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I mostly agree with the axioms as stated, but there's an obvious subtext that is more questionable and that carries a few unstated assumptions - Democracy, or

I mostly agree with the axioms as stated, but there's an obvious subtext that is more questionable and that carries a few unstated assumptions - Democracy, or more generally giving political power to the people is a good thing, maybe an end in itself. - Increases in inequalities between capital and labor are intrinsically a bad thing. If your focus is on people being able to live happy, fulfilling lives, the whole Maslow hierarchy of need thing, it's not clear at all that these assumptions are warranted.

istjohn 12y ago
Those aren't assumptions. Axiom 18, the final conclusion, states, "we're on the receiving end of a war fought for control of our societies by opposing forces that are increasingly more powerful than we are." The reader is left to decide whether that is a good or bad thing. Edit: And if you are labor, if you are the people of the democracy, of course these things are bad. It is self-evident. It is not a hidden assumption, but rather falls out of the conclusion. No one wants to be under the finger of another's control. These things are only good for capital.
- murbard2 12y ago
  You're right of course, these aren't stated assumptions which is why I mentioned the subtext. I could of course be reading Stross's intentions wrong, but given what he's written before, and given how widespread those assumptions are, I tend to think they're taken as a given.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
Upvoted because you made a good point. Good point, but wrong, in my opinion. - “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” -- Churchill. - technological progress is making everything cheaper except for land, labour and political influence. Having only the rich able to afford those three things is very dangerous in my opinion. Sure, the poor can afford bread and televised circuses, but I'm not sure I think that makes a good society.
VLM 12y ago
Democracy is the opiate of the masses. No need to rebel, here, just select one of two hand picked identical candidates with no substantial policy differences outside unimportant hot button social issues, no need for mob violence to change leadership when you can vote (just remember not to "waste" your vote on a 3rd party non-hand picked candidate, because they're not under our thumb!) The inequality problem sets in when you expel most of the labor force from the economy. The economy no longer has space for them, no longer needs them, no longer will let them in to participate. I'm sure the teeming masses of bored angry resentful aspirational young men will never respond violently like they always have in the past. Nope no demagogues will become leaders, LOL. Assuming there's no revolution, what happens to the economic refugees when the population is 99% refugee? They'll need some way to get the requirements of living, which seems to involve currency and an economy, or they'll die. But they have the perma-economic-death-penalty so they can't participate, and we'd like to think the 1% won't kill them, so immovable object meet irresistible force. Being in the UK Charlie has absolutely weird ideas about gun ownership and rebellion. True a 18th century napoleonic war with civilian gun owners on one side and the conventional army on the other would be just a bit one sided. The actual result would look a lot more like Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam or Somalia, you know, the places where the army lost the war? When an angry well-enough armed population dramatically outnumbers the army, the army loses. Maybe a couple million civilians will die, but the army is still going to lose in the end. Then out come the guillotines for the 1% leaders for their war crimes or revenge or whatever. Sure would be nice to avoid this outcome, but we're not even trying, not in the least, if anything we're not steering away from the brick wall we're stomping on the accelerator. Talking about 18th century strategy being all thats possible is almost intentional disinfo, which is weird coming from Charlie. Gonna be a fun century!
- knowaveragejoe 12y ago
  I could not disagree more with most of what you've said here. The beginning seems to rely on the assumption that no change occurs in politics anymore - "we" are simply being screwed and that's the end of it. This is precisely the view of someone who isn't involved and is informed entirely by outrage-porn articles. This also belies the frankly uninformed worldview that it's "us" and "them", which could not be farther from the truth. Later you imply that armed revolution would actually lead to a reasonable outcome. Clearly you have never heard the phrase "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" and are unaware of the perhaps dozens of examples throughout recent history where this fits the picture to the T. You are also ignoring the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan, where the military enjoyed remarkable success against a foe that is more resourceful, elusive and better armed than that vast majority of the even the most hardcore, gun-toting, anti-government survivalists here in the US. I'm also sensing based on your willingness to adopt violence as a potential "solution" that you don't have the faintest clue what armed conflict, let alone combined arms warfare, is actually like. There is a reason we avoid it. This sort of sentiment is not only totally unproductive but it's possibly contributing to the problem by adding non-solutions to the noise. Here's a question for you - can you quantify what the metaphorical brick wall we're supposedly careening towards is?
metaphorm 12y ago
that should be democracy with a small d. Stross wasn't referring to any particular system, polity, or party. he was talking about the general philosophy of political power that is based on the assumption that sovereignty is intrinsic to the people and that governments are granted legitimacy due to consent of the governed. I also don't see Stross assuming that democracy is an end in itself. I think he is commenting on the projected future of existing nominally democratic systems of government. I do agree with you that Stross assumes that increasing imbalance between labor and capital is a bad thing. I agree with Stross though. We've seen the political and economic damage that can occur under regimes with excessively high inequality. We should try and learn from history and not repeat past mistakes.
mcguire 12y ago
If we assume that you are living in the non-democracy, and are on the less-equal side of divide (in other words, the majority), how exactly does your opinion on the given screed matter?

istjohn 12y ago

Those aren't assumptions. Axiom 18, the final conclusion, states, "we're on the receiving end of a war fought for control of our societies by opposing forces that are increasingly more powerful than we are." The reader is left to decide whether that is a good or bad thing. Edit: And if you are labor, if you are the people of the democracy, of course these things are bad. It is self-evident. It is not a hidden assumption, but rather falls out of the conclusion. No one wants to be under the finger of another's control. These things are only good for capital.

murbard2 12y ago
You're right of course, these aren't stated assumptions which is why I mentioned the subtext. I could of course be reading Stross's intentions wrong, but given what he's written before, and given how widespread those assumptions are, I tend to think they're taken as a given.

bryanlarsen 12y ago

Upvoted because you made a good point. Good point, but wrong, in my opinion. - “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” -- Churchill. - technological progress is making everything cheaper except for land, labour and political influence. Having only the rich able to afford those three things is very dangerous in my opinion. Sure, the poor can afford bread and televised circuses, but I'm not sure I think that makes a good society.

VLM 12y ago

Democracy is the opiate of the masses. No need to rebel, here, just select one of two hand picked identical candidates with no substantial policy differences outside unimportant hot button social issues, no need for mob violence to change leadership when you can vote (just remember not to "waste" your vote on a 3rd party non-hand picked candidate, because they're not under our thumb!) The inequality problem sets in when you expel most of the labor force from the economy. The economy no longer has space for them, no longer needs them, no longer will let them in to participate. I'm sure the teeming masses of bored angry resentful aspirational young men will never respond violently like they always have in the past. Nope no demagogues will become leaders, LOL. Assuming there's no revolution, what happens to the economic refugees when the population is 99% refugee? They'll need some way to get the requirements of living, which seems to involve currency and an economy, or they'll die. But they have the perma-economic-death-penalty so they can't participate, and we'd like to think the 1% won't kill them, so immovable object meet irresistible force. Being in the UK Charlie has absolutely weird ideas about gun ownership and rebellion. True a 18th century napoleonic war with civilian gun owners on one side and the conventional army on the other would be just a bit one sided. The actual result would look a lot more like Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam or Somalia, you know, the places where the army lost the war? When an angry well-enough armed population dramatically outnumbers the army, the army loses. Maybe a couple million civilians will die, but the army is still going to lose in the end. Then out come the guillotines for the 1% leaders for their war crimes or revenge or whatever. Sure would be nice to avoid this outcome, but we're not even trying, not in the least, if anything we're not steering away from the brick wall we're stomping on the accelerator. Talking about 18th century strategy being all thats possible is almost intentional disinfo, which is weird coming from Charlie. Gonna be a fun century!

knowaveragejoe 12y ago
I could not disagree more with most of what you've said here. The beginning seems to rely on the assumption that no change occurs in politics anymore - "we" are simply being screwed and that's the end of it. This is precisely the view of someone who isn't involved and is informed entirely by outrage-porn articles. This also belies the frankly uninformed worldview that it's "us" and "them", which could not be farther from the truth. Later you imply that armed revolution would actually lead to a reasonable outcome. Clearly you have never heard the phrase "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" and are unaware of the perhaps dozens of examples throughout recent history where this fits the picture to the T. You are also ignoring the reality of the conflict in Afghanistan, where the military enjoyed remarkable success against a foe that is more resourceful, elusive and better armed than that vast majority of the even the most hardcore, gun-toting, anti-government survivalists here in the US. I'm also sensing based on your willingness to adopt violence as a potential "solution" that you don't have the faintest clue what armed conflict, let alone combined arms warfare, is actually like. There is a reason we avoid it. This sort of sentiment is not only totally unproductive but it's possibly contributing to the problem by adding non-solutions to the noise. Here's a question for you - can you quantify what the metaphorical brick wall we're supposedly careening towards is?

metaphorm 12y ago

that should be democracy with a small d. Stross wasn't referring to any particular system, polity, or party. he was talking about the general philosophy of political power that is based on the assumption that sovereignty is intrinsic to the people and that governments are granted legitimacy due to consent of the governed. I also don't see Stross assuming that democracy is an end in itself. I think he is commenting on the projected future of existing nominally democratic systems of government. I do agree with you that Stross assumes that increasing imbalance between labor and capital is a bad thing. I agree with Stross though. We've seen the political and economic damage that can occur under regimes with excessively high inequality. We should try and learn from history and not repeat past mistakes.

mcguire 12y ago

If we assume that you are living in the non-democracy, and are on the less-equal side of divide (in other words, the majority), how exactly does your opinion on the given screed matter?