention of the proponents of capitalism some decades ago was the completely unfounded theory that market processes create increase in average private wealth which creates democracy -- that the more there are "markets" the more there will be democracy. History has proven this theory false and the proponents of capitalism generally don't even bother with this claim anymore.

This private and public wealth distinction I mention as it is very fruitful to think about.

However, where you maybe unsure how public wealth, in terms of one's share in institutions, can be measured and what trade-offs (increases in average private wealth at the expense of in institutional wealth), the ecological criticism of capitalism is far stronger and easy to measure.

There is simply no refuting capitalism (market forces) have lead to a high rate of consumption of natural resources (unless one is uninterested in science) that is unsustainable.

There is simply no reasonable economic argument that can justify being unsustainable. This is why the proponents of capitalism simply ignore or deny the science of these issues while simultaneously asserting that our science is so good it's going to simply solve all ecological problems if they exist (which they don't, climate scientists are corrupt, but if ever there was a problem, which there isn't, then technology, created by our amazing science, is going to fix it).

In economic terms, if the average standard of living today is due to drawing down the earths capital stocks (the basis of production) and simply consuming that capital, then this is the characteristic of an extremely inefficient economic system. If you live off your capital, destroying it and pretending it's revenue, then at some point you will run out of capital and be destitute. I.e. if you sold all your belongings and lived like a super rich person for a day, renting a yacht, hitting the clubs, buying everyone champagne, this does not make you a super rich person, the wealth is completely illusory; we would call you a fool for buying us campaign with the money you got by liquidating all the assets your future depends on. The rate of consumption of drawing down a capital stock isn't really relevant. The higher the rate you consume your own capital the more you can appear wealthy in the short term; if you spend all your capital in half an hour people around you will be more impressed than if you spent it all over a year, but that doesn't really matter.

If capitalism is simply converting the earths capital basis (life sustaining systems required to produce any standard of living whatsoever) and pretending the consumption of that capital is income, then if wealth measurements ignore this and you simply measure short term average material wealth then you will conclude that average material wealth is going up that "people's income is going up". The higher the rate of drawing down the earths capital basis and pretending it's income, the higher the average private wealth is going to be. But if a narrow measurement of wealth is a garbage measurement, then the conclusion you get out if is garbage also.

Yes, many people around me. I’ve noticed the change quite quickly where I live (not in what most would call a ‘developed’ country - one that was until fairly recently regarded as third-world: maybe it still is in some circles?). — I like sushi

Well, you should definitely give Marx a go then, as this is one of his predictions: that capitalism definitely seems good at the start.

Plus, I’m also aware that on a global scale ‘wealth’ has dramatically increased. — I like sushi

This is up for debate.

In questioning this assertion there is first the consideration of what constitutes wealth; do we mean only privately held goods or public goods too? Obviously, proponents of capitalism will say "oh, oh, only privately held wealth counts!" in which case, indeed, if we add it up it has significantly increased on average.

However, if we suspect we are being fooled by a garbage-in-garbage-out analysis, and consider public goods too, then the situation is very different.

First, if we consider social institutions protecting political freedom a social good, then we now have to question whether increase in private wealth on average for a nation and increase in national power and technological sophistication that comes at the expense of political freedom a worthy trade-off. What if some increases in average private wealth come at the expense of a sort of Faustian bargain with totalitarianism and the increase in general wealth translates directly to an increase in totalitarian power? If public institutions are undermined by capitalism -- either leading democracy towards totalitarianism or reinforcing totalitarianism whenever it can make use of capitalist systems -- then it is not a given that increases in average private wealth compensate decreases in public institutional wealth.

Second, if increases in average private wealth come at the expense of the earth's capital basis of production (ecosystems) -- that we are in affect drawing down our capital base and spending those resources flippantly -- then there is no basis to argue that the increase in wealth is, overall permanent. It is not a given that increase in technological and scientific knowledge wealth always exceeds decreases in ecological wealth. If, overall, we are actually just drawing down the earths capital and pretending it's revenue, this is not a "macro economically justifiable" situation, just a plunder based system that leaves a bad situation to future generations (as well as many living today who feel the effects of these negative externalities). Small is Beautiful is a depressingly old book that explains this pretty well.

That is why proponents of capitalism, such as libertarians or neo-liberals, eschew empirical investigations into these questions, social and environmental, and just throw out extremely simplistic metrics of progress (hence the term "myth of progress": it must be believed without question or else the whole intellectual edifice collapses). If questioned they have no empirical arguments, just the assumption that 'technology is going to fix everything soon'.

My point was that capitalism has, although in fits and starts, moved everyone up the ladder over all. This is undeniable isn’t it? This is undeniable isn’t it? I’m not saying social action hasn’t helped too (far from it!). — I like sushi

Above is the basis on which to deny it, however, if you accept, even the benefits you do see around you, also caused by socialist policies, then you haven't really formed an argument for capitalism, just modernity in a general sense.

Once we get to a certain point then the idea of ‘money’ will begin to dissolve: I don’t mean next week though or in 10 years. — I like sushi

A point in capitalism or a point in socialism? Either way, look backwards and compare technology now to 50, 100, or 200 years ago, wouldn't people at any of these times certainly believe, given a description of our level of technology, that we "no longer have poverty" and "no longer have money" with such amazing powers and productivity levels? If you lived at those times making a similar argument to what you're making now upon what basis would you say anything different to what you're saying now?

What specific military actions in question? Are you causing "using excessive force" a "specific military action"? — Terrapin Station

Yes, to come to the conclusion that the military in question is using excessive force, it is necessary to observe, directly or indirectly, specific military actions. If no specific military actions occurred then it is difficult to argue excessive force occurred. Maybe the OP has no information on any specifics nor any knowledge of living in a country with a military, it's all just assumed with no evidence of any kind; if so, it is best to address the OP if that's your contention.

I'm set to enlist in the military but I have the option of not serving if I want to (by acquiring an exemption) so I was debating whether it would be morally right to serve or not. I came to the conclusion that it would be morally wrong to serve because the military in question causes a lot of unjustified harm by using excessive force. But here's the problem, if I think it's immoral to serve if given the option not to, — SightsOfCold

He is proposing the premise here that the specific military actions in question are unjustified and hence immoral to serve. That's the OP's premise.

If your plan is to quibble about something, go ahead.

What particular war is mentioned? — Terrapin Station

Read the OP does it contradict my description that:

Yes, the subject is an entire war, a collection of specific military actions in the real world.

The OP has asked what follows from their conclusion this particular war is unjust, does it conflict with the general desire for a reasonable society. — boethius

The OP is talking about a real war in the real world, a specific collection of military actions that the OP finds unjust. The OP is referencing a real war. We do not know which war, we just know, based on the OP, that the OP is talking about a specific war. The OP is not asking upon which basis should a just or unjust war be evaluated, but only asking, given the conclusion that a war is unjust, is there a paradox somewhere with other social duties.

I am staying on this topic defending the position that an unjust war has no justifiable reason to support it (any excusable reason to participate would be based on either incomplete knowledge or coercion, neither of which the OP claims to be facing).

Do you really want to go over again how your reading method stacks up to my reading method? Am happy to oblige.

Was the subject some particular military action? — Terrapin Station

Yes, the subject is an entire war, a collection of specific military actions in the real world.

The OP has asked what follows from their conclusion this particular war is unjust, does it conflict with the general desire for a reasonable society.

Now, perhaps the war the OP is considering is just, perhaps it's not just, perhaps there is no just war or perhaps there is no unjust war. But assuming a war is unjust, then it follows that participating in that war is not just. There is no serendipitous round-a-about way of reasoning to turn actions to support an unjust war into just actions supporting some hypothetical just war that could otherwise be happening.

One may erroneously believe, due to lack of information or reasoning ability, that an unjust war is just, but this kind of argument, again, admits that the person is in fact in error, that the war is unjust and implies one's actions would change if one were to determine the war is unjust. That someone may have less information (even one's previous self) and take actions under erroneous pretenses (that the war is just) does not somehow justify someone with more information taking those same actions if the information contradicts the action in question (that the war is unjust and should not be fought).

You are not aware of all potential wars when you join up, at any time you could be sent to a war thats unjustified. — DingoJones

Have you read my post? I already dealt with this:

Now, there are many situations where a soldier does not know if an action is justified or not, and lacking that information is trusting the institution is more just than not; but this is not abdicating moral responsibility to evaluate what information one does have and act according to one's personal moral philosophy, which I can get into if you don't see the distinction. — boethius

Your concerns about ethical war, or soldiers disobeying immoral command decisions are covered by the rules of engagement etc (militaries have rules for that sort of thing.) — DingoJones

You are assuming the war is just and rules of engagement justified.

If the war is unjust then all the commands and all the rules of engagement are unjustifiable. The entire enterprise is a crime and all knowing participants are morally responsible for the crime.

So the ethical question you are asking yourself is “can I agree to follow orders, even if I dont agree with them?”. — DingoJones

This is not the question. If the war is just, then it is justifiable to follow orders that I don't agree with, for the sake of a greater organizational efficiency.

However, if the war is unjust and I come to conclude based on the information I have that it is unjust, then the argument of "following orders to maintain organizational efficiency" is no longer valid; it is only valid insofar as it is efficient for winning a war presumed to be just.

There is no way to separate the justification of individual actions in a war with the justification for the war as a whole. One may have partial information or lack in analytical capacity to both find and interpret information, and so erroneously assume an unjust war is a just war, or one can have serious doubts and trust the institution until those doubts are resolved, both these situation do not however actually justify engagement in a war that is unjust.

If an army does not like their soldiers having these kinds of reflections, it is perhaps evidence that army does or intends to wage an unjustifiable war.

↪Isaac I think this scenario is a good example of why a synthesis of utilitarianism and deontology is necessary. — Pfhorrest

Though how can a just war be managed justly runs straight into many differences between utilitarianism and deontology, in this case the OP has already concluded the war is unjust. Insofar as considering whether to join and fight the unjust war, utilitarianism and deontological arguments will conclude the same way. Whether the war is really unjust and what else the OP can do about an unjust war are knotty questions, but I know of no moral theory, consequentialist or deontological that, given the free choice, argue an unjust war should be fought anyway.

No you are not. You are making specific references to society and democracy, and I dont think you are really factoring in the social contract a soldier signs up for. Thats what im talking about. — DingoJones

You do realize you are "making a specific reference to society" when you are "factoring in the social contract the soldier signs up for".

I don't know what this criticism is supposed to even be, but you seem guilty of it within the same sentence you launch it from.

There is nothing in any social contract theory I know of that would lend support for an unjust war. If the war is unjust, the organizers of the unjust war are broken with the social contract they signed up for, and anyone who knowingly participates or enables them are, by definition, also broken with the social contract.

The difficult question is what is and is not a justifiable war, not that an unjust war lacks justification for carrying it out.

It is not noble or courageous to pretend to transfer one's moral responsibility to others, it is factually incorrect (one is still making one's own decisions) and just lazy cowardice.

A lot of that wasnt focusing on the soldier. — DingoJones

I am completely focusing on the soldier or citizen considering becoming a soldier. What I say is simply the logical outcome of concluding a war in unjust.

Of course, determining that is the difficult part, but the OP does not ask us what we think is just or unjust, but rather only whether it creates a paradox of wanting to avoid participating in (what one has concluded is) injustice but still wanting social institutions in a general sense.

Just institutions do not become just because people tolerate injustice from them. It is precisely because enough members of society oppose injustice that institutions become, ever so slowly, more just.

The soldier doesnt get to pick and choose, it cannot work that way. — DingoJones

Yes, the soldier does pick and chose what the soldier does. The soldier does not give up moral agency for a uniform.

They need to obey orders and military rules or people will die. — DingoJones

Sure, but that only supports your conclusion if you're assuming the war is just; in which case I agree.

If the war is unjust it is precisely because obeying orders and rule will result in people dying unjustly on the opposing side that participating is not justified. Now, if non-participation leads to the defeat of one's military and people on one's own side dying in the process, as mentioned above, this is an entirely morally acceptable outcome.

A military just cant function if all the individuals stop for some moral philosophy while serving. — DingoJones

An unjust military cannot function this way, and, as already mentioned, it's totally fine if all the individuals in an unjust military stop for some moral philosophy reasons while serving.

A just military easily can. Indeed, a just military relies on individuals exercising moral agency based on their own individual moral philosophy to have chance at credibly being just. For instance, if a just war is democratically decided, then presumably there are enough citizens that believe, for their own personal moral philosophy reasons, that the war is just. If it turns out that it was a mistake, even if many people thought it was just at the time, the best outcome for society is for enough people, both inside and outside the military, to apply the same moral philosophy process to conclude the war is in fact not-just and change their actions accordingly.

Thats part of what makes choosing to serve worthy and noble, that they are making a big sacrifice for their individuality while serving. — DingoJones

A soldier remains an individual. A uniform doesn't change that. To believe otherwise is to have some surreptitious circle of reasoning where one abdicates moral responsibility ... as you describe in your next sentence:

They are saying “ok, you point, I shoot”, knowing that they are entrusting the justification and morality to someone else. — DingoJones

No soldier needs to believe such a thing, and, furthermore, it doesn't make any sense. Your argument is basically "it is justifiable to no longer think of the justification once you have a uniform"; or in otherwords, unjustifiable action is actually justifiable. Now, there are many situations where a soldier does not know if an action is justified or not, and lacking that information is trusting the institution is more just than not; but this is not abdicating moral responsibility to evaluate what information one does have and act according to one's personal moral philosophy, which I can get into if you don't see the distinction.

I agree that if one believes the military just and worthwhile when joining that one must trust the chain of command until there is new analysis or information, but that does not form an argument that one should avoid reflecting upon or encountering such analysis and information and changing one's actions accordingly.

But this is far from " 'ok, you point, I shoot'.

I disagree. I think that the reality is you don’t get to pick and choose the wars you think are just or not when you are in the military. It doesnt and cannot work that way, and that has to be something you accept if you join the military. — DingoJones

It can completely work that way.

It doesn't work for the people wanting unjust wars for profit or ideological zeal, but it works completely fine for people who support just wars but not unjust wars.

There is no paradox, no contradiction arises.

Officers, of armies tending to have no explainable theory justifying violence, definitely find it convenient if their new recruits quickly abandon any reflection on their own moral agency within the context of violence. But that it is convenient from the point of view of the agents of the institution does not somehow remove the moral agency of the new or old recruits, it remains only a suggestion to "not think about it".

The unjust wars aspect IS part of a violent institution. — DingoJones

This is incorrect. Unjust wars are a risk of participating in an institution, directly or indirectly, but it is not something that must be intrinsically tolerated, much less supported, to have any institution at all. That's just a false dichotomy as I mention above. People can support an institution they think is just, knowing there is a risk it may suddenly become unjust due to corruption or political changes, and then change their relation to that institution and undermine rather than support it.

The reality is that humans are in charge of military application. Mistakes, poor judgement and bad actors are all part of it. — DingoJones

You are confusing an unjust war with unjust actions within a presumably just war. War crimes were committed by the allies, Russians, Nazi's, Chinese and Japanese Empire in WWII, that does not make the war each side was fighting unjust.

Mistakes will always be made in a just war, I agree; society must try to avoid such mistakes and deal with it as best as it can. Simply concluding a war is just does not make navigating such a war morally simple.

However, in an unjust war all actions by definition are unjust; the entire thing is, by definition, a mistake and there is simply no "a few bad apples" argument available.

Moreover, continuing a unjust war weakens a society and military and makes it less prepared to fight the next just war (in many ways I am more than willing to enumerate); not participating, and actively opposing an unjust war, helps not only the society one's society is unjustly harming but also one's own society. Continuation of unjust war requires the re-engineering of and destabilization of what society believes in order to muster enough support to continue it; this exercise of propaganda by the government upon the people we should expect in theory, and we find in practice, will lead directly to a society that is no longer able to interpret reality and the eventual failure of that society. Such a process, once it has started, is only arrested and reversed by people concerned about participating in unjust violence and deciding to oppose it because it is unjust; otherwise, it is not the case that a society "wraps up the unjust war" and gets back to the business of just war; history teaches us unjust war simply continues until it is stopped by internal and/or external forces (usually concerned about stopping unjust wars).

You can argue a war is just, but you cannot reasonably argue a unjust war should be participated in by anyone that has a choice in the matter; that it simply what unjust action means: things you shouldn't do given the choice. You can argue that there is no standard of justice and there is no just war and there is no unjust war and each soldier should just think like a mercenary, doing what will maximize benefit for themselves (plundering when victory is assured, gaining network and skills in non-combat rolls or peacetime, and deserting when defeat is likely), but this is not an argument that unjust wars should be participated in, it is simply denying that unjust wars exist; and this is not OP's question; OP has evaluated the war is unjust, not that there is no standard of justice.

I'm pro-military. Many people in my family served and so did I. I think it's worth doing for many reasons, not the least of which is the personal discipline you'll gain. — Terrapin Station

You and seem to be confusing the support for the idea of a military with the subject of engagement in and support for specific military actions. That "we should have laws generally speaking" is not an argument that defends or excuses any specific law of a given justice system, likewise "that society should use violence when required, generally speaking" is not an argument that defends or excuses any particular act of violence by society.

Plus their are other advantages, including that if you serve long enough, you'll earn lifelong benefits from it. — Terrapin Station

What will it profit a soldier if he gains mad skills, but loses his soul?

More importantly for the debate here, if sacrificing on the battlefield becomes probable or necessary to advance the interests of society, let's assume here it's a just war, would this possibility still make military service worthwhile based on the argument of personal gain? If so, would the war in question being unjust change this economic calculus even slightly, or is it entirely irrelevant?

The question isnt whether or not that its morally acceptable, but rather if those things are worth the trade-off. You already noticed yourself the consequences of not having a military at all. Disaster. — DingoJones

This is not the issue. The premise is of the OP is that the army in question is involved in unjust wars, not the general issues involved in maintaining violent institutions. For instance, the OP's subject is not that some soldiers will do unjust things in the broader scope of a just war.

The idea that the only alternative to opposing an unjust war is to have no government at all is a shallow false dichotomy. Obviously, only engaging in and supporting just violence is an available alternative to the prospect of supporting or engaging in unjust violence.

Ridiculous as she is — ZzzoneiroCosm

Thanks for reminding me that I need to complete my next post explaining why Ayn Rand is no a rehash of enlightenment philosophy, on "Why Ayn Rand isn't taken seriously by academic philosophers.

It's fun and useful to develop a catalog of zinging anti-Randian finishers.

Prepping for Thanksgiving dinner. — ZzzoneiroCosm

However, the general reason why there's a general tend to avoid Ayn Rand is that there are a lot of Europeans on the forum, and Rand get's hardly mentioned here in Europe. But I'm from the America's and so understand your motivation in terms of the broader social relevance.

For this particular subject, and "virtue of selfishness" in general, the zinger you're looking for is corporate welfare, leading to either a demonstration that your interlocutor has no idea what their talking about or then a more general discussion of corruption in politics. If selfishness is really a virtue, then no one would hold it against the judge for selling justice to the highest bidder, that's just the rational thing to do, allowing for dollars to vote on laws and by extension the application of laws. All Randian type fantasies are just praise for those that excel in the status quo by whatever means available while denying such ideas, if they become the new norm, would change the status quo in any meaningful way: that the police, soldiers, judges, politicians, voters would all still somehow magically act like Kantians all while spitting on the name of Kant.

If at this point your dinner guests haven't changed the subject (which I can essentially guarantee) you can go onto explain that while the governing capital owning elite generally do believe in selfishness, increasing their power by whatever means (that's usually how they got powerful, mixed in with good starting conditions), they generally don't actually believe Randian type "selfishness is a virtue" in any serious way. They bring out this ideology only when it suits them to whip up libertarians into a frenzy when required but will trot out other contradicting ideologies whenever doing so creates more gains; for instance, if taxes are at issue, there will be a lot of praise of the "selfish motive" and "wealth creators" and that people want to "keep their money" and tax is theft and an immoral punishment of getting ahead (i.e. in recent years, it's been discovered that flipping the message is more effective; maybe arguing 'selfishness is a virtue' today rings hollow today but arguing that 'trying take the gains is a sin' is still quite effective, in the US at least), maybe Rand isn't mentioned by name, because too much ridiculous baggage, but it's basically this idea; however, the same elites (and their Randian supporters) will praise the bravery and selfless sacrifice of soldiers when required for whenever public relations necessitates to honor the fallen or then insight in the population selfless (but irrational) feelings of militaristic patriotism to support military budget and imperial expansion in a general sense whenever these issues are questioned. Randians will accuse you of dishonoring the selfless sacrifice of soldiers while simultaneously holding the position that no soldier, police, firefighter, or non-profit volunteer really does act selflessly but are all really actually motivated by the "good feeling" of, at least believing, to do a good dutiful thing. Of course, Kant was aware of and obliterated any potential defense of this point of view by pointing out that one cannot be pleased to have performed a duty without having independent reasons to believe it's a duty in the first place, as otherwise one would not come to believe it is a duty and one could not conclude that one had actually performed a duty; only perhaps through social pressure would one have believed it anyway, a social pressure which would dissipate with time if there are no actual reasons for doing such a duty other than one will feel good about satisfying social pressure for having done it; if one is free from social pressure, as Rand suggests, there would be no way to create duties for the public good and no reason for a judge or a soldier to carry out such duties, which is the obvious and logical and rational conclusion of believing selfishness is a virtue: which is why Ayn Rand and all similar beliefs are so ridiculous.

but, the path to any kind of vaguely ‘classless’ society is through capitalism NOT socialism.

Once everyone has access to whatever resources they wish - which has happened VERY quickly over the past few decades - then ‘wealth’,in term of ‘money’, will dissolve. — I like sushi

This so mindbogglingly incredibly naive it is almost painful to read and respond to.

By "everyone has access to whatever they wish" what you actually mean is everyone around you in your class has access to sufficient resources to be happy in your opinion and you don't give two figs about first-peoples thrown off their land and forests burned to graze the cattle you eat, or the factory worker living in slave-conditions to make your electronics, or the people that don't have the skills to "cut it" and are homeless but contribute to the system by being a signpost of fear to keep the wage-slaves focused on the rat race.

Classes are not vague. People who are homeless form a class of identifiable people that share the characteristic of being homeless. People who work for a subsistence wage and have no capital form a class of people with these characteristics. People who work for a higher than subsistence wage and have enough capital to avoid homelessness in the short term (but not long term) if they were fired form a class sharing these characteristics. People who have enough capital that they do not ever have to work if consuming only the rents, interest or capital gains increase of their capital stock form a class sharing this characteristics. Or, as usually referred to there is the under-class, lower-class, middle-class and upper class of economic means.

Classes are only vague if you are securely middle to upper class and simply ignore everyone else. Then yes, who cares if you have a meaningful job, washing machine, a car and can go on great vacations and have fun on the internet and virtual reality or whether you have a mansion, a yacht and the complete set of Victorian styled servants.

Now, is there enough resources for everyone to share a middle-class level of comfort? It's trivially easy to prove as production efficiency has increased hundreds to thousands of fold, depending on how it's measured, and it's almost impossible to argue that there is not enough production capacity to provide everyone a decent standard of living. The whole point Marx is trying to explain is why this doesn't occur; how can people remain wage-slaves through several orders of magnitude increase in productivity (far more than population increase)?

If your point is just that you personally don't feel part of a class, no more willing to go to bat for the rich than the poor, again, if you bother to read Marx, he's completely aware of this. The fact that people form objective economic classes, Marx is very well aware, does not automatically create political parties of those groups.

There are of course problems with Marx, but pointing out there are in fact classes formed in a capitalist society in relation to capital ownership or lack-of-ownership is not one of those problems.

As to your contention of "accelerating material abundance that will soon satisfy everyone!" this is claimed every decade by proponents of capitalism since capitalism emerged: look at the steam boat and pump, affordable hammers and nails, the electric ironing board, the auto-mobile, the microwave, the flying machine! How easy life has already become for everyone, what paradise awaits!

but I don't want others to do it too (which would result in everyone not serving and thus - a really bad outcome for everyone) and that "seems" very morally wrong — SightsOfCold

The way you have framed things, there is no paradox just a direct contradiction in your premises.

You say the army is doing unjustified harm, in which case it would be just, not unjust, for that army to lose the war. So, even if everyone did act as you do then an unjust army loses an unjust war, a completely acceptable moral outcome.

Now, if you universalize further and ask "what if not only everyone in my country but everyone in every country did not contribute to unjust wars" then again, the result is completely fine.

From what I understand, you're basically saying that "it's a morally unjust war ... but if we stop fighting we'll lose and that would be worse!". A morally unjust war should by definition be lost, that is what all moral agents, both within and without the team in question, should be, by definition, the result they are rooting for.

If you are trying to get at some more general paradox of society not using violence ever and criminals and unjust armies running rampant, then this isn't really a problem in a framework that accepts there is a just and unjust uses of violence: people should do just violence and not unjust violence by definition. This sort of paradox arises only if you are considering all violence unjustified, now you must contend with the unjust armies roaming the earth with no just opposition to stop them (radical pacifists like Tolstoy resolve this paradox by arguing that the unjust will naturally realize their unjustness if they are not opposed; violence begets violence basically and it is up to the just to stop the cycle). This doesn't seem to be your case however; you can refuse to contribute to an unjust war and if society gets it's act together and stops unjust war and the next war arises that is just then you can join the military or contribute in another way; you're decision is not permanent as points out.

Where there is a much harder moral problem, assuming your just/not-just evaluation is correct, is that by getting an exemption but still being a normal citizen you are still supporting an unjust war.You may not be a soldier but you will be enabling the soldier and, insofar as this is the case, your moral position has not actually changed. To be in a different moral position you would need to do more than simply not join the military but also make other choices which lead you to be satisfied that you are not enabling unjust violence. This is usually discussed in terms of "paying tax to an unjust regime"; there are lot's of ways to resolve this problem, but none of them support business as usual which is what most people who come to ask themselves this question, at least at first, want an answer to (there is genuine moral conflict of carrying on business as usual in an unjust system, whether to support war or any other injustice, but it is not a paradox it is just a contradiction in desires).

My question for you is why ask for criticism of the premises of your book here after, rather than before, publishing it.

If you are trying to affirm, in so disregarding our thoughts in the formulation of your book, that our opinions are irrelevant to the truth and no better than your own, why ask us? If you are unsure, why publish the book?

In the article by Wolfram (link), he claims that special and general relativity can be easily derived from the behavior of a causal network. If you read starting at the section called "Evolving the Network", you'll see what I refer to. What do you make of this? Plausible? — petrichor

Oh I completely agree with him ...

But these are all speculations. And until we actually find a serious candidate rule for our universe, it’s probably not worth discussing these things much. — Wolfram

I am not sure I understand though why the space atoms "won't line up with their own space-atom grid that their asserting exists around them." I can visualize the compression, but not the misalignment. — petrichor

In the very simple way that if you "squeeze the grid" so the space-atoms are a half unit a part, those space-atoms won't line up with a grid where the space atoms are a unit apart in each direction.

If postulate space-atoms, the first thing you will do in relativity is compress them as viewed from another reference frame. Unless [insert crazy math here], what this thought experiment concludes is the computation of events must be irrespective of the size of the space-atoms; in otherwords, even if you were using space-atoms as a calculation device they cannot be physical as changing reference frame will and doing the same calculation of events will require postulating a grid of smaller space-atoms to get the same results.

Maybe an easier way to visualize the actual problem [minus crazy math to fix it] that happens. You've done some calculation of a causal events in your reference frame of space-atoms at a given size. By viewing the same events from another reference frame (i.e. viewing the events from relativistic speeds), if the space-atom size is fundamental, then some space-atoms of the previous reference frame "get squeezed out" of the grid in the new frame, if those space-atoms were important to get the result (the prediction of causal events) then they've disappeared and there is not an information mismatch due to changing reference frames. This is fixed by removing the postulate that the space-atom size is fundamental (difference observers cannot agree on the necessary size of the space atoms for the purposes of calculation); for, usually we will switch reference frames to do calculations in an intuitive frame, but this is only a convenience, we can always just keep the frame (the coordinate system) we're in and map out all causal events in that frame; so a length-contracted object will be quite literally "missing" space atoms (the observer in the spaceship decides "10^200 space atoms" axis are required to describe events in the ship, but the stationary observer, using the same size of space atoms, due to length contraction, only has the ship occupy one half of 10^200 space atoms). If the space atoms encode information they literally get lost changing from one reference frame to another.

There is no simple trick to fix this problem.

A property of continuous coordinate systems is they map "onto", without information loss, when stretching and compressing them. So in Einsteins system there are simply no smallest resolution that can "get lost" if you compress even smaller.

The basic problem is literally the same of resizing an image smaller and bigger on the computer: information gets loss (unless the information is encoded in such away that is scale invariant: just like Relativity).

In other words, without solving this problem, the space-atoms hypothesis can be a calculation aid but is not a physical description (i.e. even showing that you can make QM calculations using a grid doesn't provide evidence from grid-like space-atoms): there is no way in principle to decide how big space-atoms are. An analogy is weather simulations that model the atmosphere as a a grid; this is a calculation aid and is a completely non-physical postulate in the model.

What does he mean when he says that the table chooses a frame? — petrichor

The table is in a frame of reference where the table isn't moving. This frame of reference isn't special, and lot's of properties of the table are going to change when seen from a moving frame of reference or then in a gravitational well. What will be agreed however is causality and the laws of physics governing those causal links will make sense; however, the size of the table and what's happening simultaneously on the table and speed that time runs at on the table all will not be agreed (and so some happenings will be agreed to make sense but for different reasons for different observers; a magnetic field for one will be a electric field for another, Unruh radiation being an even more radical discrepancy in causal mechanism).

The problem of simply "quantizing space" being referred to here is basically that if you imagine a grid of "space-atoms" all around you all equidistant to each other, then from another frame of reference that's moving your space atoms will be compressed along one access and won't line up with their own space-atom grid that their asserting exists around them.

In a single stationary frame, it's no problem filling space time with a grid of "space-atoms" that are smaller than our most precise possible measurements and then just say "particles" jump from one atom to another. And, in a Newtonian space even moving around in the space-atom grid wouldn't be a problem; we can move fast or slow relative the grid. However, relativity has no preferred reference frame and the coordinates of a reference frame get stretched and squashed as seen from another reference frame, and so the space-atom grids would also be stretched and squashed and not line up.

Of course, the physicists and mathematicians working on "space-atoms" (networks, grids, etc.) are working in extremely abstract places to resolve this issue above. Arkani-Hamed is just pointing out the fundamental problem and there's no obvious fix for it. I don't think he's "hard against" any approach to quantizing space, just cognizant of the extreme level of difficulty; however, he is taking the position that space needs to be quantized, that space-time is doomed, which is not the only position (but generally favored by physicists because all observations are necessarily discrete whole numbers, what are usually called "ticks", and the supposition of continuous quantities is unverifiable and so a "more than you need" assumption from the get-go; the problem is Einsteins theories work so well and require continuous quantities to work ... and although QM predicts discrete measurement probabilities ... calculations are done in a continuous, fairly run of the mill, coordinate system; i.e. space is not quantized neither in relativity nor quantum mechanics and there's no obvious way to quantize space in either; it's also not clear to anyone if the problem is fundamentally mathematical or physical, or a strange mix of both).

a democracy is advertised as a system where the common people control the policies. — Hassiar

Yes, I agree.

brexit is another example, the others may be seen by polling figures, where this is apparently not the case. stop the madness. — Hassiar

The general analysis of democratic proponents is that the UK is not democratic enough, first-past-the-post vs. proportional representation. Other than simply being more inline with majority rule (first-past-the-post is only majority rule sometimes, which doesn't somehow magically turn cases of when it produces minority rule into majority rule, that's an obvious contradiction and nonsense argument; arguments for first-past-the-post are minority-rule arguments, and made by people that don't like democracy).

So other than being inherently more democratic, the practical consequence of proportional systems is that there is more space for more diverse views at the seat of power (any party with a few percent support can have a seat or two), and so this creates more nuanced discussion between adjacent parties and, critically, if a party get mired in corruption people can switch to a party that's very close in platform.

In first past the post, "whoever has the most votes wins" and so small parties are completely meaningless and the only numerical strategy to beat the incumbent is to merge all opposition into a single party (avoid vote splitting). This naturally tends to a two-party system, with fairly irrelevant exceptions of regional parties. Without stepping stones of platforms in between these polarized positions, debate cannot be nuanced as each party is simply a "cobbling together" of various views in that general space of political opinion and, critically, the only way to punish corruption or incompetence is to switch to a radically different party; both these factors result in coherent policy being left-by-the-wayside, and as a consequence the whole system loses focus on coherent policy, and so, surprise-surprise, the electorate, when polled, don't have a clue. Whereas, in a proportional representation system, parties need to compete by making more sense next to the adjacent parties and people can easily engage in debate with adjacent parties; coherent arguments sort of "win locally" and then move along the ideological space, being adopted by the like-minded and requiring a critique from those opposed to that view (which generally, if the argument is really good, requires modifying the platform to either "take the good parts", explain the argument is simply wrong or then recognize the problem but deal with it by a combination of other policies); all of which promotes a much more coherent understanding of things overall.

But there's a quick empirical take, which is the advanced democracies with proportional representation are never in the news for electing stupid people or having stupid referendums. In other words, people become frustrated with the non-democratic nature of first-past-the-post and over time "anti-establishment" becomes a predominant opinion that expresses itself in eventually supporting disruption to the system. Of course, it would be more productive for this frustration to be directed at the first-past-the-post system, but it takes a lot of time to build that awareness and there's all the incumbent power of the entire country (main political parties, media, the rich) that want the status quo. The whole point of first-past-the-post is that it allows minority rule while being advertised as democratic; the result is the worst of both worlds: the minority that rules becomes detached from reality and stupid and corrupt, and the people are not accustomed to real policy debates mattering so are equally ill equipped to guide the country when their effect is felt from time to time.

governments are too corrupt for the democratic experiment to continued ad naseum — Hassiar

What's your definition of corruption here? Being able to nudge the scales of justice towards arbitrary power for oneself? How would a form of minority rule fix that? not to mention democracies existing today where corruption is low.

Exactly, I didn't find this post surprising at all.

2. Sell the commons, making it private so that folk take care of it. (We might call this the Selfish Git solution) — Banno

This proposed solution also depends on your 'A Big Fat Dictator who shoots anyone who tries to put two cows on the', what is now, private property.

Using "Big Fat Dictator" to refer to government, doesn't somehow remove reliance on government in the privatization solution, as you need government to enforce exclusion from the space.

And if you assume government is there to enforce exclusion from the space for the benefit of a private individual, then by definition government can enforce some reasonable sharing scheme, including some while excluding others.

For, imagine you're the farmer and bought the privatized land, but someone comes and puts a cow on it? Will your whining and complaining and maybe some ranting about government help? No, what will help is phoning the government and asking the government to enforce exclusion to your property.

Privatization is not a structurally different scheme then any other scheme to manage use of a publicly owned asset, they all rely on the government's ability to force exclusion and select usage of the asset.

There is no intrinsically moral or structurally political difference, the relevant question is simply "what's a good deal for the public".

The proponents of privatization are generally not arguing against the power of government (which they need), but rather they are generally arguing that public assets should be sold below the true worth of the asset, either by fanciful accounting that undervalues the asset or then "just because".

Usually, the fanciful accounting excludes the future utility of the land to the public and includes fanciful interest and discount rate calculations to try to show the public gains more from the capital exchanged for the land than a renting scheme. However, since the difference between selling and renting is extremely low in any calculation, the net-present-value of future utility (government wants to make some project and suddenly it's convenient all that land is public) easily exceeds the sell-rent difference, it's almost never reasonable to sell public lands based on the same accounting methods companies use to value their own assets.

What makes matters worse, is that the main reason for a private company to sell land would be the management costs exceed the revenue from that land, but the main management cost for the public (policing and a court system to settle disputes, which can just as easily come up with private owners and between renters) will be the same if privatized or rented!

So, if we simply don't know what the land will be worth to the public in the future and supporting a police force and justice system is the same if things are rented or sold, then the economic optimum is a rolling rent scheme (and whether to one or several users doesn't really matter, just like if the rent was sold and the buyer then rented to several farmers the proponents of privatization wouldn't care). If you object "ah but farmers need long term foresight", well the rolling rent scheme can be long term, whatever is optimum. In most circumstances, it's almost impossible to argue against this in economic terms, and third-party un-biased economists brought into evaluate these cases typically demonstrate the above with lot's of numbers and conclude renting provides both revenue and future flexibility if a new public optimum usage of the land is found.

Hence why privatization proponents try to cast it in moral terms, that somehow it is a morally superior outcome to privatize in which case it's a moral imperative to privatize, and if assets need to be sold below their value that's fine. Of course it makes no sense (why would the public sell something below the value, isn't this economically irrational? how could "economics" seriously conclude such a thing), so they will flip-flop between these moral arguments for privatization and fanciful accounting.

The tragedy of the commons only occurs if there is no effective way for the government to enforce exclusion, in which case there is no effective way to privatize either, and "developing a culture that respects the commons" becomes the only option. For instance, if there is no effective way to exclude people from using a common space to dump small pieces of trash, aka littering, then developing a culture against littering is the only option.

I don't know the US scene, but isnt Trump the guarantor of all the male white-collar industrial jobs that globalism and immigration threaten? Hence trade wars to defend US companies. — Tim3003

That's the story, sometimes, the point is Trump does not need to deliver this, it's just a story being told and actions are for show and not substance.

For instance, if the trade wars lose more male white-collar industrial jobs than they create, Trump base will either just deny those numbers or make up a new story where that's a good thing or in any case not due to Trump. "Nuanced facts" (by which I mean anything not essentially recorded) haven't mattered much to most republicans for a while, Fox News exists to create propaganda and predates Trump; what Trump represents is abandoning internal-consistency as well as non-nuanced-obvious facts, this is a new step into the absurd.

Trump and republican talking heads are willing to deny taped statements, be completely self-contradictory and make no plausible "truthiness theater" (which Republicans, pre-Trump, would at least go through the motions of; so Trump is a not straying too far from Republican strategy and intellectual honesty, but it is a new phase where intellectual honesty is no longer even a "pretend value" but openly mocked).

Uhh...no. Trump and nuclear weapons isn't an issue. Trump is simply such an inept leader that he simply cannot do such trouble. And what is rarely mentioned is that Trump supporters don't like the neocons and the hawks in Washington — ssu

We agree on several points, but I'd just like to react to this. It may seem at first "obvious someone like Trump should not have nuclear powers" and then quickly turn into a trope because we think other people would prevent reckless nuclear launch, I think the first intuition is the correct one.

For two reasons:

First, it's a baseless assumption that "it would be hard to launch a nuke". We actually simply don't know. Trump is not surrounded by "other responsible people" all the time, and so anytime he's alone and if he called in the nuclear codes handler; as far as we know those codes simply just work and the soldier with the nuclear football is told to do what the president says. So if it got into his mind that he needs to launch, there's simply no good basis to assume that would be a hard thing to do, and someone who's erratic, unpredictable, self-contradictory and is seems to follow no identifiable pattern of behaviour it's again just groundless speculation that wanting to launch a nuke stays unreasonable to this person. Maybe it's unreasonable today, but tomorrow a few new ideas come up and it looks like genius.

Second, there may arise crisis uncaused by Trump where the use of nuclear weapons looks like it's reasonable, no one in the chain of command has complete knowledge, the order to launch arises and it is carried out because it seems a reasonable response to the crisis and lower-downs will assume "certainly a lot of the higher-ups agree"; but in such moment of crisis it maybe, with complete information (i.e. the information available), completely unreasonable to launch but Trump, using one of his long list of erroneous conclusion formula, truly believes it's reasonable, has all the other "higher-ups" arrested or sidesteps them and sends the command to launch. It's a crisis, it's tense, the likely outcome is people do what they've been trained to do: do what the president says. Things simply happen too fast for there to be some sort of coup to depose Trump.

Let's hope neither of these situations are ever tested, but I think it's unwise to minimize it; it can of course be discussed further, my purpose here was simply to compare the stakes in Brexit with the Trump presidency (there's lot's of other examples of "large gap in stakes").

I will come back to the "how many people are there really" question in my next post, as it's just irrelevant apologetics: doesn't actually lead to a conclusion that public funded research, and research affecting public policy, should not both be publicly available.

Moreover, it's not a scientific argument! We can't emperically compare a global knowledge system with the least amount of barriers possible to one with the current barriers. As I said, these arguments supporting the current system are all just reducible "nothing to see here".

I'll focus for now on your strawman:

And this is leaving aside the absolutely bonkers conspiracy theory that you have going about scientists hiding their research behind paywalls so that outsiders, untainted by special interests, would not be able to check their work. — SophistiCat

I do not say there's one giant conspiracy, I say there's an incentive structure which does not exclude local conspiracies on occasion.

This is why the opioid crisis is blowing up: there was no basis in science for it! it was not an honest mistake yet there is massive harm to the public. The "experts" with "years of training and immersion in the field", from the researchers on opioids to the government oversight to the doctors themselves.

Consider one aspect of it, the policy to outsource the licensing of fentynol prescriptions (who gets to prescribe fentynol) to the pharmaceutical companies themselves who outsourced it to a pharmaceutical distributor.

How do you explain this decision as "the best expertise can come up with".

If you don't, then:

If it was obviously corruption of the government why didn't experts in academia sound the alarm and make some protest to stop it? Or, why didn't doctors themselves "self-organize" to mitigate the affects of this corruption (police themselves)?

If we don't expect our experts to have any expertise (i.e. people prescribing opioids don't know anything about opioids) or then we don't expect them to overcome incentive structures that promote self-censorship, then how do you avoid the conclusion:

Making knowledge systems more open so that ordinary people can check the basis of policy decisions is an additional safety backstop to avoid poor policy decisions and accelerates awareness when the affects of poor policy decisions start to be felt.

In my next post I'll get into the positive reasons why we should expect transparency to have large affects (that expert networks are vulnerable to corruption, self-censorship, insufficient time to police themselves for mistakes, incentivization of various other kinds, and group-think), and it's a question of both availability and barriers to access, and any fixes to these problems must come, by definition, from outside the expert-networks themselves. Now we can't know what lowering the barriers to checking will do, but we don't know the cost of errors going unnoticed: if one such error is an existential threat then open research is justified as opening publicly funded research is neither difficult nor an existential threat (it's just basic risk-analysis).

If "this theorem T is unprovable" is proof, as you say, then doesn't that mean it's provable after all and that too within the axiomatic system? — TheMadFool

Yes (that's a good question) and why the phrases "inside and outside the system" come up.

"Inside the system" the theorem isn't provable, there's no problem; the axioms are content to just leave it at that. It's only us outside the system that we realize that if the system can't deal with that statement, then that statement is actually true.

It's basically the liar paradox but there are two different systems to evaluate the theorem, whereas the liar paradox is fully "in our minds" and we can't look at it "outside the system it's expressed in".

So, "within the system" we can follow Godels axioms and statements to arrive at a completely proper conclusion. We need to use reasoning "outside the system" (that are not based on the axioms of the system) to arrive at the conclusion the statement is actually true. We can't do this with the liar paradox and so cannot do a similar thing to conclude it's actually true, as if it's true then it's false; incompleteness is a version of this idea that somehow works out due to these nuances of building it in a system that is smaller and weaker than our own minds and these nuances of "unprovable" doesn't necessarily mean "false"; so saying that statement is "actually true" doesn't make a contradiction with the truth value within the system which just says "unknown (as far as these axioms are concerned)"; i.e. if I say "I don't know if it's raining outside" isn't contradicted by you coming and saying "it's raining".

If a proposition P is true then necessarily that a proof must exist for P being true. — TheMadFool

This is the premise you need to abandon.

There can be true statements that have no proof. Incompleteness shows us an example.

There can also be just "true facts" about numbers and arithmetic that are true and there's simply no proof possible.

For instance, the Collatz conjecture we may simply never be able to prove is true, false, or even undecidable, it just stays unknown (beyond what we can check through computer calculation, which wikipedia says we've done to 87 * 2^60 which seems impressible is minuscule compared to "all numbers"). I.e. it can be "true" but also true that no proof nor proving it's undecidable is possible; some things that "resist refutation" can potentially just stay a big question mark indefinitely. The halting problem is a related concept.

If I were to make an educated guess, "unprovable" and "undecidable" mean the same thing. — TheMadFool

I think this question got answered, but I was careful to use terms of "unproven statements" which is not the same as "unprovable statements.

Why we don't use "unprovable" as a synonym to undecideable is because it makes sense to say "this false statement is unprovable", but of course to know it's false means the negation is proven. Which is why "Undecidable is actually stronger. It means not only unprovable, but also that the negation is unprovable" as @alcontali mentions.

How is it then that a statement like (refer highlighted section of quote above): "true, but that are unprovable" occur in Godel's incompleteness theorem. — TheMadFool

Justified True Belief (JTB) : Knowledge of proposition P = P is true, P is justified and you believe P. — TheMadFool

An important condition to incompleteness theorem is the axiomatic system is strong enough to do arithmetic.

The concept of complete is that every true statement that can be expressed in the system can be provable. The concept of consistent is simply that there are no contradictions.

The axiom of P = P forms a system of a single axiom where the only statement understandable to the system is P = P which doesn't contradict P = P, so it's complete and consistent.

Incompleteness theorem doesn't create doubts about things like P = P, and even adding a few more rules about P doesn't necessarily run into incompleteness theorem.

Enough rules to do arithmatic are needed.

Once arithmatic is possible, statements understandable to the system can also be statements about the system.

How this is possible is because all statements can be encoded as a number and rules about arithmatic describe numbers and what can be done with them.

Armed with this, it's then possible (in a completely proper mathematical way, not just conceptually) to make statements such as "This theorem is unprovable" and then show we can't prove that theorem with the axiom. But it's a true statements!!! We know it's true because we proved that it's unprovable, there's just no axiomatic way to prove it.

Without getting technical, I hope this gives some key intuitions as to what's going on.

Why this theorem was so important, is because before incompleteness theorem, mathematicians were looking for the "one true system", a system of rules about numbers from which all true statements about numbers can be proven and no contradictions arise.

The "no system of arithmetic can prove it's own consistency" part is, for me anyways, much more abstract relevance, I'm not sure there's some key intuitions about it.

I’m well aware of that. It’s amazing how long it has taken. It truly is a scar on the face of democracy. — NOS4A2

The fear is about what happens after, and they are reasonable fears from what I tell, which is why a majority of UK politicians are trying to prevent it and why the EU is calling BJ's bluff.