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Plans you're not supposed to talk about

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Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#461

Post by AussieWog93 »

KeepFlying wrote: post #394
csours wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good form is protective, the bad form just normalizes something that is common at the time. Is there any particular reason a woman cannot lead a prayer? Is there any particular reason why we exchange work for money? Is there any particular reason why not to eat pigs? For each of those, the answer may be yes or no depending on your time and place. The reason yes or the reason no may also be different.

Except many of those do have reasons, those reasons are just outdated or immoral or context dependent. The statement doesn't mean to keep the status quo, its meant to encourage tracking down the "why" before tossing things away. If a society says to not eat pigs you can't just decide to one day toss out the law. For all you know the pigs of that region are infected and will make you sick. Throwing away that status qu…

>For all you know the pigs of that region are infected and will make you sick.

Even if the pigs themselves were fine, perhaps there are other benefits that come from not eating pork.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I could definitely see how eating Kosher could have helped prop up Jewish businesses in the areas where they were a minority.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#462

Post by rjbwork »

WalterBright wrote: post #383
perl4ever wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't "have" trees. Owning a tree is dependent on a highly abstract concept of ownership, enforced by an organized state that monopolizes the use of force. Saying a transaction is without force or fraud is only begging the question. If it is legal, and someone thinks it is illegitimate, then it logically involves both fraud and force from their perspective. It was fraud to write the rules down, and it is force…

It's a little too easy to dismiss arguments by trying to redirect it into a debate about what words mean. You and I both know what the terms mean.

It's also a little too easy to avoid arguments you find inconvenient by refusing to examine the assumptions that underpin the position you put forth.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#463

Post by rjbwork »

WalterBright wrote: post #386
rjbwork wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still comingling the concepts of capitalism and markets. I actually 100% agree with your entire post (as a description, anyway, not as an ideal or with respect to the conceptual foundations of property rights), but is in no way a refutation of what I said or what Marx said. It's somewhat tangential entirely, really. EDIT: Also, I wouldn't use the word "exploit" in such a simple descriptor of commerce.

[flagged]

Way to refuse to engage with the topic.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#464

Post by raxxorrax »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #290
tshaddox wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentiment seems completely useless (actually incredibly dangerous) without at least some attempt at explaining how we might distinguish between aspects of society which seem terrible but are actually secretly good even though no one knows why, and aspects of society which seem terrible because they're terrible.

We say that women cannot eat this food, its religion. We don't question it. They study the food and find it is toxic, causes abortions or fetal development issues, but the meaning was lost, its now our religion.

Don't eat pork because it spoils quickly. A rule deprecated by freezers, but still practiced quite often.

Don't drink alcohol because... well, luck favors the bold...

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#465

Post by ajuc »

seer wrote: post #453
danblick wrote: post #83

The author presents the idea that "you may be born into a culture with social practices that you don't understand but that work for your benefit; they may work better if you don't understand them!" I find this idea a little repellant, but it's something Friedrich Hayek wrote about too. (In my mind Hayek is the person most associated with distributed knowledge.) ~"You may not understand the forces that have led societ…

Lets look at a recent real world scenario. The eastern block countries, experienced the fall of the USSR as an event that forced all of them to attempt to change their culture. Some tried “the prudent” approach - change as little as possible, wait until you understand what the diff between west and east is, don’t rock the boat too much. Some were collectively so disgusted that attempted to change as much as possible…

> The eastern block countries, experienced the fall of the USSR as an event that forced all of them to attempt to change their culture.

At least in Poland it wasn't perceived as "changing the culture" as much as "reforming the economy" and "returning to where our culture would naturally be if not for partitions and soviet occupation".

Which you can argue about, but if not anything else - presenting it that way was a successful social hack. Unemployment was 20% for a while in 90s but there were surprisingly few attempts to reverse the reforms. In fact only now that the perception is "we made it" - all the cultural problems are resurfacing.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#466

Post by hoseja »

WalterBright wrote: post #280
rjbwork wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Socialism and Capitalism dichotomy has nothing to do with markets or planners. Socialism is when the workers own the means of production. Capitalism is when there is an owner class that owns the means of production and extracts profit from the workers' labor. Socialism can be enacted with markets or it can be enacted with central planners. Capitalism can be enacted with markets or it can be enacted with central p…

> Capitalism is when there is an owner class that owns the means of production and extracts profit from the workers' labor. That's Marx's explanation, all right. What free markets are, is when people freely decide to make transactions with each other, without using force or fraud. The simplest case is you have an apple tree, I have an orange tree. You have too many apples, and no oranges. I have the reverse problem.…

Who picked the apples and oranges?

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#467

Post by adrianN »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #249
imgabe wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you've already gotten the shot, you're protected from the disease. So, what is someone else not getting the shot going to do to you?

This ^. If the shots are truly protective, I don't understand what the hubbub is all about. Is it really all about protecting those who truly can't get the shot for whatever reason? I doubt it.

Just because seatbelts are "truly protective" that doesn't mean that getting into accidents is risk free.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#468

Post by nickpp »

DSMan195276 wrote: post #356
nickpp wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the free market is like Darwinism for economic organisms: unintuitive and little understood by the regular folk, however working just fine nevertheless and able to solve and explain any issue without needing the intervention of an intelligent designer/regulator. People will still look for a planner though…

> I believe the free market is like Darwinism for economic organisms: unintuitive and little understood by the regular folk, however working just fine nevertheless and able to solve and explain any issue without needing the intervention of an intelligent designer/regulator. I feel like that's a bit of a charitable description considering the whole monopoly problem (and various other regulations in place to make the s…

Monopolies (including the so-called "natural monopolies") are not a problem for the free market, but rather opportunities - bounded only by human ingenuity, imagination and capacity to innovate.

In reality most monopolies we encountered were actually created or sustained by governments, through their dear friends patents and regulations which raise the barrier of entry and compliance costs, create unintended second-order effects and generally dampen competition.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#469

Post by hoseja »

cheschire wrote: post #279
norswap wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of "the normal way" things are done is related to subtle (and by-design, unspoken) social reasons. If you are open-minded, you're open to considering that the normal ways things are done might not be the best way -- which it is not along all axes, but it does incur some advantages for reasons that must remain unspoken for the advantages to be incurred. This has two potentially bad consequences: (1) you mig…

I'm fairly certain that not all marriages are based on fear of the potential pain of open relationships. Sure, some folks may be motivated along the lines you speak of, but there's plenty of us who got deep into it because we value the depth that comes from that one forever-friendship that is intimate on a level that can't be experience with the guys from the bar. So, yeah, careful about painting with too broad a bru…

Marriages are based on agricultural tribal societies finding it more efficient to not have males compete for females too hard.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#470

Post by WalterBright »

rjbwork wrote: post #462
WalterBright wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little too easy to dismiss arguments by trying to redirect it into a debate about what words mean. You and I both know what the terms mean.

It's also a little too easy to avoid arguments you find inconvenient by refusing to examine the assumptions that underpin the position you put forth.

Sorry, I've been down the tiresome path of what does "is" mean too many times. You can explore it if you like.
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