DJP

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  • in reply to: Free will an absurdity #249579
    DJP
    Participant

    I don’t think any magical or religious meanings have to be read into it.

    Perhaps you should have spoken to some Calvinists or Lutherans.

    in reply to: Free will an absurdity #249577
    DJP
    Participant

    Of course no one ever made a choice without being influenced by some external or subconscious factors. I know some people define “free will” that way.

    But the plainest common garden use of “free will” just means something like an uncoerced choice made from alternative possibilities.

    But I have the feeling we’ve been over this before…

    in reply to: Free will an absurdity #249572
    DJP
    Participant

    My opinions infuriate you.

    I can’t help thinking that this discussion is baren for at least two reasons.

    1. If I hit you on the nose because I found your comments annoying, you’re going to feel resentment towards me regardless of how much you think that free will is an illusion and that everything is the result of cause and effect. See P.F Strawson’s 1962 paper “Freedom and Resentment”
    https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._F._Strawson_Freedom_&_Resentment.pdf

    2. People exist at the level of society in a world of agents that have beliefs and intentions, not at the level of atoms or sub-atomic particles. It’s a mistake to think that social explanations can, or should be, reduced to explanations about physics. See this video from Christian List below for example:

    in reply to: Free will an absurdity #249548
    DJP
    Participant

    I didn’t have a choice about being a socialist. My brain did that.

    “It wasn’t me, it was my brain that did it”. Interesting line of argument, and a good example of Poe’s law too.

    If “you” are not your brain are “you” any other parts of your body? If not I guess there’s no need to worry about the nuclear apocalypse.

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249540
    DJP
    Participant

    Incidentally, Heinrich was one of the examiners for Soren Mau’s PhD thesis, from which ‘Mute Compulsion’ is derived. It’s freely available here:

    https://www.sdu.dk/-/media/files/forskning/phd/phd_hum/afhandlinger/2019/sren+mau+mute+compulsion+with+front+cover.pdf

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249501
    DJP
    Participant

    Mau’s book isn’t about socialism, or how to achieve it, but about how market relations are necessarily a form of domination or ‘mute compulsion’. Listening to him talking about his book here, I don’t think it’s fair to describe him as an idiot (even if he has no clue about how socialism might come about)

    https://pod.link/1544487624/episode/c66ba1020402cecd75dcc8af75d30f8c

    Edit: Another reason I thought a review would be good is that it could draw a bit of internet traffic from interested parties.

    • This reply was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by DJP.
    in reply to: New Music Thread #249500
    DJP
    Participant

    Perhaps this kind of thing will be of interest:

    Is it music? Who cares!

    in reply to: New Music Thread #249335
    DJP
    Participant

    I guess as I started I may as well continue… Avidor Dro were a popular and influential band during the post-Franco era ‘La Movida Madrileña’. This is a track from one of their albums from 1983.

    “We will distribute the means of production
    between producers and
    urban worker associations.
    With science on our side,
    the hierarchies will disappear,
    the paternal hand of the old state.”

    Lyrics here:
    https://www.letras.com/aviador-dro/806420/

    in reply to: New Music Thread #249334
    DJP
    Participant

    Some Argentinian Anarchist Guajira for you. Lyrics, in Spanish, below:

    Guajiras rojas – Video musical

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249324
    DJP
    Participant

    Well?

    It’s a very long text. Have you had a chance to look at it properly? Worth spending the time to look at?

    I notice it makes reference to Søren Mau’s book “Mute Compulsion” book. This should be reviewed in the Standard; it’s a very popular work right now.

    in reply to: New Music Thread #249316
    DJP
    Participant

    “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds”

    According to Wikipedia these lines were taken from a speech from Marcus Garvey.

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249258
    DJP
    Participant

    Perhaps I’m playing Devil’s advocate here, but if the argument is that production goods cannot be effectively allocated without a pricing mechanism how is saying “planning will be decentralised” an answer to that? Surely Von Mises could just say that even in a decentralised system this problem would still persist, there is still no way to compare dissimilar goods and make efficient allocative decisions in the face of competing demands.

    If Von Mises is saying something like “only markets can effectively allocate production goods, and you can’t have markets without prices” then I would have thought it would be better to target the assumptions he’s making about needs and market efficiency. Or is he saying more than that?

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249240
    DJP
    Participant

    FWIW – “For what it’s worth”. I.e I don’t think this is worth making much out of. I’ve not read the Mises essay, and was just responding to the short paragraph you mentioned. The whole of which is below:

    Under socialism all the means of production are the property of the community. It is the community alone which can dispose of them and which determines their use in production. 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. The structure of this body and the question of how it will articulate and represent the communal will is for us of subsidiary importance. One may assume that this last will depend upon the choice of personnel, and in cases where the power is not vested in a dictatorship, upon the majority vote of the members of the corporation.

    The “powers of disposal” just means “abilities to decide how to make use of”. Looking at the last two sentences, it seems Von Mises thinks his criticism would apply equally whether this power is concentrated or not.

    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.

    in reply to: Two ex-socialists go funny #249237
    DJP
    Participant

    Bijou Drains. FWIW You don’t seem to be disagreeing with Von Mises claim in that sentence, that a socialist society would have to have some kind of organisational structure that coordinates production and distribution, just suggesting different ways in which this body could be organised

    in reply to: Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitic #249072
    DJP
    Participant

    ‘Genocide’, another word being devalued by over and mis-use. The Israeli army is not looking to murder every last person calling themselves Palestinian.

    This is from the UN genocide convention. Nothing about murdering “every last person” https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    “According to the Convention, genocide is a crime that can take place both in time of war as well as in time of peace. The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 1,962 total)