-=> Kaelon wrote to Dr. What <=-

Ka> Completely agree. Also consider the limited areas where a national
Ka> government should legitimately function - such as defense,
Ka> infrastructure, conducting an equitable and non-entangling foreign
Ka> policy - and we quickly see where our vast Federal Institutions have
Ka> failed our people. I forget where I read this, but aren't something
Ka> like a third of all bridges and roads in the United States on the verge
Ka> of collapse? What a disgrace.

Road funding is interesting. Speaking about the Interstate road system:
+ Taxes are collected locally.
+ Sent to the Federal Gov't.
+ Who then doles it back out to the states to "maintain the Interstate" in
their own states.

But (like here in Michigan) the governors use that money to fund social
programs instead. And the unions suck a great deal of that money up as well to
"fix" the roads.

Ka> Libertarianism has a long way to go to educate people about the
Ka> personal responsibility necessary to cultivate a truly civic-minded
Ka> society.

That's really the job of the public education system. But the Elites have
destroyed that.

Ka> You and I both. I don't have especially high hopes for any other
Ka> Anglo-Saxon or Nordic Country, considering the entire Commonwealth has
Ka> veered towards socialist principles and even the most promising
Ka> candidate-countries - like Australia - are positively leftist and
Ka> bloated in comparison to what I would expect of a true capitalist
Ka> system.

Surprisingly, it seems that the USSR is poised to be the economic powerhouse of
the future.

Ka> That said, I fear that the United States' socioeconomic decline and
Ka> impending political collapse will not, conversely, equate to a real
Ka> geopolitical decline in our standing in the world. After all, the
Ka> United States has the most enviable position on the planet -
Ka> geographically capable of dominating both the Atlantic and Pacific
Ka> Oceans, dictating the circumstances of global trade unlike any other
Ka> country, and topographically capable of harvesting vast natural
Ka> resources to achieve its organizational aims.

I believe that matters less when many countries have missiles that can hit
anywhere on the planet. And to be militarily dominant, you need a well-equiped
military. But to get that, you have to have an economic engine capable of
doing that.

Remember: The USSR fell mainly because we caused them to over spend militarily.

Ka> What our next
Ka> global order will be, however, terrifies me, and I can only pray we
Ka> will long be gone before we have to live through it (or under it).

I hear you on that.

I hope that we can stomp out this mess that the Ignorant Elitists have created
in the next few years.

.... I have but three enemies: fear, anger, ignorance.
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Re: Re: Recession to Depressi
By: Kaelon to Dr. What on Thu Jul 21 2022 06:01 am

> Science is a lie.
> Truth is relative.
> People cannot be trusted.

Actually, you can trust people. You will get a knife in between your ribs if
you make such mistake, though.

Doubts cast on Truth and Science originate from the fact that most people does
not use primary sources to inform themselves and rely on other people (who
cannot be trusted) for that.

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> - Science is a lie.
> - Truth is all relative.
> - People cannot be trusted.

It would also seem that some of the people who point to "science" in some
instances believe it to be relative, like truth, in others.

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Re: Re: Recession to Depressi
By: Dumas Walker to KAELON on Thu Jul 21 2022 04:06 pm

> It would also seem that some of the people who point to "science" in some
> instances believe it to be relative, like truth, in others.

Very true. U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) once famously said "You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts." Very eloquent corollary to the Federalist Papers where Alexander Hamilton summarizes the dilemma with our Republic - it only works with a well-educated population. Little wonder, then, how we've arrived at the current dilemma.
_____
-=: Kaelon :=-

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Re: Re: Recession to Depressi
By: Arelor to Kaelon on Thu Jul 21 2022 08:49 am

> Actually, you can trust people. You will get a knife in between your ribs if
> you make such mistake, though.

No doubt, but there is an inherent cost to the fabric of civilization when you look at your neighbors and presume them to be the enemy. We've gone too far as a society with this nativist, silo'ed view and it's a zero-sum game that has destroyed civility in our civilization.

> Doubts cast on Truth and Science originate from the fact that most people
> does not use primary sources to inform themselves and rely on other people
> (who cannot be trusted) for that.

I completely agree with you. The absence of proper education - not the studying of facts, but the theory of knowledge itself, of critical thinking, the application of primary sources through methods of inquiry and validation - has rendered our entire population, by and large, stupid. The Poly Shore movie from the late 1990s "Idiocracy" should clearly come across as a documentary now.
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Re: Re: Recession to Depressi
By: Kaelon to Arelor on Thu Jul 21 2022 07:58 pm

>
> > Actually, you can trust people. You will get a knife in between your ribs
> > you make such mistake, though.
>
> No doubt, but there is an inherent cost to the fabric of civilization when y
> in our civilization.
>

The thing is that when I run into your average Humanist who thinks we should
all love each other like brothers,the first idea that comes to mind is that
person has never stepped out of his ivory tower.

What has taken us far as a civilization is precisely that we have been using a
system according to which it might be in my best interest to help another
person because I will then be rewarded. Even if I were the dirtiest scumbag on
earth, I would be given a positive incentive to behave.

It is when you decopuple work from profit that things go very wrong. For
example, if you pay your constructor contractor in advance, you are in for a
world of pain, because the contractor has a very weak incentive to perform well
now he has the money - money he will use to work for somebody else who has not
paid already.

Sorry, but people is inherent�ly untrustworthy and this is evident for anybody
who ever tries to push forward a personal project that needs support from other
people. Friends are your friends only as long as it does not cost them any
effort. Once your friendship requires maintenance on their part, you can kiss
your friends goodbie.

Success comes from realizing that most people will backstab you for a bag of
chewing gum and keeping a close circle of trustworthy friends from the 5% that
would not murder their mothers for pocket change.

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> > It would also seem that some of the people who point to "science" in some
> > instances believe it to be relative, like truth, in others.

> Very true. U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) once famously said "You
> re entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts."
> ery eloquent corollary to the Federalist Papers where Alexander Hamilton summa
> zes the dilemma with our Republic - it only works with a well-educated populat
> n. Little wonder, then, how we've arrived at the current dilemma.

Indeed.

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Re: Re: Recession to Depressi
By: Arelor to Kaelon on Fri Jul 22 2022 08:50 am

> The thing is that when I run into your average Humanist who thinks we should
> all love each other like brothers,the first idea that comes to mind is that
> person has never stepped out of his ivory tower.

I agree. I am also not your "average" Humanist. I am a Machiavellian, and as a long-standing student of both Niccolo and of History in general, I agree with the assertion that mankind is inherently selfish and wicked. But that does not mean that your neighbor is, by default, the enemy. And this tribalism inherent in deeply polarized and manipulated societies, is manufactured and not legitimate. Your neighbor across the street isn't plotting ways to destroy you. They are plotting ways to succeed in life, and trying to figure out if you - among others - will be a net-add or a net-loss to their plans.

In short, people should start with a state of apathy and distrust; not a state of emnity and antagonism. Herein is the distinctive difference in what is weakening Western Civilization -- by allowing effeminate Eastern philosophy from building this notion of hyper-relativism (rather than a culture of genuine absolutisms), which simply exposes our civilization to weakness and division.

> It is when you decopuple work from profit that things go very wrong. For
> example, if you pay your constructor contractor in advance, you are in for a
> world of pain, because the contractor has a very weak incentive to perform
> well now he has the money - money he will use to work for somebody else who
> has not paid already.

Again, we agree. Payments pro-rata, in proportion to work completed or to take the steps necessary to build trust, are essential. Only once you establish trust with your neighbor, your merchant, your provider, can you then start to advance the nature of the relationship beyond sheer apathetic neutrality and towards genuine friendship.

> Success comes from realizing that most people will backstab you for a bag of
> chewing gum and keeping a close circle of trustworthy friends from the 5%
> that would not murder their mothers for pocket change.

But it is also important to recognize that the other 40% of the population that is being portrayed as arrayed against you is not, in fact, the 'enemy' and is made of mostly stuff that is largely similar to your own. The true Enemy, foreign manipulators from weak cultures looking to divide and dominate the West, would want nothing more than for our partisan politics to create the sort of discord that it has. And they have largely succeeded in destroying the Western fabric of civility, civic virtue, and collegial compromise.

They must not be allowed to succeed further.
_____
-=: Kaelon :=-

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