Capital and Nature

[robert d reed]

deserves a thread of it's own. What a monstrosity.

Oh what were we talking about?

Looks like Libertarian Social Darwinism, Ayn Rand & eugenics.

You re-printed my entire post, just so you could offer a three-sentence non-response like that?

No doubt, it's easier to pin a label on my post than to unpack it and respond to it. Makes it easier for the easily buzzword-triggered to "move along, nothing to see here"...

but if you do decide to actually respond, point by point (which I doubt), I entreat you to refrain from making any more projections- whether they be presumptions about my ideology, my income, my work history, my age, my level of education, or any other just-so explanation for my points. That's usually what threads like this turn into, in lieu of actual dispute over content.

My comments are my own. My observations aren't primarily theoretical or ideological, but practical, mostly from firsthand experience.

On the other hand...go on, tell me more about what you're "deducing" about what's informing my perspective.

[Dreams End]

rdr, even that little quote came from another poster at PI. You aren't even talking to chlamor...you are talking to a committee...check out the thread I linked.

[robert d reed]

Now there's something that can't be done in face-to-face debate.

It's enough to make me wonder about the tireless energy of Mr. Hugh Manatee Wins ( presently poised to make his 3000th post! )...

Not very much, though.

I view my role as one of the folks who actually takes the verbal content at its word, and seeks to offer an earnest and sincere reply- at least until I feel that all other options have been exhausted, and it's time to bring on the silliness.

The person- or persons- behind a given post, and their possible motivations, are a minor concern.

[Dreams End]

Maybe...but it's why I got confused. All this really articulate stuff and then some inarticulate, fragmented replies to you....

so there's no real "dialogue" here. The person he quotes primarily is a marxist. chlamor, from what I can see, really isn't. Anyway, that's why I started trying to sort out what was going on...I was getting confused. If you want to keep debating half the PI board, feel free...it had some entertainment value.

[robert d reed]

I agree that the more disingenuous tactics used, and the more background confusion sown, the tougher it is to obtain any lasting merit from an Internet exchange.

Unethical behavior in Internet discussions entails the same sort of baggage that it does everywhere else. And, as such, I think that penalties apply when it's discovered, to qualities such as credibility.

[chlamor]

chlamor.

I was impressed with this thread, till I saw you were a ghostwriter. What the hell? It's not against forum rules to get your answers from someone else and then post them as your own..but it IS kinda weird. Credit for much of the above discussion should be given to someone name anaxarchos at a forum called populistindependent.

http://populistindependent.org/phpbb/vi ... sc&start=0

It's actually a little creepy. Chlamor would post a response from this thread, anaxarchos would comment and chlamor would cut and paste the response.

I just find that really strange.

Oh, I see other cut and pastes were from someone named pple.

seriously, go read the thread. chlamor posts, anaxarchos dictates, chlamor changes a few pronouns and then pastes it here.

Combine this with the Madsen quotes and the pro-nuke stuff...just fucking weird.

First of all to Mr. Reed, I will go over each of your ramblings point by point tomorrow, sorry it was so absurd it could only merit an initial point towards that, for example you deriding me about using a term which you not only introduced but used often. I'll go over that later.

Now I am replying to you DE but trying to get my money's worth here as the CPU greyout will most likely make this a one-shot affair.

First of all the bit about Madsen is stupid. I never read Madsen's stuff not because I think he's disinfo, he could be I don't care, but because his writing is confused and never leads to any concrete conclusions. The article posted, however, brings up a very good question not only as relates to who is Scooter Libby but also can lead into different areas which SLD pointed towards.

Now how you conflate all of this is insane. In fact in that thread I explained simply what my position was on Madsen how can you now say what you did here? You're reaching and it's ugly.

Now here we are with more patently absurd just out and out lies. Pro-Nuke?! What in the hell are you thinking. You aren't going to find anyone who is more rabidly anti-nuke than I. Do you just make this up?

Now do I have to dig up every anti-nuke post I've ever put forth to satisfy your false accusations?

Now as for the stuff by anax he was not only glad to see his stuff posted but offers it to be used for this purpose with no credit necessary. Now here's an interesting thing, I hope you can comprehend this, there is another poster over there who does the same and another and another. I am one of those others.

What's really weird is that the ideas being discussed here are now gone completely from view. Well done.

And again if you think this is SOOO weird you have an open invitation to visit in person. That way you'll know I'm not CIA, DIA, or ABC though be careful I'm tricky. I live in a hotbed of anarchists, radical Catholic Workers, peace activists, economic justice workers and socialists. Would you feel at home? Maybe not.

There are also legions of phony liberals here too.

This is goofy shit.

[Dreams End]

I never read Madsen's stuff

Then maybe you shouldn't POST Madsen's stuff....just a thought.

Now here we are with more patently absurd just out and out lies. Pro-Nuke?! What in the hell are you thinking. You aren't going to find anyone who is more rabidly anti-nuke than I. Do you just make this up?

No, I read your Rickover post? And the entire point of it was that fossil fuels...oh fuck it...I'll just quote it. From YOUR POST:

Wood fuel and farm wastes are dubious as substitutes because of growing food requirements to be anticipated. Land is more likely to be used for food production than for tree crops; farm wastes may be more urgently needed to fertilize the soil than to fuel machines.

Wind and water power can furnish only a very small percentage of our energy needs. Moreover, as with solar energy, expensive structures would be required, making use of land and metals which will also be in short supply. Nor would anything we know today justify putting too much reliance on solar energy though it will probably prove feasible for home heating in favorable localities and for cooking in hot countries which lack wood, such as India.

More promising is the outlook for nuclear fuels. These are not, properly speaking, renewable energy sources, at least not in the present state of technology, but their capacity to "breed" and the very high energy output from small quantities of fissionable material, as well as the fact that such materials are relatively abundant, do seem to put nuclear fuels into a separate category from exhaustible fossil fuels. The disposal of radioactive wastes from nuclear power plants is, however, a problem which must be solved before there can be any widespread use of nuclear power.

Another limit in the use of nuclear power is that we do not know today how to employ it otherwise than in large units to produce electricity or to supply heating. Because of its inherent characteristics, nuclear fuel cannot be used directly in small machines, such as cars, trucks, or tractors. It is doubtful that it could in the foreseeable future furnish economical fuel for civilian airplanes or ships, except very large ones. Rather than nuclear locomotives, it might prove advantageous to move trains by electricity produced in nuclear central stations. We are only at the beginning of nuclear technology, so it is difficult to predict what we may expect.

And further

Our present known reserves of fissionable materials are many times as large as our net economically recoverable reserves of coal. A point will be reached before this century is over when fossil fuel costs will have risen high enough to make nuclear fuels economically competitive.

Now...he says all the other alternatives don't work. He says Nuke power will. So how is that NOT pro nuke. And why would you even deny that was in the article?

Now as for the stuff by anax he was not only glad to see his stuff posted but offers it to be used for this purpose with no credit necessary. Now here's an interesting thing, I hope you can comprehend this, there is another poster over there who does the same and another and another. I am one of those others.

I'd probably back off that argument. It's one thing to collaborate and hash out ideas with someone else...but dude...almost NOTHING in those posts were yours. It was just freaking creepy.

I live in a hotbed of anarchists, radical Catholic Workers, peace activists, economic justice workers and socialists. Would you feel at home? Maybe not.

Who says "hotbed of anarchists"?

Anyway, that makes me sadder...not happier. See my other post in the libby thread about the infection of these Zion-obsessed ideologies within the American left, though if you are talking about the L.A. Catholic Worker, I'm sure Jeff and Catherine would never spit out that kinda garbage.

How old were you when I stayed there back in 1989 I wonder?

[chlamor]

are a sick person.

[alloneword]

http://populistindependent.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=393&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

...just fucking weird.

Cheers, DE. Thanks for watching my back. I was somewhat thrown by chlamor's schizophrenic phraseology and use of language. Thought I was seeing ghosts.

Perhaps I was.

Taking a little peek inside this 'hive mind' - or 'node of collective intelligence' - manifested in the bits and bytes of so many angry keystrokes, we find a story:

The Pop Indy Story

Submitted by admin on Fri, 2007-02-02 21:25.
Tags: admin | Participatory Knowledge Base | website

Populist Independent was created in the aftermath of a communications breakdown on another poltical website.

When this site was first put up, it consisted only of a bulletin board for threaded discussion. In no time at all, another communications breakdown ensued. All along though, there had been some discussion of additional content beyond the discussion group software and its threaded conversation.

I'm assuming this 'other political website' would be 'Progressive Independent . COM'?

Perhaps others can recall the 'virtual vessels' we have sailed in, the mutinys and shipwreck we survived, long before we washed up here on the beach in front of Jeff's flickering beacon of RI, as it jostles for 'CPU Quota' - watching our angry keystrokes fluttering into the void.

Gesell speaks of Eugenesis:

\Eu*gen"e*sis\, n. [Pref. eu- + genesis.] (Biol.)

The quality or condition of having strong reproductive powers;

generation with full fertility between different species or races, specif. between hybrids of the first generation.

(Note: as distinct from 'Eugenics', which is filed under 'Keyword: Nazi, etc.').

As complex systems breakdown, new systems appear out of the bits. The characteristics of the new generation tend to draw upon the characteristics that were favoured in the previous because of environment or context.

Gesell thought this a 'good thing', a force for 'good', in that it enhanced 'good' qualities in humans. Thats late 19th/early 20th Century Europe for you - (where the word 'competition' meant something else). I don't personally feel one should make a value judgement, to be honest. It just 'is'.

Anyway... Gesell was riled by what he saw as systemic fault in 'money' that hard-wired in the 'emergent behaviour' of concentrating wealth into fewer and fewer hands. He saw the ramifications of this (muppets end up 'in charge'; you pay for their shiny jack-boots) and wanted to change it. He wanted to 'design out' the flaw so that 'collective intelligence', a nautural 'eugenic' process, could take the place of the muppets.

Children must owe their success, not to money, not to paper privileges, but to the ability, strength, love and wisdom of their parents. Only then shall we be justified in hoping that humanity may in time shake off the burden of inferior individuals imposed upon it by thousands of years of unnatural selection - selection vitiated by money and privileges. And we may also hope that in this way supremacy may pass from the hands of the privileged, and that mankind, led by the noblest sons of men, may resume its long-interrupted ascent towards divine aims [Read: "Jolly Splendid Things"].

He applied 'systems thinking' - cybernetics - to what made him angry. I'm surprised no-one shot him.

-

One could perhaps attempt to describe Chlamor's 'clandestine channelling' of the collective intelligence of his peers and mentors at 'Progressive Independent ORG' in the language of 'cybernetics'. Perhaps as part of a wider 'eugenic' process, whereby the somewhat redundant dogma of Marxist thought on the subject of 'money' may be displaced by the clearer observations of Gesell and others.

As Chlamor himself writes: 'Thanks for everything. I'm learnin' alot here.'

That's the nature of the medium. We expose ourselves to new ideas and perspectives every time we boot up. Sometimes, these new ideas conflict with our existing map of how the world works. It's how we resolve these conflicts that matters.

Chlamor; I am not the 'enemy'. That I am certain of from reading through some of your posts elsewhere. (a friend of Wendell's is a friend of mine, Sir - assuming it was indeed you who found him to your liking ).

I don't seek to ridicule you (anymore than I would wish to stamp on kittens just because 'I could') now that the true nature and origin of 'your' arguments have been laid bare before us, thanks to DE's diligence.

I will, however, refrain from attempting to engage them, as it is now clear that you were never party to the intellectual processes which indicated to their original adherents their supposed validity. Hence your 'word-salads'.

That said, however, you are on the right track, with your rage against our 'slavery'. But don't - please, don't - allow your rage to seal your mind in a polemic resistance to the ingress of new ideas. Use your own intellect and your own enquiring mind to evaluate the worth of new ideas as they are presented to you, not that of your peers or of long-dead guru's and their ideas now bastardised into stale dogma.

If your peers despise you for

Stop and think for yourself about how Gesell's ideas on 'money' relate to those of Marx, or specifically, how the implementation of Gesell's 'Rusting Money' would affect the course of 'human development' and the relationships therein. Again, ponder why you'd never heard of him.

Never stop learnin'.

...shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde, and to his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles; "if that is Marxism" — paraphrasing what Marx wrote — "then I am not a Marxist".

[alloneword]

With reference to some of the questions raised by RDR here (regarding 'leisure' etc.), I was reminded of an essay written by Fritz Schumacher many years ago, in which he explores (from a somewhat 'cybernetic' perspective) the fundamental nature of 'labour relations', with a view to proposing an alternative in the form of what he termed 'Buddhist Economics':

There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider "labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it can not be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a "disutility"; to work is to make a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment.

The consequences of these attitudes both in theory and in practice are, of course, extremely far-reaching. If the ideal with regard to work is to get rid of it, every method that "reduces the work load" is a good thing. The most potent method, short of automation, is the so-called "division of labour" and the classical example is the pin factory eulogised in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. 4 Here it is not a matter of ordinary specialisation, which mankind has practiced from time immemorial, but of dividing up every complete process of production into minute parts, so that the final product can be produced at great speed without anyone having had to contribute more than a totally insignificant and, in most cases, unskilled movement of his limbs.

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give man a chance to utilise and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organise work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure.

Well worth the taking the time to read in it's entirety - it can be found here: http://www.appropriate-economics.org/ma ... dhist.html