Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

[Jason]

Wow. You totally missed the boat, huh? it's staring you right in the face in your own quote. Emphasis mine:

A person must not be cruel to an animal.

According to your logic then, there should also be laws against human suffering caused by wild animals too. Right? There should be laws with wording like "A bee shall not sting a human." - that's where your crazy logic leads. [sarcasm on]Because, I mean, obviously we can't possibly be enacting laws based on consideration for human suffering in itself, if we don't also have laws that ban wild animals from attacking humans.[sarcasm off] In fact, taken to its conclusion we'd have to have laws banning every possible animal, mineral and vegetable from causing suffering to humans, otherwise where's the consistency in having laws that mostly try to stop humans from harming other humans?

Coming back to reality(sorry Victor, but you've had enough time floating around in fantasy land), some of the reasons why the laws are as they are:

- Unlike humans, animals don't tend to comprehend, let alone be dissuaded, by threats of fines and jail time as set out in human laws; calling for animals to recognize laws themselves would be insane.

- A law that attempted to prevent all animals from inflicting suffering upon other animals would need to be enforced and realized at all times and points by humans, and would be absolutely impossible to achieve with our current level of development. Thus the law is attempting to be pragmatic and realistic in scope, amongst other things.

- Preventing animal(and human) suffering is not the only goal that human's possess, other goals need to be factored into the equation. If this wasn't similarly the case for human suffering we'd have to spend every available resource and second of our lives attempting to stop suffering in humans in order to be consistent, but "we" don't.

Finally, what you conveniently left out in your response, was that I was addressing your claim that the laws aren't universal for animals, and I proved that they pretty much are - the laws I referenced apply simply to all "live vertebrates"(except humans) and some "live invertebrates" too, not just the cute pet bunnies and similar that you're fond of using in your arguments.

And of course there are big enough loopholes to drive a truck through. Does the law in question ban conventional mousetraps?

There are provisions in the animal welfare legislation for self-defense and killing of pests - which mousetraps would likely fall under. Just as there are provisions for self-defense against other humans and executions(some inhumane) of humans considered to be "pests." These aren't loopholes, they are very intentional aspects of the relevant laws, both human and animal.

Does it protect wild or domestic animals from being attacked by predator pets, like cats and dogs? Without even taking a glimpse at that law, I can bet dollars to donuts that the answer is 'no' on both counts.

Actually there is just such protection in Dog Control Act 2000:

PART 3 - Control of Dogs

SECTION 19. Dogs attacking persons or animals

(2) If a dog attacks an animal or chases a horse being ridden,
the owner or person in charge of the dog is guilty of an offence.

Penalty:

Fine not exceeding 10 penalty units.

That law is exactly as i described such laws --

The laws, actual laws which I have quoted, not the imagined laws which you have been referring to, contradict and debunk everything that you have ignorantly claimed.

they concern not animal suffering in itself, but human relationship to animal suffering;

No, they concern attempting to control the human part of the relationship because animals can't comprehend and won't follow human laws.

and they only concern some animals, not all of them,

The specific act I referenced concerns "vertebrates", not only "some animals" as in your imagined laws.

even though the suffering of a mouse caught in a conventional mousetrap is no less than the suffering of an abused dog.

There are exceptions that legally allow intentional infliction of suffering to occur, such as self-defence, mirroring exceptions present within laws relating to human welfare.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

To be a theory, it would have to be falsifiable.

Not at all, unless you want every theory to be a scientific theory and then even it's debatable to use it what way. Anyway, I used the word social theory. Such theories address the behavior of millions of people over the stretch of one or more centuries. Do you really think some labcoats could ever properly falsify that? No, the evolution of large scale analytical models is judged by other standards and progress is slow. Sometimes after centuries these ideas work their way through in specific experiments or calculations and gain new respect or insights.

A marxist in economics today is like a believer in luminiferous aether in the middle of a university physics department.

And yet there are still some respected economics professors that are self-professed Marxists. Just as some scientists have advanced new, modified notions of aether and even about the original thesis. Einstein spoke about it as a matter of fact right a few blocks away from where I'm typing and he didn't see it as sad, pathetic, laughable and tragic but: the hypothesis of Aether in itself is not in conflict with the Special Theory of Relativity. Only we must be on our guard against ascribing a state of motion to the Aether. My point being that if there's reason to re-introduce the aether or the flat Earth theory again, with additional context and correction attached to help us explaining stuff, then that will surely happen. In soft sciences this is not uncommon.

But at the same time certain predictive power can arguably still be attributed: the need that can be witnessed for increasingly mixed economies [the long-term tendency for more government control]

This is exactly opposite from what Marx was actually predicting, IIRC.

You mean rising progressive income tax, centralization of credit to the State, more power to National Bank and/or Reserve, government hands in communication and transport [like with investments], the State taking stakes in failing industries, huge volunteer armies working for the State, merging of towns in larger government-dependent-mimicking entities, universal pre-school, making college 'affordable'...

The above paragraph contains current plans and projects of many capitalist governments including the US, including Obama's program. Europe being a bit further ahead with this. It also can be traced back to a large part of the Communist Manifesto....

[Obama seen by many as communist]

These are the people you are citing?

Many staunch life-long communists believe Obama is one of them, essentially. Many staunch anti-communists believe Obama is one of the former, ironically. It was just too funny not to hint at and it's certainly not restricted to "deranged right-wing wackos", I'm afraid. Misunderstanding Marxism or communism is a modern disease :)

[Nick]

Sometimes after centuries these ideas work their way through in specific experiments or calculations and gain new respect or insights.

Oh come on dude, I've never died before...

[vicdan]

Not at all, unless you want every theory to be a scientific theory and then even it's debatable to use it what way. Anyway, I used the word social theory. Such theories address the behavior of millions of people over the stretch of one or more centuries. Do you really think some labcoats could ever properly falsify that?

Yup. The 'labcoats' who analyze human behavior and see if it coheres with the predictions made by the theory in question.

If the theory makes no testable predictions, then it's just psychobabble. If it neither makes nor entails testable predictions, then it cannot be empirically tested for veracity, and cannot be evidentially differentiated from any other comparable 'theory'. it just ends up being a big blob of bloviation.

No, the evolution of large scale analytical models is judged by other standards and progress is slow. Sometimes after centuries these ideas work their way through in specific experiments or calculations and gain new respect or insights.

When that happens to marxism, you let me know, OK? :)

And yet there are still some respected economics professors that are self-professed Marxists.

who? Show me respected economists who are Marxists.

Just as some scientists have advanced new, modified notions of aether and even about the original thesis. Einstein spoke about it as a matter of fact right a few blocks away from where I'm typing and he didn't see it as sad, pathetic, laughable and tragic but: the hypothesis of Aether in itself is not in conflict with the Special Theory of Relativity. Only we must be on our guard against ascribing a state of motion to the Aether.

Oh, Einstein was not pathetic and tragic -- your out-of-context quoting is. Did you read that speech? he didn't speak of luminiferous aether, aether as the EM medium. he redefined the term to essentially mean the physical characteristics of space. Four years later, in 1924, he wrote it explicitly (translation):

If we talk about ether here, then of course we don't talk about the bodily ether of the mechanical theory of undulation, which obeys the law of Newton's mechanics, and whose single points have velocities assigned to them. This theoretical construct has, in my opinion, found its definite end in the special theory of relativity. Instead, we talk about those things considered as physically-real, which, apart from ponderable matter consisting of electrical elementary particles, play a role in the causal nexus of physics. Instead of 'ether', we could as well talk about 'physical qualities of space' [emphasis mine -V]

nice try, dude. I did use the words 'luminiferous aether', referring to the specific set of theories as newtonian light-bearing medium, not any subsequent redefinition of the term. A little knowledge coupled with a little dishonesty is a dangerous thing.

You mean rising progressive income tax, centralization of credit to the State, more power to National Bank and/or Reserve, government hands in communication and transport [like with investments], the State taking stakes in failing industries, huge volunteer armies working for the State, merging of towns in larger government-dependent-mimicking entities, universal pre-school, making college 'affordable'...

I mean the key prediction that capitalism will eat itself from the inside via the run-away death spiral of exploitation and further impoverishment of the proletariat.

Marx thought that capitalism will fail on its own, and a humane society will arise in its stead -- a communist society. Instead, we see capitalism adopting, becoming more humane while also retaining its key characteristics, such as the alienation of the means of production (as ludicrous a notion as I ever heard).

It is fortunate that marx was wrong, because a communist economy would be a terribly clumsy and stunted beast. Having rejected game-theoretically coherent local optimization of economic activity -- the notion that local economic agents ought to have their local incentives monetized (abstracted, really), and then generally aligned with the societal incentives via free market -- Marx has condemned his hypothetical society to a cesspit of corruption and inefficiency.

Misunderstanding Marxism or communism is a modern disease :)

Misunderstanding the real world is a marxist disease.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The 'labcoats' who analyze human behavior and see if it coheres with the predictions made by the theory in question.

But it's the theory which is the analysis in these cases. The first real test is to see if it describes sufficiently, human valued of course, what can be known about historical or actual social processes. There are not many theories around that pass those tests and using it to predict the short-term future is hardly relevant here. Only when current events would somehow flatly contradict the whole theory, it could have such impact.

If it neither makes nor entails testable predictions, then it cannot be empirically tested for veracity, and cannot be evidentially differentiated from any other comparable 'theory'.

Its success is measured in its explaining power of the past and how the present is formed. Or its ability to provide a framework, a method to start building more specific theories that can be tested in an empirical sense.

Such theoretical frameworks do rise and are abandoned in time but the whole cycle is way larger than lets say the average economical model, which are exchanged rather quickly if one only looks at this last century only.

Show me respected economists who are Marxists.

Just some professors then because that is at least one [feeble] sign of respect that might be agreed on to some degree: the late Andrew Glyn, University Lecturer in Economics at the University of Oxford and Richard D. Wolff, Economics professor UMass since 1981 and David F. Ruccio, economics professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Of course there's no easy way to derive in how far they are 'Marxists' or claim to be. Smart people are way to careful with those labels. But they take Marxism rather seriously anyway and that was the point.

Did you read that speech? he didn't speak of luminiferous aether, aether as the EM medium. he redefined the term to essentially mean the physical characteristics of space.

The distinction you try to insert here is irrelevant at best. What matters in this example is that's it's not about being 'sad' or 'pathetic' but rather obscure, challenging and demanding to come with a theory on aether these days and age. And of course a good theoretical framework is required. It's the moment that current physics would fail to explain the reality of measurements that other ideas come back with a vengeance, often with a couple of radical re-interpretations and refinements. This is all I wanted to point out. Marxism is exactly like that, it's not a fixed body of positions, it's a form of analysis with many aspects that are still not yet developed completely and least of all properly understood after all these years.

Marx thought that capitalism will fail on its own, and a humane society will arise in its stead -- a communist society. Instead, we see capitalism adopting, becoming more humane while also retaining its key characteristics, such as the alienation of the means of production/

Well, who disputes that it does not fail on its own? Even mainstream economists would readily admit this. The more interesting question is if the adaptive strategies applied so far can last more than a few decades without some bloody price.

Having rejected game theory (...) -- Marx has condemned his hypothetical society to a cesspit of corruption and inefficiency.

This only tells me that you still do not know Marxism really or that you don't know much about game theory. It's probably the first although you're capable to misinterpret the meaning and limits of application of the latter as well.

The corruption argument is something you hear a lot but bypasses one of the core elements of Marxism which has to do not only with emancipation of the worker from the forces that control production but self-actualization. Since it assumes that people are purely social creatures, the social itself making them a moral actor, he proposes that changes in socio-economical parameters will also change the actors fundamentally over time.

One doesn't have to believe in such idealistic, Utopian shit but at least one has to understand around which elements the theory revolves before one can dismiss it on at least reasonable grounds.

[vicdan]

But it's the theory which is the analysis in these cases. The first real test is to see if it describes sufficiently, human valued of course, what can be known about historical or actual social processes. There are not many theories around that pass those tests and using it to predict the short-term future is hardly relevant here.

A century and a half is short-term?.. <eek>

Only when current events would somehow flatly contradict the whole theory, it could have such impact.

They do. Current events contradict the labor theory of value all the time, for example, as well as a number of other marxist theories.

Its success is measured in its explaining power of the past and how the present is formed.

Do you realize the pitfalls of relying on explanatory power as a metric? Anything can be explained. Explaining is fucking trivial. Predicting is hard -- prediction is where the wheat is separated from the chaff.

'Divine will' theory has just as much explanatory power as marxism. If you eschew prediction in favor of explanation, that will have exactly one effect -- it will let you pursue any bullshit, no matter how dumb, without forcing you to confront its veracity.

it's no wonder marxists love explanatory power so much. Their pet theories can't pass the prediction tests. :)

Just some professors then because that is at least one [feeble] sign of respect that might be agreed on to some degree

Feeble indeed. You do know that afrocentrism and young-earth creationism both count some professors among their adherents, right?

The distinction you try to insert here is irrelevant at best. What matters in this example is that's it's not about being 'sad' or 'pathetic' but rather obscure, challenging and demanding to come with a theory on aether these days and age.

No, it was precisely about the fact that reality has shown a certain set of theories (luminiferous aether) to be total BS, and yet some pathetic losers still cling to them. just like marxism.

And of course a good theoretical framework is required. It's the moment that current physics would fail to explain the reality of measurements that other ideas come back with a vengeance, often with a couple of radical re-interpretations and refinements. This is all I wanted to point out. Marxism is exactly like that, it's not a fixed body of positions, it's a form of analysis with many aspects that are still not yet developed completely and least of all properly understood after all these years.

So marxism has nothing to offer, hasn't had anything to offer since its inception, but you believe that at some point in the future, it might bear fruit.

So might phrenology. :)

Well, who disputes that it does not fail on its own?

Well, history for one. Capitalist societies didn't fail. They adopted.

[Even mainstream economists would readily admit this.

And the weaseling begins.

Yes, laissez-faire capitalism is unstable and inefficient. However, the very point is that marx thought that 19th-century capitalism, which was fairly close to laissez-faire, will collapse in on itself, while history indicates that instead, it adopted.

The more interesting question is if the adaptive strategies applied so far can last more than a few decades without some bloody price.

Hey, faith never waivers, eh? Capitalism will fail! or at least get really bloody! If not today, then in a few decades!

You remind me of Jehova's Witnesses. They have prophesied the end of the world multiple times, and each time it fails to come, they come up with a new date for Armageddon.

This only tells me that you still do not know Marxism really or that you don't know much about game theory. It's probably the first although you're capable to misinterpret the meaning and limits of application of the latter as well.

The corruption argument is something you hear a lot but bypasses one of the core elements of Marxism which has to do not only with emancipation of the worker from the forces that control production but self-actualization. Since it assumes that people are purely social creatures, the social itself making them a moral actor, he proposes that changes in socio-economical parameters will also change the actors fundamentally over time.

yes, I know. The new, communist man. Dude, I lived this shit.

And no, this doesn't address my point in the slightest. Men and women still have incentives. Any system which will radically misalign personal incentives with societal incentives is bound to quickly sink into corruption of various kinds. Marxist fantasies about the communist man always run afoul the biological facts of human cognition. So far, there is exactly zero evidence that such transformation as communism requires is even possible, but less plausible.

One doesn't have to believe in such idealistic, Utopian shit but at least one has to understand around which elements the theory revolves before one can dismiss it on at least reasonable grounds.

I do. That's why I invoked game theory. At their core, humans are selfish agents. We have a number of mechanisms which enable cooperation -- reciprocal altruism, empathy, sense of fairness, vengeance, etc. -- but they are all centered around an individual. We are not hive creatures, able to subsume individual good to public good, and so game theory, and its analysis of individual cooperation/competition games, is exactly applicable. It is thanks to game theory that we understand the multiplicity of ways in which one can game the system, how cooperation can arise from selfishness, and how the two -- cooperation and competition -- relate to each other.

In fact, it's thanks to game theory that we understand why we have cooperative cognitive features at all.

[Jamesh]

In the preceding discussions, replace the animal types with Israelis/Jews and Palestinians/Muslims, and what has been said is still applicable.

As far as I am considered Israel is like a dog - the rest of the worlds friend (from what they have achieved) but sometimes vicious. Palestinians are like feral cats - fucking useless.

Let the dog and the feral cat do what comes natural.

My view would be different if the cat was not feral, but it is.

[mansman]

well I know why Israelies attacked Gaza--random unceasing rockets, but I have no idea why the rockets were shot off in the first place and when they began to be fired, can anyone say? truthfully?
They never mention on the news why the hams or the hezes began shooting them in quantity in the first place-- what pissed them off in the first place.

Was it just the fact of the border wall being constructed? Or was the beginning of a steady stream of rockets occuring AFTER the wall was already up?
Or first happened more recently after some Israeli action?

Do any objective parties agree the rockets were at all justified?

Id like to know what the jewish citizens did that was so bad to deserve getting beaned with hundreds of deadly freightening rockets day after day hour after hour!

Appreciate any non-biased responses. Short ones ok.

M

[Diebert van Rhijn]

why the rockets were shot off in the first place and when they began to be fired, can anyone say?

The truce crumbled [it was expiring anyway] during a conflict over the strangling economical blockade which Hamas wants lifted and Israel not. The six month period didn't bring a solution closer. Some border raids followed, smuggling networks attacked by Israel, retaliation, nothing new.

Deeper lying issues seem to revolve around the issue of security. Israel feels that it cannot allow a hostile independent state developing on its complex border, threatening the unity and safety of their Jewish state. The Palestinians do not believe Israel has the right to dictate this development considering the past. Then Israel tries to impair Palestine anyway it can, to turn it into a powerless third world ghetto and Palestine tries to remain in the media spotlight with their protests and attacks, trying to keep pressure on their 'issue' as political bargaining chip, hoping for some more international involvement as it's the only bit of power they think they have. Which in turn gives only more excuses for Israel to continue their policies and prevent Palestine to ever get any means to become a threat on longer term. This is a never-ending spiral of course.

Most events are also used as preparation for the negotiation table because sooner or later they have to return there. Both parties seem to think they can let the other party lose face, lose bargaining power this way.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Let the dog and the feral cat do what comes natural.

Feral cats become only nasty when feeling cornered.

Also, when assumed average sizes, especially when also domesticated, a dog is never a match for a furious cat. After the battle you'd have to take your beloved doggy to the vet to put it out of its misery.

[Leyla Shen]

Let the dog and the feral cat do what comes natural.

…said the hyena to the hawk.

[Leyla Shen]

Wow. You totally missed the boat, huh?

Yes, well—giving you the benefit of the doubt in regards to this particular statement, he isn’t the only one.

There's no real marxist theory of economics, it's basically a social theory. It supplies a framework to actually explore the relations between man and things. It doesn't address actual price, it just uses the more general overarching notion of value as measure, as abstraction of all these relations.

Correct.

Victor earlier remarked in this thread (page 5):

The irony of it, BTW, is that Israeli accomplishments have been disproportionately driven by quasi-socialist kibbutzniks. Where Leyla would see marxism and/or socialism as the downfall of nationalism, in Israel a non-marxist socialism, labor zionism as it's been historically called, ended up buttressing what is perhaps one of the most robust nationalist movements in the world.

Downfall of nationalism, Victor?

The reasons the irony is lost on him, Diebert, are pretty clear.

With the political emancipation of JEWS as members of civil society and citizens of the State of Israel (that is, with the relegation of their liberties [freedom of religion, private property rights], politically enacted by the revolutionary Jew (the juridical man) and crystalised in State law) the state of affairs became the political emancipation of the Jew VERSUS the political emancipation of “the Palestinian” (notably, a category error from the start), both as divided egoistic man (civil subject) and juridical man (you know, the abstracted, atheistic, “revolutionary citizen”).

In the capitalist system of social relations, the relation of the member of civil (subject of the state) society to the means of production (in this case, land!), the question has become, “What should he own and what constitutes the natural right to own it?” Liberty, they say—all in the name of liberty. As I’ve already indicated countless times, historically, this very “liberty” is dependent upon dividing the individual into a man of belief and a man of reason (juridical man). In fact, the man of reason’s existence—in political emancipation—is entirely dependent upon defending his existence as a man of unreason; as a private man of unexamined belief—a private man of RELIGION. The politically emancipated (secular) state acts on his behalf as the atheist—the true man.

Except there's one problem, this is NOT the case with Israel and Palestine because neither Israel nor Palestine are SECULAR STATES. Israel is the very same theologian ex professo as the pre-WWI Germany from whom it was, in its pre-formative stages, demanding emancipation.

Thus, nationalism and religion as the catalyst for war.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

A century and a half is short-term?

It's nothing special for social theories but there's no economical theory that uses terms longer than a few decades of historical data. That's because they are so over-concerned with pricing and wages. Duh!

Current events contradict the labor theory of value all the time

Just out of interest: name one event and not the economical model du jour. Just so see where that would go with proper analysis. Who knows, I've no idea if the theory is right or wrong.

Predicting is hard -- prediction is where the wheat is separated from the chaff.

And totally useless when you step outside the cage and enter the bigger world where the predictability of real complex events in a bigger playing field is reduced to a laughing matter. Different methods have to be chosen for that. And I cannot even say Marxism is up to it but it's the arena it engages the world in. But to paraphrase boldly: "you've not even arrived in that discussion".

There's no essential difference with religious thought, that's correct. To you that means something insulting as you already concluded religion does not address the world you live in.

It reminds me of something Karl Popper wrote: "Genuine philosophical problems are always rooted outside philosophy and they die if these roots decay... These roots are easily forgotten by philosophers who study philosophy instead of being forced into philosophy by the pressure of non-philosophical problems". Now change philosophy into social-economical theory and you're halfway there [that is : in a relevant discussion]. For you and so many others however it seems scary to engage in any serious intellectual activity that goes beyond the need for some scientific backing. When you conceive the world from the inside of a box, the world looks box shaped or hole-shaped. If that comforts then by all means stay in your pseudo-scientific stinkhole and feel like you've figured it all out. But man, you're way behind.

it was precisely about the fact that reality has shown a certain set of theories (luminiferous aether) to be total BS, and yet some pathetic losers still cling to them. just like marxism.

You're wrong. The thing Einstein explained was that the aether theory [as vehicle for electro-magnetic waves] did not matter anymore in Relativity theory - as it would be motionless. In other words, its existence had lost relevance as far as Relativity Theory went. It's therefore somewhat like Marxism in the sense that some people have tried to apply Marxist theory to the calculation or prediction of prices and found out the labor theory of value is near to irrelevant in that regard and of course once reading Marx it seems clear it's not meant as such at all.

Well, history for one. Capitalist societies didn't fail. They adopted.

There the spin begins! :) They went down my friend, hard. And it took the most bizarre measures to kick-start it again and a lot of socialist measures to prevent it to go down the drain again even faster. Your positive outlook is just a matter of perspective, not fact.

Capitalism will fail! or at least get really bloody! If not today, then in a few decades!

But it did fail! One could just as well ask: how did they resurrect it to make it work again a few decades longer? And against which price paradise?

So far, there is exactly zero evidence that such transformation as communism requires is even possible, but less plausible.

There's no way to prove that anyway. The question you could start with is if capitalism changed anything, did anything transform at all when the wealth started to spread? Did society change, did that in turn change the perspective of its members somewhat, for the good or the bad?

That's why I invoked game theory. At their core, humans are selfish agents. We have a number of mechanisms which enable cooperation -- reciprocal altruism, empathy, sense of fairness, vengeance, etc. -- but they are all centered around an individual. We are not hive creatures, able to subsume individual good to public good, and so game theory, and its analysis of individual cooperation/competition games, is exactly applicable. It is thanks to game theory that we understand the multiplicity of ways in which one can game the system, how cooperation can arise from selfishness, and how the two -- cooperation and competition -- relate to each other.

Man, you're preaching Catholicism to the Pope here. But as I already said, you miss-apply the theory big time here. The individualism, the underlying 'will' of the player in this case, some 'homo economicus', has been already defined before the simulation runs. In reality it would be just as possible to define an individual and his goals as totally merged with its social construct. This is why game theory cannot help you when addressing the bigger questions on the level of a social theory - the complexity is hard to simulate. Although I'm not saying it never will, actually it would be great!

[vicdan]

Just out of interest: name one event and not the economical model du jour.

I already did. The historic price of oil, for example, radically contradicts the labor theory of value. in fact, the way oil supply adjusts in response to price and demand shows that labor theory of value puts the cart before the horse. Instead of oil price being determined by the value of labor, the value of labor changes in tandem with the supply/demand interaction (e.g. by introduction of more labor-intensive production sites). hence, using the value of labor as the keystone renders the model unacceptably rigid and simplistic.

Predicting is hard -- prediction is where the wheat is separated from the chaff.

And totally useless when you step outside the cage and enter the bigger world where the predictability of real complex events in a bigger playing field is reduced to a laughing matter. Different methods have to be chosen for that.

I.e. methods which can be advocated without any meaningful risk of being proven, you know, wrong.

Deluded bloviators love this sort of shit. Intellectual gravy train galore!

There's no essential difference with religious thought, that's correct. To you that means something insulting as you already concluded religion does not address the world you live in.

No, I have concluded that religion does not even try. Religious dogma's shifts in the recent centuries showcases this perfectly: religion either ends up denying reality outright, and descends into delusion -- or runs away from conflict with the empirical realm, retreating into "non-overlapping magisteria" model. I am not aware of any major religion that truly embraces our evolving understanding of the world, though i suppose one could exist ."Delusion" and "Faith of gaps", however, seem to be the preferred modes of religious response to scientific advances.

I have contempt for religion because, AFAIK, religions, and quasi-religions like marxism, are not about understanding the world. They are about persuading yourself that you understand the world. They take a predetermined framework, and then adjust and reinterpret evidence to fit that framework.

Yes, I have utmost contempt for such anti-epistemic stance.

Now change philosophy into social-economical theory and you're halfway there [that is : in a relevant discussion]. For you and so many others however it seems scary to engage in any serious intellectual activity that goes beyond the need for some scientific backing.

Scary? Contemptible, at least regarding veridical matters (i.e. i feel neither contempt nor repulsion towards, say, art analysis).

You sound like newAgers who accuse skeptics of being afraid to embrace the paranormal. You sound an awful lot like that Loki kid in the adjacent thread. You just have a different poison of choice.

In fact, I would put it the opposite way around: it is marxists who fear putting yourself on the line, risking being provably wrong, and thus you hide in vacuous intellectual endeavors where you risk nothing.

When you conceive the world from the inside of a box, the world looks box shaped or hole-shaped. If that comforts then by all means stay in your pseudo-scientific stinkhole and feel like you've figured it all out. But man, you're way behind.

[LOL] Yeah, because i refuse to embrace a decrepit century-and-a-half old pile of intellectual vomit. man, I must be stuck in the 18th century or something! :)

It's therefore somewhat like Marxism in the sense that some people have tried to apply Marxist theory to the calculation or prediction of prices and found out the labor theory of value is near to irrelevant in that regard and of course once reading Marx it seems clear it's not meant as such at all.

See what I mean? Retreat from epistemic challenge. Whenever you could make a prediction and be shown wrong -- and were shown wrong -- the claim is made that real marxism had nothing to say on the subject. It's just like moderate xians. Real xianity says nothing about which species evolved in which sequence and over how long! those people who tried to actually apply what the bible said were out in the left field throughout the centuries! right?

There the spin begins! :) They went down my friend, hard. And it took the most bizarre measures to kick-start it again and a lot of socialist measures to prevent it to go down the drain again even faster.

I.e. they didn't collapse, as Marx predicted. They were not torn apart by their own internal contradictions. Marx was totally wrong.

Your positive outlook is just a matter of perspective, not fact.

No, the matter of fact is that Marx made radically incorrect predictions -- he predicted collapse, collapse didn't happen. The sort of collapse marx predicted didn't happen anywhere, ever. . You are the one who is trying to spin it as non-falsifying: "sure, capitalism didn't collapse, but it was only because of blah, blah, blah". The core features of free market and capitalism -- private ownership of means of production, private capital, labor for hire, supply/demand-driven economy -- all survive intact throughout the developed world.

The very fact that Marx failed to recognize how dynamic and flexible free-market societies are is a part of the marxist problem.

But it did fail! One could just as well ask: how did they resurrect it to make it work again a few decades longer?

And when your bathroom scale shows a 5kg gain, you will just blame the gravity distortion, too.

Marx was wrong. Your journey to reality starts with accepting that simple fact.

Man, you're preaching Catholicism to the Pope here. But as I already said, you miss-apply the theory big time here. The individualism, the underlying 'will' of the player in this case, some 'homo economicus', has been already defined before the simulation runs. In reality it would be just as possible to define an individual and his goals as totally merged with its social construct.

That's exactly the point. You can't, without radically altering humanity on biological level. Our cooperative cognitive structures, our socialization mechanisms, are add-ons on top of the individual-centered cognition. The sort of stuff you are talking about has to be either built in from the ground up, or at least re-engineered to completely overpower the underlying individualist stratum.

Mind you, this kinda happened before, because our individualism is in fact an artifact of gene selection, and thus our individual centeredness is actually a facet of gene centeredness; hence the common willingness to die for one's children for example. To make man treat the whole society as the object of utility, rather than the self or the kin, is going to require a radical change to human nature -- and it sure as hell ain't gonna be just a cultural change, because we are talking about changing deep genetic traits here. You might succeed to a limited extent with with a smattering of individuals (e.g. by hijacking the 'kin' utility mechanism), but to implement such a change pervasively and consistently will take a deep alteration of human biology.

This is why game theory cannot help you when addressing the bigger questions on the level of a social theory - the complexity is hard to simulate.

Bigger problems get more complex; but if you think starting the simulation bottom-up, from the individual level is hard, then you should realize that trying to organize it on societal level, top-down, is gonna be immeasurably harder. The selfishness abstraction reduces each individual's interactions to a small number of stimuli and responses. Take away that abstraction, and you got yourself an exponential complexity explosion. It's the same problem as with planned vs. market economics -- to keep complexity manageable, you have to be able to limit direct connectivity of the network, to keep each node's input function arity relatively small and fixed.

[guest_of_logic]

Vic,

I'm not going to respond in detail to your last post to me, because our discussion is starting to become repetitive, and I'd like to try to go for a big picture overview instead. I will first make a few specific responses though:

you only tried to resolve that conundrum because it was in front of your eyes.

Yeah, well, I haven't tried systematically to consider every possible relevant conundrum that exists or could exist in this world, and I doubt that I'd manage to cover them all successfully even if I tried. Maybe I should be trying - I could probably at least pick out a lot of the most significant ones - and you might fault me for not doing so, but as it is, it's inevitable that I'll encounter from time to time conundrums that are new to me.

By accusing me of prejudice

I wasn't accusing you of prejudice, I was accusing our legislation of prejudice to the extent that your claims that it neglects certain animals and situations of animal suffering whilst protecting all humans in those same situations are true.

Then why aren't there laws protecting bunnies from dog bites and birds from cats?

As Jason demonstrated by quoting (Australian) legislation, there are such laws, at least in the case of dogs.

I can't prove it as a fact, but I suspect that if we did the research we could establish it as one: that the majority of people, when asked "Do you believe that we should minimise animal suffering in general for the sake of animals?" would answer "Yes".

Of course they would. And yet at the same time, most people would act exactly as you did -- try to save a critter in front of their eyes, and ignore the rest of it -- and eat meat, too.

Emphasis mine. I assume that "the rest of it" refers to situations of animal suffering beyond an individual person's immediate proximity. So do you expect everyone to be an active and on-the-ground animal rights activist? Isn't it enough for the average person to support legislation and organisations that deal with "the rest of it"?

Now for the overview. Your position is summed up in this quote:

The consistent theme, which i show you time and time again and which you keep backing away from, is that it's human sentiment and human action which are the salient features; that we only care about animals in relationship to humans, not in themselves. All the valuation occurs through the human prism. As much as you talk about animals' valuation being normatively atomic, we still filter it through our own normative prism, even though we could filter it through our epistemic prism instead.

The main problem that I have with your position is that it's too absolutist and black-and-white, when the reality is far more complex/ambiguous than you make it out to be, which is kind of ironic given that you criticise QRS for similar problems with their thinking.

Granted, there are inconsistencies and imperfections in our legislation and behaviour with respect to animal suffering. Granted, people who say that they are concerned with animal suffering might not always act in accordance with that. Nevertheless, I don't think that it's accurate to say that we only care about animals in relation to humans, and not in themselves: I do accept, though, that human interests are a factor. It's certainly not true for me personally, and I don't think that it's true for Jason personally either, nor for the guy(s) who put up the website that Jason directed me a few posts ago, nor for the many members of animal welfare organisations: all of these are (granted, extreme) examples of a general human moral position with respect to animals that is concerned with animals in themselves, and not merely in relation to human beings, even if that moral position is inconsistently present/expressed in different individual human beings.

[vicdan]

Since I already addressed everything else, i will respond to only one point -- the australian legislation in question. See, quite clearly neither you nor Jason read it, because in actuality it very obviously supports my thesis, not yours.

Section 19:

If a dog attacks an animal or chases a horse being ridden, the owner or person in charge of the dog is guilty of an offence.

Seems obvious, eh? Ah, but see that word, 'owner'? it applies only to owned dogs, i.e. it applies only to dogs as pertaining to humans. And see that word, 'animal'? What could it mean?

"animal" means –
(a) any animal or bird kept for farming, breeding or other commercial purposes; or
(b) any domestic animal; or
(c) any native bird or native animal;

So this law doesn't show any care for harm to animals in general. it shows care for harm to owned animals, and to native animals (which pose a special interest to australian society). A dog attacking a feral cat, for example, or a rabbit, is not subject to this law.

On the other hand, it posits simply chasing a ridden horse to be as great an offense as, say, killing another pet (and a greater harm than killing e.g. a rabbit), even though merely chasing a horse doesn't harm it. However, I imagine human riders don't like being chased by dogs.

Furthermore, did you notice the title of that law?

DOG CONTROL ACT

it's not a law about dog behavior, it's a law about human control of dog behavior. Again, it's not about dogs, it's about humans relating to dogs. It's not about protecting all animals, it's about protecting animals of interest to humans -- native animals and owned animals.

Are you noticing the pattern yet? or will you continue to delude yourself and call me a cynic? That was rather amusing, given the etymology of the word 'cynic'.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

...and to native animals (which pose a special interest to australian society). A dog attacking a feral cat, for example, or a rabbit, is not subject to this law..

Actually native would mean "originating, growing, or produced in a certain place or region". Even if one would see the rabbit in Australia as invasive species or only as pest, it should be noted that their presence wiped out native animal species even more so than just agricultural crop.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The historic price of oil, for example, radically contradicts the labor theory of value. in fact, the way oil supply adjusts in response to price and demand shows that labor theory of value puts the cart before the horse. Instead of oil price being determined by the value of labor, the value of labor changes in tandem with the supply/demand interaction (e.g. by introduction of more labor-intensive production sites). hence, using the value of labor as the keystone renders the model unacceptably rigid and simplistic.

Well, firstly I already showed you an inflation corrected graph before: here it is again. The problem with oil of course is that its price was managed for a long while when it backed the dollar. Still between 1884 en 1894 the price level is not that different from 1984 en 1994. All kinds of different productions costs and demands notwithstanding. This pattern is visible with many long running commodity averages.

Secondly the value of labor is not just the marginal cost price for production. The labor value fluctuates according to Marx with every variation in the productiveness of labor, like the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions. It's the socially necessary amount of labor. And it's still an abstract labor value as the whole theory deals with the abstracted fundamental processes.

Check out professor in Economics Anwar Shaikh's work: The Empirical Strength of the Labor Theory of Value (PDF), for more empirical approaches.

I have contempt for religion because, AFAIK, religions, and quasi-religions like marxism, are not about understanding the world. They are about persuading yourself that you understand the world.

What do you think about the dialectic materialism of Marx? Doesn't it leave the theory open-ended by definition? Doesn't it fully embrace evolution and the chaotic nature of many parts of our reality? Is his doom forecasting on capitalism not exactly a consequence of his dialectical materialism, that all things over time give way because of the inherent fundamental contradictions of such system, any system?

No, the matter of fact is that Marx made radically incorrect predictions -- he predicted collapse, collapse didn't happen.

He predicted an cyclic increasing crisis too. As far as I know he saw the fall of capitalism and the victory of the proletariat as "equally inevitable". He treated in his work only the pure essence of capitalism, not all the curious hybrids. From this he didn't create just one prediction, he formulated a whole law. If capitalism is step-by step being transformed in socialism by a long winding cushy process instead of one big revolution, it doesn't make Marx wrong, just incomplete. In that case people will still claim Marx view on capitalism was right.

Mind you, this kinda happened before, because our individualism is in fact an artifact of gene selection, and thus our individual centeredness is actually a facet of gene centeredness; hence the common willingness to die for one's children for example.

Yeah, yeah, we've all read Dawkins. There's selfishness of one gene and selfishness of clusters of cooperating genes, selfishness for vessels for genes and so on. Marxists use Game Theory all the time and why wouldn't they? There are simulations that result in "class societies" too. Actually Jennings/Ramchurn's master-slave distribution outperformed tit-for-tat in the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Various agents formed more lifelike social contracts and believers cried foul: rules were broken! Unfair!

[Alex Jacob]

Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you'll hear

[Dan Rowden]

It's always, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.

[Carl G]

Dan, link not working. Do you mean this article?

[Alex Jacob]

Hamas, Wikipedia

"Hamas, unlike the Fatah, refused to accept Israel's existence. Its charter calls for an end to Israel, though during the 2006 election campaign, Hamas did not mention its call for the destruction of Israel in its electoral manifesto. On 25 January 2006, after winning the Palestinian elections, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar gave an interview to Al-Manar TV denouncing foreign demands that Hamas recognize Israel's right to exist. After the establishment of Hamas government, Dr Al-Zahar stated his "dreams of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it...I hope that our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine (including Israel). This dream will become real one day. I'm certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land". He also "didn't rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state, adding that the Palestinians never hated the Jews and that only the Israeli occupation was their enemy".[56] In November 2008 Ismail Haniyah said that Hamas was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1949 armistice lines, and offered Israel "a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians' national rights."

Gaza Conflict, Wikipedia

A friend commented recently that, given this excellent piece of land with oceanfront, with the right will, it could become a prosperous community and coexist nicely with Israel. Yet, it does not want to, that is not its goal, and so it is in that sense choosing its own fate, designing its own future.

The 'history' of the John Pilger article---his structure of view---is one that conduces to, not much less than a dismantling of Israel. From my perspective now, I see it as a very specific narrative, carefully honed, that is presented to certain sectors within foreign populations. These groups, those who drink down the narrative, do not seem to realize the hands into whose play they allow themselves to enter, and so the narrative, though it shouldn't if it were really concerned for a real solution, is a destructive one, and does not (I don't think) really have as its end a genuine settlement. It is a kind of ideological playground for rebellious youth who are in conflict with their own culture and political systems, and all of it very romantic, very tendentious and unreal.

The day that the people of this territory, in general, accept Israel's existence and make the decision to cooperate with what fate has doled out, and the day that the 'European Legions' make a similar decision to support a sane and possible path toward establishing something resembling peace, that day will be a day for celebration.

I have the feeling that the 'meddlers', who likely do not give a crap about Palestinians or Israelis, not really, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously seek to push this conflict toward some very ugly event, a destructive event for Israel. That is, for me, the basic point, the point it all reduces to, which is essential suspicion of Gentile motives, as I watch it all play out. Finklestein, Chomsky and all the rest, as I now see things, lend support to a cause which is destructive for Israel, though I know they don't see their activities that way.

Am Yisrael Chai

[brokenhead]

It's always, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza.

Only when somebody sneezes, Dan.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I have the feeling that the 'meddlers', who likely do not give a crap about Palestinians or Israelis, not really, consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously seek to push this conflict toward some very ugly event, a destructive event for Israel.

The more cold and remote the analysis is allowed to be, the easier it's to see how Israel produces its own grave-diggers. The government already a few years now has submitted to the Likud-neoconservative "clean break" script: bad advice, utterly delusional. This first has to go. Basta!

[Dan Rowden]

Dan, link not working. Do you mean this article?

Yeah, that's it. Thanks. Not sure why my link doesn't work - I was there reading it!

[edit: the server at Pilger's site seems to be down]