4 ms·

One of the reasons radicals have amassed so much power in the middle east is because they were the only ones willing to stand up to the west as the more reasona

by dlwdlw 10y ago

One of the reasons radicals have amassed so much power in the middle east is because they were the only ones willing to stand up to the west as the more reasonable people realized they couldn't do anything. A bit of craziness can create very unexpected results, with a destabalization wave having many orders of effects. The strong become weak, the weak strong, the poor rich, the stupid "smart". So much of the status quo relies on people willing to play games. The stability of a game is its degree of belief. That is, it is sustained by cooperative delusion. Another example is that salaries are maintained by collective willing agreement on what is fair. A union, if it amasses enough believers can disrupt this game. Every game you tear down brings you closer to reality and raw possibility. Often it is necessary because of the limited attention for games. Of course, touching reality for the self is insanely hard, nevermind established institutions. Single individuals however can amass a following, seedingargwr waves of energy tha re-evaluate the status quo, swapping what is profane and sacred. This wave of energy is what gives us temporary clarity on reality. Like earthquakes destroying a city, reminding us that the universe doesn't particularly care about our games. One of the biggest games that is currently unravelling is the West as a beacon of innovation and morality. The response to 9/11 was exactly what terrorists wanted. And things like brexit and trump don't particularly help. From a GDP perspectice, each citizen in the US is worth many times a citizen from China or India, but this is only the result of a long historical game that impoverished these former world powers. The natural order of things is that each human provides the same value, the reason this doesnt happen is due to resource flown restriction along lines of military strength.

Senderman 10y ago
I followed this up until the final comment, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Each human doesn't provide the same value to each scenario. Case in point, your opening sentence singled out "radicals" as having an entirely separate influence.
worldsayshi 10y ago
I agree with another comment that your last sentence goes against most of the rest and I think it makes an otherwise very poignant comment fall a bit flat. I'm not saying that there's no truth to it, just that it's flawed and doesn't explain as much as the rest. Each human doesn't provide the 'same value'. However, I believe value creation is much more chaotic than what economic praxis will try to make it appear. Any person has the potential to create value - under very peculiar circumstances that are not very well understood. In today's society one person may end up creating more value than a thousand others, by inventing something, by being lucky or just by having the right combination of values, connections and friends at the right time and at the right place. Then again, effort still counts, but it's just one of many factors.
- dlwdlw 10y ago
  Thanks for the feedback and praise for the initial thoughts! I'm not sure how quite to express the last idea yet, but basically I'm trying to say that people in countries like China/India are worth just as much as people in the U.S. from a specific perspective (potential?) In reality, the rich kid who grew up with connection, the best education, and capital is "worth" much more and janitors should not be CEOs or Nuclear plant managers. The "outward-now" value and the "innate-past-future" value has a huge disparity because of leveraged unfairness due to lucky environments and unlucky environments. People in poorer countries often work harder for much less as if they were less intelligent, less creative, less deserving etc.. In the U.S., lines were drawn on the basis of innate intelligence to deny slaves rights and wealth, and even internally to their own people, lines are drawn based on "deserving-ness", like hard-work, despite, as previously mentioned, you can be working harder but making less. To use an analogy, a point may move in many directions on a piece of paper. The distance from the origin would be knowledge and ability in that direction. Some points may spiral around only increase this distance very slowly, some may go in a straight line, increasing ability at the most rapid pace possible. I don't mean that each point is equidistant from the origin, but that certain "ink colors" have advantages and disadvantages in certain directions and that these advantages and disadvantages are actually man-made. That is, it's not the innate troughs and valleys of the paper, but the other ink paths that impede/boost other ink paths. To use slavery as an example, an lot of effort was spent by white ink to encircle black ink so the max potential of a black point was very low. So many years later, the descendants of the black ink are still struggling and working harder (with some become jaded at the unfairness and rebelling) while the white ink can cruise with the momentum amassed by their ancestors. The situation is unfair because both white ink and black ink have the same "value". The environment has shifted to value one ink color above another despite the equal value at the beginning. Affirmative action says "This is unfair, we need to manually take steps to address this." While libertarianism says "It is what it is, the troughs and valleys may have been dug by man but there is not point in reverting them, just pretend they are natural."

by dlwdlw 10y ago

Senderman 10y ago

I followed this up until the final comment, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Each human doesn't provide the same value to each scenario. Case in point, your opening sentence singled out "radicals" as having an entirely separate influence.

worldsayshi 10y ago

I agree with another comment that your last sentence goes against most of the rest and I think it makes an otherwise very poignant comment fall a bit flat. I'm not saying that there's no truth to it, just that it's flawed and doesn't explain as much as the rest. Each human doesn't provide the 'same value'. However, I believe value creation is much more chaotic than what economic praxis will try to make it appear. Any person has the potential to create value - under very peculiar circumstances that are not very well understood. In today's society one person may end up creating more value than a thousand others, by inventing something, by being lucky or just by having the right combination of values, connections and friends at the right time and at the right place. Then again, effort still counts, but it's just one of many factors.

dlwdlw 10y ago
Thanks for the feedback and praise for the initial thoughts! I'm not sure how quite to express the last idea yet, but basically I'm trying to say that people in countries like China/India are worth just as much as people in the U.S. from a specific perspective (potential?) In reality, the rich kid who grew up with connection, the best education, and capital is "worth" much more and janitors should not be CEOs or Nuclear plant managers. The "outward-now" value and the "innate-past-future" value has a huge disparity because of leveraged unfairness due to lucky environments and unlucky environments. People in poorer countries often work harder for much less as if they were less intelligent, less creative, less deserving etc.. In the U.S., lines were drawn on the basis of innate intelligence to deny slaves rights and wealth, and even internally to their own people, lines are drawn based on "deserving-ness", like hard-work, despite, as previously mentioned, you can be working harder but making less. To use an analogy, a point may move in many directions on a piece of paper. The distance from the origin would be knowledge and ability in that direction. Some points may spiral around only increase this distance very slowly, some may go in a straight line, increasing ability at the most rapid pace possible. I don't mean that each point is equidistant from the origin, but that certain "ink colors" have advantages and disadvantages in certain directions and that these advantages and disadvantages are actually man-made. That is, it's not the innate troughs and valleys of the paper, but the other ink paths that impede/boost other ink paths. To use slavery as an example, an lot of effort was spent by white ink to encircle black ink so the max potential of a black point was very low. So many years later, the descendants of the black ink are still struggling and working harder (with some become jaded at the unfairness and rebelling) while the white ink can cruise with the momentum amassed by their ancestors. The situation is unfair because both white ink and black ink have the same "value". The environment has shifted to value one ink color above another despite the equal value at the beginning. Affirmative action says "This is unfair, we need to manually take steps to address this." While libertarianism says "It is what it is, the troughs and valleys may have been dug by man but there is not point in reverting them, just pretend they are natural."