Bijou Drains
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“Levels of intelligence have little or no influence on political ideologies.”
Surely if you wished to decide if there is if there is any relationship between intelligence and political ideologies it would first necessary to define intelligence, and if a connection did exist, so what.
I have observed that some of the most conventionally intelligent people I have met in my life (people with very high academic qualifications, high level roles, great levels of responsibility) have done some of the stupidest things believable. I have also worked with people with quite severe learning disabilities (i.e. an IQ range of 20-35) who have had a level of quite extra ordinarily level of emotional intelligence and interpersonal sensitivity.
People tend to make the assumption that because a person has understanding and skills in some area, they would have similar understanding and skills in another specific area.
This seems to be very much the case in the political field. If a musician is able to produce breathtaking music or lyrics that touch us, people often make an assumption about their personal and or political views or behaviours. We don’t regularly make the same assumptions about other areas.
It would be considered absurd to think that because Bob Dylan has produced some fantastic music and lyrics, I would consult him with regards to the best way to fertilise my allotment and be disappointed that his insights were limited or wrong, but we regularly seek out the political views of our artistic heroes, quite why, I have never been able to fathom.
It is important to divorce the art, the science, the philosophy, the football skills, etc., from the artist, the scientist, the philosopher, the footballer.
“The government is full of highly educated and intelligent people”
If you’re referring to the elected members of the government, educated – agreed, intelligent – perhaps not.
“If you want to go further by wreaking punishment on him, then admit that that is to soothe the anger and hatred you feel and is about you, not him.”
As I said in my posting, I am not supporting punishment, just pointing out that perhaps you are wrong in saying that punishment doesn’t work.
It may not work on the recipient of the punishment, but the evidence is fairly clear that it does work on many observers of punishment. The reason I am refraining from perloining several bottles of malt whisky from my local Sainsburys (and a large pork pie to accompany it) is not because I feel any moral compunction regarding Messers Sainsbury. It is purely because of the chance that I might get caught and face the punishment and the consequences (loss of job, career, etc.). This is the only thing which stops me from robbing the place blind.
“Hobbes supported the death penalty whilst being a Necessarian and denying free will. He supported it on the grounds of deterrence, which we know does not work.”
We know it did not work in the case of those who committed murder, we do not know if it worked in the case of those who did not.
I am not making a case for punishment, however there is an argument that punishment is not there for those being punished, it is there for those who observe the punishment!
In any case, it is often said that general disapproval from the communinity will be enough to deter anti social behaviour in a Socialist society, is being disapproved of just a mild form of punishment.
TM “ you are not cognisant of the laws of motion that rule matter, including your brain, senses and nervous system”
I’m pretty cognisant of basic Newtonian physics, which I think you are referring to. I spent a number of years studying it.
The point made in the link I made is that quantum mechanics demonstrates, as I understand it, appears to show that Newtonian models do not adequately explain quantum level.
So the idea that the Big Bang was a little like cueing off a gigantic snooker game, where the initial explosion set off a course of motion that was inevitable from the beginning does not appear to fit into the experimental data.
Looking further into the way that fundamental particles appear to behave, it appears that reality is very different, at this level of scrutiny, from the standard 19th century explanations for matter and motion.
The reality, if we ever approach understanding it, appears to be a great deal weirder than we think.
Thomas More and Jarvis
I could reply by saying “you would say that, wouldn’t you”. It would be a cheap shot, so thankfully I didn’t use that quip.
However, even if I did, I’m sure you two, of all people, would be the last to blame me.
Risking the moderators’ wrath (perhaps they don’t have a choice in the matter), you might find the article below interesting.
https://aeon.co/essays/heres-why-so-many-physicists-are-wrong-about-free-will
To be fair, I’ve had motor insurance since I was 19.
Doesn’t mean I thought I’d end up being killed on the road.However, logically, if you’ve got the money to spare, even if I didn’t think the apocalypse will be coming, anyone would have a back up plan.
That said, given that you think that we have no free will and that it’s all preordained, why worry?
SW – “Intuition”
Genuinely though, how did you know.
Have you spoken to someone in the party that knows about me?
Really the purpose of having a pseudonym 0n line is to keep private information private.
SW – “Fair enough, it’s an interesting subject, but the mistake you are making is in thinking that I am as ideologically committed to the opinions I write about as you are to yours.”
So perhaps was correct all along “You’re not going to make the big bucks writing accurately about Socialism in a magazine owned by Bill Bonner!!”
We’ve all got to make a living.
“But as far as know, Von Mises is just saying that without a single unit of account (i.e prices in units of money) you wouldn’t be able to make calculations and allocations based on this single unit of account. The question for us to ask is if such a single unit of account is as necessary as he thinks.”
As Einstein is often misquoted as saying “’Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted”
(It was from actually from William Bruce Cameron, Informal Sociology: a casual introduction to sociological thinking)FWIW? Sadly I’m not hip with the kids, not sure what it means:)
If there is a “body” which reponds to the requests of the consumers, it is not “employing powers of disposal”, it is responding to the requests of others.
I think there is a very marked difference to what is implied by Von Mises. Power of disposal is the key, it implies that the body, not the community has the power to allocate and also therefore not allocate distribution.
It is perfectly feasible to create structure and organisation that has “Power with” without having “power over”, Von Mises work is very clearly a criticism of the case for power over, however, I would argue that that is not something that Socialists are really seeking anyway.
I might be missing something, but, apart from the obvious problem with Von Mises pamphlet, that he criticises State Capitalism and refers to this as Socialism, the whole exercise is prefaced with one main assumption, which he hasn’t provided any evidence to support.
In his third sentence he states –
“It goes without saying that the community will only be in a position to employ its powers of disposal through the setting up of a special body for the purpose.”
It clearly doesn’t go without saying, at all.
(Indeed, if it didn’t need to be said, then why did he then feel the need to then go on to actually say it?! It is a bit like the clowns on GB News who keep telling us that they are saying all the things they aren’t allowed to say, when they are clearly saying them)
The whole premise of his entire argument is provably false, without resorting to the SPGB’s argument.
For example it is perfectly feasible that the community could employ its “power of disposal” in lots of different ways. It could be done by lottery; it could be done alphabetically, etc.
From our point of view it would be done on the principle of “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs”, their self determined needs.
A bottom up system where those who wish to consume will inform those who produce what is required, which is clearly the opposite of the top down model Mises attempts to criticise.
