Ethics — What if we just keep asking why?

[Frame Dragger]

This is more or less what Sulla did. At the height at his power, the Senate couldn't grant/refuse him anything. In fact ,after he won the civil war, nobody in the republic was in the position to refuse him anything. His political opponents where mostly destroyed during the civil war and what was left of them labeled "enemy of the sate" and executed soon after. Conservative estimates say he killed ~1500 persons from the senator and equities classes to consolidate his rule.

Another fact is that his dictatorship was with no time limits.

Yep, this is the pattern we see again and again, in Rome and elsewhere. Look at the Akkadian "kings" and such! It may have looked nice, and there may have been less stercore in the streets of Rome, but politics = UGLY. Power will always draw people, and ESPECIALLY psychopaths.

 

[Kajahtava]

Oh yeah... that last point especially is right on the money. Caligula springs to mind *wince*.

Yeah, what would've happened if Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon?

There's apparently a tragedy series that takes place in an alternate history where England was never invaded by the Roman Empire, sort of 1984-ish apparently.

Spoiler

You have The Holy Empire of Britannica (which is seated in the US after England was lost to the Euro Universe in war), protagonist being some prince therein that hates his father and strives to take his father's empire down but as the story progresses becomes more and more tempted by the power he acquired to bring down Britannia. Never seen it though, but it's called Code Geass, like it up.

You should pay a little more attention to what happened in fact during the Sulla / Marius civil war, and carefully consider if anyone "choose" Sulla for dictatorship. Whatever you have read on internet offered only a cursory glance on the period. You should study it thoroughly.

Sure, I will if there's more.

Also, you mean to imply that there is a place where there is more information than the internet in this world?

 

[DanP]

Sure, I will if there's more.

Also, you mean to imply that there is a place where there is more information than the internet in this world?

Actually, for specific subjects yes. One of the classic works in this particular area is "Roman History" by Theodor Mommsen. For example, he devotes a whole volume, spawning ~400 pages only to the subject of origins of the military monarchy in Rome.

You will be hard pressed to find material of this quality on internet. (although you may find PDFs of many good treatises on history. Mommsen's included)

 

[Kajahtava]

Actually, for specific subjects yes. One of the classic works in this particular area is "Roman History" by Theodor Mommsen. For example, he devotes a whole volume, spawning ~400 pages only to the subject of origins of the military monarchy in Rome.

And this book does not exist on the internet? I mean.

Surely there's a means to pirate it at the least. Intellectual property != ZIENZ.

You will be hard pressed to find material of this quality on internet. (although you may find PDFs of many good treatises on history. Mommsen's included)

I see we think alike.

I praefer an XML over PDF container though because XML is more oriented towards semantics, structure and meaning, and PDF more towards layout.

 

[baywax]

Why on Earth would you feel the need to tell ANYONE who Spartacus was,

Don't get out much do ya!

 

[baywax]

Who said it was efficient or not? That said, as they conquered a HUGE territory, invented concrete, and founded Londinium... Maybe they managed despite inefficiencies? Besides, slave labour can be highly efficient for a time, it's just morally wrong by most (and my) standards.

Key word... "conquered" rather than influenced without twisting arms.

Actually the Eqyptians invented concrete,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article656117.ece

the Romans ripped off the idea like they ripped off all their ideas... ie: Greek architecture, sculpture. For every Roman idea there is a culture that was squashed by their armies. Sound familiar?

Founded Londinium...? I believe it was there when the Druids built their version with their name... so, just another rip off.

Managing despite inefficiencies means your thinking you're going somewhere as you walk up a slippery slope or on a tread mill.


Slave labour is slave labour... it will always end badly for all those involved.

 

[apeiron]

Intellectual property != ZIENZ.

I'm sure if you ever come to own some intellectual property, you will feel differently about its theft.

And this in a thread on ethics?

 

[DanP]

An interesting case is the case of taboos:

"Aidan and Kelly are brother and sister. They are spending the holiday in mountains with some of their friends. One evening, Aidan and Kelly decide that it would be interesting to have sex together. Both Kelly and Aidan are using contraceptive measures. They enjoy very much their experience and, if anything, the night they spent together considerably strengthened the bond between the two siblings"

Is it moral ? If you think that it's not moral , explain why.

 

[Kajahtava]

I'm sure if you ever come to own some intellectual property, you will feel differently about its theft.

Being sure without proof != ZIENZ.

I license my code under GPL and my graphics/music under CC By-Sa. In fact, I've had dealbreaker situations with labels because they refused an open licence.

Also, I have very little use for money in my life, andehonicism helps to keep your principles up you know.

Edit: Besides to call pirating a book you would have never bought just to read up some notes for a forum discussion 'theft'? No one loses here.

Also, one doesn't buy 'music' when one buys CD's, a CD does not contain music, a CD contains a formula in some accepted standard for a machine to produce music, from resources, music is sound is vibration, the machine transforms electrical energy into music accordingly that recipe.

Now, I can understand that artists are going to let you pay to visit a live concert, that's when they actually sell you music and not a recipe to make music which you also have to own a machine for that does it. Just as I understand that you have to pay to eat at McDonalds. But artists asking money for digital downloads is tantamount to McDonalds letting you pay money to download their Big Mac recipe and start complaining if you copy it from a friend who downloaded it first. Of course, a CD is still a tangible thing, so I understand that they want money for that, just as for cooking books, but if people download the contents of a cooking book, no one should complain. Especially because all the recipes in cooking books have evolved in traditions of hundreds of years. Just as music has, all music carries elements from its praedecessors. I can make some small adjustments to some recipe for a cake invented by another and cell that cake right? Why can't I do the same with music? But if I make a liberal cover, I have to pay intellectual fees. Why? Maybe because music is a big enterprise and legislative powers kneel before big corporations? Seriously, some corporations own entire species of planets because they genetically manipulated a species that mother nature already gave us. 99.9% of that plant already existed, but they own the whole species.

And this in a thread on ethics?

I consider the owning of information; intellectual property both a theoretically inconsistent model because information can be translated. And I consider the practice morally abhorrent and exploitive, unfair competition and I've yet too see any empirical evidence of it to foster creativity, we all know open source software with some minor exceptions (lulz, GIMP) outperforms proprietary software. Proprietary software just has the resources to advertise a lot and thereby trick consumers into buying crap when they can get quality for free.

Also, intellectual property is not a right, you can't sell a right, a fair trial is a right because you can't sell that to a person that doesn't have it. Intellectual property is simply a commercial good that can be sold to another party. A lot of labels, including all major labels demand the intellectual 'rights' to music from the artist before releasing it, TV networks obtain intellectual rights from creators of TV shows, publishers of comic books own rights to characters created by artists and not the artist itself. Intellectual 'rights' in this day and age no longer belong to the creative mind behind it, but to the publisher.

Also, it's hardly that bohemian to think that way, I mean, FSF, GNU, Creative Commons, Free Culture, Pirate Party all those movements, it's not like I'm the only person that considers intellectual 'rights' a dubious enterprise that for the most part works to financially aide publishers first, artists maybe a little or maybe compromises them, that remains to be seen and downright cripples the consumer. If I design a comic book and it's a smasher I can't get it published without giving up my right to the characters and the setting to that publisher, it then means I have a choice to make, I can either keep drawing the character I invented and the world won't know of it. Or I can only draw it with that publisher's permission, see it handed over to another artist later on, and it'll get published as a compromise.

An interesting case is the case of taboos:

"Aidan and Kelly are brother and sister. They are spending the holiday in mountains with some of their friends. One evening, Aidan and Kelly decide that it would be interesting to have sex together. Both Kelly and Aidan are using contraceptive measures. They enjoy very much their experience and, if anything, the night they spent together considerably strengthened the bond between the two siblings"

Is it moral ? If you think that it's not moral , explain why.

I have nothing against it, in fact I think taboo relationships are oftentimes cute.

Girl older than the boy, incest, paederasty, polyamorie, it's cute if people are willing to break rules that serve no purpose.

 

[apeiron]

Being sure without proof != ZIENZ.

You express plenty of opinion. But the only thing worth responding to would be a theory, some model of reality.

 

[Kajahtava]

You express plenty of opinion. But the only thing worth responding to would be a theory, some model of reality.

Encore, je ne comprend pas.

I don't really get what you mean by that or how it's related to my point.

Also, it has come to my observation that you seem to have some urge to try to find an error on my posts, any comments?

 

[Frame Dragger]

Key word... "conquered" rather than influenced without twisting arms.

Actually the Eqyptians invented concrete,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article656117.ece

the Romans ripped off the idea like they ripped off all their ideas... ie: Greek architecture, sculpture. For every Roman idea there is a culture that was squashed by their armies. Sound familiar?

Founded Londinium...? I believe it was there when the Druids built their version with their name... so, just another rip off.

Managing despite inefficiencies means your thinking you're going somewhere as you walk up a slippery slope or on a tread mill.


Slave labour is slave labour... it will always end badly for all those involved.

Fair enough on the concrete, but the Romans made USE of it to build a city-states, aquaducts, in fact Londinium was no city when the Romans arrived. By all accounts, it was mostly forest (REAL forest) and maybe a small Celtic settlement. It isn't even known if "Londinium" was a play on the original name (often the Roman way), or purely invented. Founded in... I think 45 AD, it fell with the Roman Empire, about 500 years later.

The Druids may have had a name for it, but if so, no one is sure. I'm familiar with Latin, and proto-Saxon (circa Dream of The Rood), but the Druids predate that language, so I don't know, and academic views are split. Frankly it wasn't a major player in the Roman Empire, and when it fell, it FELL.

As for the Roman culture... I'm half Greek (first generation) so believe me I know. You're right though, I don't "get out" in the way you mean enough to have a sense of what most people know or not anymore.

Of course, they didn't really "rip it off", they did what people have done as long as we've been people; they merged, and adapted. I'm sure if the orignal Romans saw their descendants of the Roman EMPIRE and its essentially Greek Pantheon, they'd have screamed! Such is history. Then again, the Greeks "ripped it off" too, from the language (all the way back to original Canaanite and proto-Phoenician).

Does that matter? As for Slave Labour, I think you're focusing on the American story. The reality is that Greece and Rome, Egypt, and Africa, and The USA were BUILT on the backs of slaves. In Rome and Greece, a slave of course meant a range of things not implied in the USA model of slavery. Perhaps the racism in the latter was the difference, and the view of Africans as "non-people"?

Anyway, the Spartacus lost, and the Colliseum is a major tourist attraction. What do you make of that, in terms of slaves and the LONG term? I don't LIKE slavery, but it's VERY efficient. Probably, that's why it's STILL so prevalent: Outright, or sweat-shops, or Asian wage-slaves, or Americans bound by debt. Then there are the REAL slaves, being sold for sex or work, etc.

EDIT: @Apeiron: "You express plenty of opinion. But the only thing worth responding to would be a theory, some model of reality." Really? In the GENERAL Lounge? In the PHILOSOPHY section? Bull****. Either engage or leave, you're lowering the tone of the place; a difficult feat to accomplish in the Lounge.

 

[apeiron]

EDIT: @Apeiron: "You express plenty of opinion. But the only thing worth responding to would be a theory, some model of reality." Really? In the GENERAL Lounge? In the PHILOSOPHY section? Bull****. Either engage or leave, you're lowering the tone of the place; a difficult feat to accomplish in the Lounge.

This is the philosophy section as far as I'm aware. Not the rambling off-the-top of your head unsourced opinion and rant section.

 

[Frame Dragger]

This is the philosophy section as far as I'm aware. Not the rambling off-the-top of your head unsourced opinion and rant section.

It's the lounge, so really it's both. What I need is a citation for how you remove a stick from your... ah, never mind. Please, get on with your sharing deep philosophical rambl- err, thougths. To me it looked as though you were nitpicking for pages, but it must have been an illusion.

 

[apeiron]

It's the lounge, so really it's both. What I need is a citation for how you remove a stick from your... ah, never mind. Please, get on with your sharing deep philosophical rambl- err, thougths. To me it looked as though you were nitpicking for pages, but it must have been an illusion.

Fortunately this is a question where we can appeal to authority.

See forum guidelines...
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=47294

For example...

In general, there is more legroom for speculation in philosophical discussion, but it must be in the form of a well motivated question or argument, as described above. In particular, even a 'speculative' argument should be logically consistent with well established scientific knowledge and theory.

So there was an attempt to set up productive global constraints on locally free discussion. The guidelines exist in the belief that there is a definition of functional chat.

We are now indeed discussing an example of ethics in action as I have described it. You are saying my "ethics" are out-of-line and not conducive to the persistence of the system by the standards of "a lounge". I am saying you and some others are not living up to the "ethics" of a philosophy forum.

We can both agree that either system can tolerate a certain amount of gray, of non-functional local activity, if overall the majority of activity is responsive to the system's overall purpose.

But my view of the purposes of this forum seem to be there in black and white.

Fire away...

 

[Kajahtava]

Well, to be honest apei, I get the feeling you think that I'm praetentious in some form and try to find point to tackle me on and 'expose' me, when the time arrives you will feel less than satisfactory as I will just respond with 'Hmm fair point, seems I was mistaken', and move on, it has already happened once or twice here I think.

 

[apeiron]

Well, to be honest apei, I get the feeling you think that I'm praetentious in some form and try to find point to tackle me on and 'expose' me, when the time arrives you will feel less than satisfactory as I will just respond with 'Hmm fair point, seems I was mistaken', and move on, it has already happened once or twice here I think.

My honest personal opinion - not that I think it is at all relevant to the purpose of the forum - is that I find you are interestingly different. So that would be a reason to probe a little further to find what you are actually made of.

If there is organisation behind the disorganised way you respond, then that is what I would look to expose as I am always very interested in other coherent world views.

 

[Kajahtava]

My honest personal opinion - not that I think it is at all relevant to the purpose of the forum - is that I find you are interestingly different. So that would be a reason to probe a little further to find what you are actually made of.

Ahh, I was going to post 'You seem to be at the same time intrigued and annoyed by me.', but I thought that would be bad style.

If there is organisation behind the disorganised way you respond, then that is what I would look to expose as I am always very interested in other coherent world views.

Oh well, I've noticed that people have a difficulty reading what I meant. But I also noticed that people have that from each other. People often don't seem to notice that they speak in different meanings when they use the same word, and care more for the words they use, than what meaning they have in a debate. I've seen it happening countless times that a single word has changed meaning dozens of times in one debate with neither party observing it.

Anyway, if you're interested: http://thisdomainisirrelevant.net/

 

[apeiron]

Anyway, if you're interested: http://thisdomainisirrelevant.net/

This would suggest you consider your home territory to be lambda calculus - which is indeed an organised body of ideas.

My own interest lies in clearly recognising the limits of computability (and all its allied discourses - monadism, locality, atomism, mechanicalism, determinism, information theory) and then saying, well, what is the larger story, what is the broader view of logic and causality then?

This arose because computational approaches to mind science so clearly were not cutting it. I then found that all the most advanced alternative thinking was taking place in theoretical biology - the likes of Rosen, Pattee, Salthe.

And the alternative had many names, such as systems science, semiotics, hierarchy theory, holism, dissipative structure theory, complex adaptive systems, dynamical systems theory.

 

[Kajahtava]

This would suggest you consider your home territory to be lambda calculus - which is indeed an organised body of ideas.

Not at all, it's just a webcomic whose latest comic happens to be a piece of Scheme code which is a pun on the famous drone project Sunn 0))) (which is crap).

I think the connexion between Lisp and Lambda Calculus is overstated, I do however feel that Scheme is a lot closer than Common Lisp to it (dynamic scope, treating functions different than constants, wtf?) but still, the fact that all lisp procedures can take only a single list as argument and use that as some kind of ad-hoc hack to provide other things as argument as well as currying and letrec is a bit dubious to me. I think in most languages, especially Python or Haskell, the lambda keyword is just a nice way to make anonymous functions, they aren't true lambda expressions. I don't really see a difference between Javascript's 'function(a,b) { ... }' and Python's 'lambda x, y: ...' syntax. I don't think any languages which has statements that are not expressions or has variables instead of proper substitutions can have true Lambda expressions. Needless to say of course that what JavaScript and Python provide is more powerful at the cost of minimalism. I'm basically making my own programming language to address some of these issues where every single object is a higher order function and untyped, the only way to type check is for the programmer itself to manually check if data supplied to a function is of the correct internal structure.

My own interest lies in clearly recognising the limits of computability (and all its allied discourses - monadism, locality, atomism, mechanicalism, determinism, information theory) and then saying, well, what is the larger story, what is the broader view of logic and causality then?

I guess my interest is formalism when it comes to this. I'm not as much interested in the conceptual meaning behind a function as much as the explicit behaviour of how it rewrites data. Hence I think type systems are atrocious. Of course some transformations of data can be interpreted as humanly useful and intuitive concepts, such as 'addition', but it's still just a lambda abstraction to me that transforms one lambda abstraction to another, and if the former is a number it transforms it to a lambda abstraction which can be interpreted as raising by that number.

This arose because computational approaches to mind science so clearly were not cutting it. I then found that all the most advanced alternative thinking was taking place in theoretical biology - the likes of Rosen, Pattee, Salthe.

This is again where I ne comprends pas you.

And the alternative had many names, such as systems science, semiotics, hierarchy theory, holism, dissipative structure theory, complex adaptive systems, dynamical systems theory.

I guess this is where my view differs from most people. I don't believe in 'cats' or 'trees' or 'chairs', there's just a collection of elementary particles that collide with each other and feel each other. And I think all collections are best studied in an analogue way.

For instance, that program language, you can interpret it as 'a string', however, what it is is a list of chars, you can interpret them as 'chars', but effectively they're integers > 0 (unicode codepoint), now, you can interpret it as a 'list', but in fact, it's a pair whose first element is a natural number, and whose second element is another list. And you can interpret that as 'a pair', but in reality, it's a function that returns that natural number on given any value except F, and that other list (which can be interpret as the original string minus the first character) on F.

Which is a function, and since it's a function it can be given any argument, indeed, I just said it accepts F, and all other arguments but F. (F itself is a function too of course, but not a church boolean). I really think this how in the end its best to see programs, not thinking in human terms of 'numbers' and 'strings', but think of them in their behaviour. Which is why I, contrary to most people, consider Haskell and Ruby butt-ugly and inelegant languages because they're targeted at human abstractions of reality. Ideally, a language should be able to be run natively and easily on 'some' machine. Needn't be a register machine, might as well be some thing that implements lambda calculus physically. But it shouldn't be too complicated.

In the end, I favour grounding mathematics on treating all objects as functions or algorithms and not sets I suppose, I think set theory is quite ugly in the end. I'm also still a bit uneasy about recursive function definitions that require the function to be named.

Edit: I should add though that I mainly consider myself a musician and then a graphics artist / illustrator, then a programmer and only then some one interested in science.

 

[baywax]

Fair enough on the concrete, but the Romans made USE of it to build a city-states, aquaducts

Metaphorically all you're saying is that the nazis invented rockets (beyond what the Chinese had already invented) that were never used or fully developed. The USA used the rocket designs. Another analogy...the horse grew its own musculature and when the horse died the vultures made use of the muscles by eating them. The primary point is that the invention is invented (out of sheer genius)... how it is used is up to the brutishness of the "conquerer".

Conquering your way around the world is an inefficient and immature way to exert influence. The most efficient way to influence the world is to succeed as a culture setting an example and creating a civilization without infringement or harm to your citizens or the citizens of any other nation. This way you will not have the distraction of 500,000 slaves revolting on you or the civil strife of slave owners costing you productive lives and billions of dollars. When another culture imitates this form of governance, they also do not infringe or harm their citizens or yours. This is highly efficient in that production remains steady and the potential for trade grows exponentially with parity between nations.

Slavery may have seemed innocuous enough during the many centuries it was practiced and may have held a certain efficiency for one of the two parties involved. But, as time ensued the revolutions and the huge numbers of uneducated and partially productive individuals it spawned became a liability. No amount of reparation can bring the slaves and descendants of slaves up to par with the masters and the descendants of the masters. A huge amount of trauma/damage has taken place in any slave/master scenario that will almost certainly stain their relations for eons to come. That, my good sir, is not efficient.

, in fact Londinium was no city when the Romans arrived. By all accounts, it was mostly forest (REAL forest) and maybe a small Celtic settlement. It isn't even known if "Londinium" was a play on the original name (often the Roman way), or purely invented. Founded in... I think 45 AD, it fell with the Roman Empire, about 500 years later.

The Druids may have had a name for it, but if so, no one is sure. I'm familiar with Latin, and proto-Saxon (circa Dream of The Rood), but the Druids predate that language, so I don't know, and academic views are split. Frankly it wasn't a major player in the Roman Empire, and when it fell, it FELL.

As for the Roman culture... I'm half Greek (first generation) so believe me I know. You're right though, I don't "get out" in the way you mean enough to have a sense of what most people know or not anymore.

Of course, they didn't really "rip it off", they did what people have done as long as we've been people; they merged, and adapted. I'm sure if the orignal Romans saw their descendants of the Roman EMPIRE and its essentially Greek Pantheon, they'd have screamed! Such is history. Then again, the Greeks "ripped it off" too, from the language (all the way back to original Canaanite and proto-Phoenician).

Does that matter? As for Slave Labour, I think you're focusing on the American story. The reality is that Greece and Rome, Egypt, and Africa, and The USA were BUILT on the backs of slaves. In Rome and Greece, a slave of course meant a range of things not implied in the USA model of slavery. Perhaps the racism in the latter was the difference, and the view of Africans as "non-people"?

Anyway, the Spartacus lost, and the Colliseum is a major tourist attraction. What do you make of that, in terms of slaves and the LONG term? I don't LIKE slavery, but it's VERY efficient. Probably, that's why it's STILL so prevalent: Outright, or sweat-shops, or Asian wage-slaves, or Americans bound by debt. Then there are the REAL slaves, being sold for sex or work, etc.

EDIT: @Apeiron: "You express plenty of opinion. But the only thing worth responding to would be a theory, some model of reality." Really? In the GENERAL Lounge? In the PHILOSOPHY section? Bull****. Either engage or leave, you're lowering the tone of the place; a difficult feat to accomplish in the Lounge.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Fortunately this is a question where we can appeal to authority.

See forum guidelines...
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=47294

For example...



So there was an attempt to set up productive global constraints on locally free discussion. The guidelines exist in the belief that there is a definition of functional chat.

We are now indeed discussing an example of ethics in action as I have described it. You are saying my "ethics" are out-of-line and not conducive to the persistence of the system by the standards of "a lounge". I am saying you and some others are not living up to the "ethics" of a philosophy forum.

We can both agree that either system can tolerate a certain amount of gray, of non-functional local activity, if overall the majority of activity is responsive to the system's overall purpose.

But my view of the purposes of this forum seem to be there in black and white.

Fire away...

Cute... irrelevant and pedantic, but cute. I'd "fire away", but I don't let loose the broadside on unarmed vessles... it's an ethical thing.

@baywax: I'll respond tommorrow (very late where I am). I think your view on invention vs. use is a good one, but then again, what measure of an inventions success is there, but the manner in which it is applied? You say slave labour is innefficient, but you're speaking in terms of (at that time) DOZENS of human generations! By any standard of the day, unless you lived during a slave revolt, it was damned conventient and very efficient NOT to pay people. Of course, slavery in Rome and Greece represented MANY possiblities, some of which we would probably not consider slavery now. By the same token, the rights of a non-citizen/non-slave were hardly great.

You're also ignoring the many slave revolts that were put down, and avoided. One example... one UNUSUAL example of a massed slave revolt doesn't prove your point, or even SUPPORT it. It's the rarity of such events that makes what Spartacus did so amazing. You might remember that the Via Appia still ended up lined with men on crucifixes, and it wasn't the Senators.

Conquest is efficient, maintaining the land conquered is a challenge. Rome was one of the most efficient conquering bodies in history, but it overreached. That isn't fundamental flaw of conquest, but of scope. I'll expand on this tommorrow. You may want to research the history of intra-ethnic slavery in Africa and Asia in the meantime, and just how such a gross inefficiency has survived the process of natural selection, and why we seem to RETURN to slavery and such barbarism.

For the record, I am AGAINST conquest and slavery, but that doesn't mean I'll pretend it's inneffective, especially in human and Dynastic time-frames.

EDIT: Baywax: conquest is also a lot like pollination for humans... even when it "fails", it's AMAZINGLY efficient at keeping the relevant genetics in the game. Rome is proof of that, as is Ireland, and many other countries. As DanP has said, your view is ideal, but not one which reflects a working knowledge of history. Sometimes experts in one field forget that expertise does not commute. As for rockets... The Chinese invented them, AND used them as weapons of war, as did the Koreans, and others. The Nazis under that great **** von Braun (love the song by Lehrer!) and NASA later, did a fine job making killing machines. No petrol? Werner can solve zis, ja! Use Ethonol, und zen, POOF mit London! So yes, when it comes to efficiency apparently the Nazi rocket engineers had it down for the time, which is presumably why we compromised OUR ethics by recruiting the murdering bastards.

 

[DanP]

Conquering your way around the world is an inefficient and immature way to exert influence. The most efficient way to influence the world is to succeed as a culture setting an example and creating a civilization without infringement or harm to your citizens or the citizens of any other nation. This way you will not have the distraction of 500,000 slaves revolting on you or the civil strife of slave owners costing you productive lives and billions of dollars. When another culture imitates this form of governance, they also do not infringe or harm their citizens or yours. This is highly efficient in that production remains steady and the potential for trade grows exponentially with parity between nations.

This is your point of view, but it's totally ruptured from the historical reality, and dare I say, present reality of the world too.

 

[apeiron]

Cute... irrelevant and pedantic, but cute. I'd "fire away", but I don't let loose the broadside on unarmed vessles... it's an ethical thing. :Smile:

My citing the forum guidelines is hardly irrelevant or pedantic if you are making claims about the nature of the forum.

But yes, smile and pretend to feel no pain as you beat a hasty retreat. As you say, if you can't engage, leave quietly.

 

[DanP]

Cheer up, gentlemans.

Internet is fun

 

[Frame Dragger]

Cheer up, gentlemans.

Internet is fun

That's what I thought, but you know how some people are, "Internet: Serious Business!"

@Apeiron: I don't know what kind of retreat you think I'm beating, but you need to cut the dramatis personae and snap to. You were harrassing someone else, and now you're doing me the honor. Once again I'll ask that you make a contribution to the discussion rather than derail it as you have. It was going well until you decided to be the arbiter of the forum, yet I note a lack of "staff" anywhere near your name.

As for pain... do you really think the internet can inflict pain in this context? That seems unlikely... still if you need that fantasy of hurting me through the internet... *shrug*

EDIT: A quick perusal of the last few pages shows that you've offered little by way of anything constructive. You've made one-sentence "contributions" which amount to pseudointellectual hit-and-run on DanP, Kajahtava, and now myself. It seems that DanP refuted your argument, and you beat a "hastey retreat" for the better part of a page until you apparently thought you could "score points" on Kajahtava. Contribute to the discussion, or leave the thread, that's also part of forum guidlines, and your overall "pattern" over the past pages has been disruptive and critical without significant contribution of your own view or ideas.

 

[brainstorm]

No one ever just keeps asking why. Even if they do, it's not ALL they do. They go on doing other things like living, consuming, and interacting with other people/animals/things. So as long as you fail to reach a sense of ethics and treat yourself and others accordingly, there is a good chance that your actions toward others and yourself will be more harmful than if you had begun reasoning out an ethics to use as a moral compass for informing your decision-making.

 

[baywax]

Cute... irrelevant and pedantic, but cute. I'd "fire away", but I don't let loose the broadside on unarmed vessles... it's an ethical thing.

@baywax: I'll respond tommorrow (very late where I am). I think your view on invention vs. use is a good one, but then again, what measure of an inventions success is there, but the manner in which it is applied? You say slave labour is innefficient, but you're speaking in terms of (at that time) DOZENS of human generations! By any standard of the day, unless you lived during a slave revolt, it was damned conventient and very efficient NOT to pay people. Of course, slavery in Rome and Greece represented MANY possiblities, some of which we would probably not consider slavery now. By the same token, the rights of a non-citizen/non-slave were hardly great.

You're also ignoring the many slave revolts that were put down, and avoided. One example... one UNUSUAL example of a massed slave revolt doesn't prove your point, or even SUPPORT it. It's the rarity of such events that makes what Spartacus did so amazing. You might remember that the Via Appia still ended up lined with men on crucifixes, and it wasn't the Senators.

Conquest is efficient, maintaining the land conquered is a challenge. Rome was one of the most efficient conquering bodies in history, but it overreached. That isn't fundamental flaw of conquest, but of scope. I'll expand on this tommorrow. You may want to research the history of intra-ethnic slavery in Africa and Asia in the meantime, and just how such a gross inefficiency has survived the process of natural selection, and why we seem to RETURN to slavery and such barbarism.

For the record, I am AGAINST conquest and slavery, but that doesn't mean I'll pretend it's inneffective, especially in human and Dynastic time-frames.

EDIT: Baywax: conquest is also a lot like pollination for humans... even when it "fails", it's AMAZINGLY efficient at keeping the relevant genetics in the game. Rome is proof of that, as is Ireland, and many other countries. As DanP has said, your view is ideal, but not one which reflects a working knowledge of history. Sometimes experts in one field forget that expertise does not commute. As for rockets... The Chinese invented them, AND used them as weapons of war, as did the Koreans, and others. The Nazis under that great **** von Braun (love the song by Lehrer!) and NASA later, did a fine job making killing machines. No petrol? Werner can solve zis, ja! Use Ethonol, und zen, POOF mit London! So yes, when it comes to efficiency apparently the Nazi rocket engineers had it down for the time, which is presumably why we compromised OUR ethics by recruiting the murdering bastards.

I could agree and leave it at that but... on the issue of slavery... the efficiency of a happy, paid worker pitted against efficiency of the forced - slave labourer will always come out with the paid and somewhat "equal" worker on top.

Inherent in the slave/master relationship will always be the need to revolt, run away, seek revenge etc...

Now, if you can ignore the post office scenarios... inherent in the paid model of labourer... is the motivation to continue, not bother the boss and hope for a raise later... or at least a continued paycheque.

The inefficiencies that come with slavery are numerous and would go well into time I don't have... but think about it... think about the leaps and bounds Romans could have made with educated and appreciated labour serving as its backbone... rather than the hostility and loathing created amongst her slaves. True we've seen these civilizations last over 500 years... but at what cost and where are they now? If we were to gauge the efficiency of a civilization... and its ethics... by its longevity we might get an interesting picture... perhaps that's a good project for this thread.

 

[apeiron]

I could agree and leave it at that but... on the issue of slavery... the efficiency of a happy, paid worker pitted against efficiency of the forced - slave labourer will always come out with the paid and somewhat "equal" worker on top.

There is of course a modern version of slavery called globalisation. Asian sweatshops, foreign farms, where many hands work to make life cheap and easy for the rich west.

So it is both true that societies with motivated individuals will motor along, but also that growth can be achieved by the recruitment of a large enough pool of inefficient and reluctant workers.

The romans had to keep their slaves under a tight rein. We rely on distance, impotence and ignorance to maintain our world order. Or make sure the local dictators remain well-armed.

Of course, the west has also exported free market economics to some traditional slave countries like China (ask the chinese about the coolie labour that built the Pacific rim after the banning of the African slave trade if you really want to hear their view on how the west actually did exploit them).

But anyway, China is moving from the enslaved to the motivated worker - and already owns large chunks of its former masters.

 

[kote]

But anyway, China is moving from the enslaved to the motivated worker - and already owns large chunks of its former masters.

That's how globalization works though. I wouldn't call it slavery at all. The faster the pace of globalization, the faster we'll reach an equilibrium between world economies. Free trade allows supply in third world countries to feed demand elsewhere. The established economies export wealth to the countries with cheaper labor, which eventually drives demand locally in those countries.

China just ran a record trade deficit in March as it imported material from and outsourced labor to other parts of Asia which are now much cheaper.

Oh, and having managed union work, I'm not so sure that I wouldn't be able to get more out of slaves. Productivity has a lot more to do with production processes than worker efficiency though, although the best production processes are continuously improved by the workers on the line.

 

[apeiron]

The faster the pace of globalization, the faster we'll reach an equilibrium between world economies.

Yes, but my point is still that much of the "success" of western liberal democracy may be an illusion.

We live like kings, but how much is this because we have created real value through our enormous personal efficiencies in our modern economies?

Or how much of it is down to our exploitation of the third world, our blowing of our cheap fossil fuel legacy, and most recently, the bank bail-outs that have mortgaged even our future wealth (putting us in hock to those like China who hold the debt either as undervalued dollars, or increasingly as direct ownership of foreign farmland, foreign companies, foreign resources)?

We have created a highly effective system for consumption - entropy generation - no doubt about that.

Which comment hopefully redirects attention to the issue of ethics. Is bringing all nations up to the same level of consumption a healthy longterm goal for a social system?

A functional social system would seem to have to be good at producing social capital. Being good at material consumption, one way or another, has to be a passing phase.

 

[russ_watters]

Calling what has happened in Asia in the past half century "slavery" is utter nonsense. The global poverty rate has halved in that time because of globalization.

 

[apeiron]

Calling what has happened in Asia in the past half century "slavery" is utter nonsense. The global poverty rate has halved in that time because of globalization.

Excuse me, but a few more facts are required here. You also need to pay attention to the mixture of human exploitation and resource exploitation that is the basis of our luxury lifestyles.

So what poverty rate are you talking about? The Millennium Development Goals for example means those living on less that a dollar a day.

Halving that by 2015 will probably be achieved (due to China becoming a factory), but whoopee. Don't insult me with whack statistics. Four billion people still get by on less than $2 a day.

Instead check out the proper inequality measures like gini coefficient if you want a sense of what is going on out there - how many sweatshop kids and peons it takes to keep a westerner in box-fresh Nikes and snap peas imported from Vietnam.

* the richest 1% owned 40% of global assets.

* the richest 10% account for 85%.

* the bottom 50% own barely 1%.

(World Institute for Development Economics Research, 2006)

[Technical note: this may or may not be an ethical picture, but it sure as heck is a familiar form of equilbrium - the powerlaw regime of an expanding dissipative structure. Or what I liken to the iceberg model. The more ice that appears above water (the world middleclass) the more ice there also has to be below the water to maintain the 'balance".]

Having considered this, then get back to the fact that the only way to make the whole world middleclass is through burning cheap oil (which is how we did it). Oh, I forgot you don't believe in eroei measures either. Yes, we will all live the grand, feel-good, dream of economic convergence via alternative technology - windmills and thorium reactors.

 

[Frame Dragger]

I could agree and leave it at that but... on the issue of slavery... the efficiency of a happy, paid worker pitted against efficiency of the forced - slave labourer will always come out with the paid and somewhat "equal" worker on top.

Inherent in the slave/master relationship will always be the need to revolt, run away, seek revenge etc...

Now, if you can ignore the post office scenarios... inherent in the paid model of labourer... is the motivation to continue, not bother the boss and hope for a raise later... or at least a continued paycheque.

The inefficiencies that come with slavery are numerous and would go well into time I don't have... but think about it... think about the leaps and bounds Romans could have made with educated and appreciated labour serving as its backbone... rather than the hostility and loathing created amongst her slaves. True we've seen these civilizations last over 500 years... but at what cost and where are they now? If we were to gauge the efficiency of a civilization... and its ethics... by its longevity we might get an interesting picture... perhaps that's a good project for this thread.

What is the median age of a slave-holding adult in a given country, at a given time vs. the median age of their society? How long does the average slave-holder live compared to the average slave? How likely is it for a given slave-holder to suffer the consequences of centuries in their life? As terrible as it is, Slavery, Identured Servitude, What China does with MOST of its people ("plomo o plata") does get things done when you're surrounded (or believe you are) by enemies or those wanting what you have.

Lets stick with China for a minute: what about the student protests? Did their equivalent of the Politburo make the right choice for the country, for themselves, etc? They stayed in power in fact, consolidated it for a while, and now they're slowly unclenching their fist. Was it moral? Hell no. Was it right? Not from my perspective. Did it work to keep them in power, and their wealth intact? Oh yeah.

Black Slavery in the USA was probably the most vicious example of slavery in history (outside of intracultural/racial slavery, which is always the nastiest) because slaves were in no way expected to do anything, but the most menial labour. After all, teach them to read and write and you're dead, or so they thought. The period of near-slavery, and recovery from bigotry is unique in terms of scale and duration. Contrast that with a slave tutor in Rome? Then again, there was the colliseum, but now we have 2 million+ people in jail (in the USA), horrendous education for MOST, and huge numbers of our own people living in squalor and misery. I'm not seeing that education and freedom equate to success of a civillization (if one can "succeed).

People usually make decisions based on rewards-risks in their OWN lifetime, and rarely think so far ahead as the fall of Rome. Of course, you wonder what Rome would have looked like, been like, if they had educated populaces instead of converting most, and enslaving some? It's hard to judge, but I doubt it could have been done. How do you teach, what was at that time, most of the known world? Wait... they did! In fact, as I recall the Roman method of conquest was military, then cultural. Keep in mind that much of the stability at home was a result of ongoing conquest, and politics then were rather nasty.

Of course, in Rome, a non-citizen vs. a slave... well, it depends who's slave you were. In fact, our picture of slavery tends to be distorted by race-based slavery. Frankly, Slavery has, and is ongoing, because in MANY parts of the world it is still efficient. It's true that given modern technology the dream of educating a world seems closer, but given how we seem to fail on a national level (USA again, ) I wonder. The Greeks had slaves, and their conquest by the Romans had nothing to do with dissipation due to slave-labour. In fact, you might argue they reached that pinnacle (for the time) you describe... and a meaner bunch came along and took it.

That's the final issue: slaves did work while soldiers soldiered, and the short-lived populace (all of them) didn't really have time to mentor and apprentive more slaves than Rome had Citizens. That said, if we're going to continue this, you really need to argue by example, where a civilation has persisted without slave-labour in the manner you describe. Human history argues against your dream of reason, laudable as it is, because we're not reasonable, and only recently have we begun to live for so very long, that what we did at 30 haunts us at 60, and we're not dead vby 40.

Frankly, if you want to judge a civilation by major milestones which are universal (food, water, homes, communal structures, hospitals, monuments, etc..) especially the longevity of a given way of life... Rome, Greece, The Mesopotamians (Sumer, Babylon, Akkadia), The Egyptians, The Mayans, The Aztecs, etc... etc... etc... All with slaves, all ended for reasons OTHER than slave-revolt, and all have left their mark on history.

Finally... "imagine the leaps and bound... educated and appreciated labour..." well... the former DID happen, unless you find the peristance of the pyramids, cuneform tablets, ziggurats, to be unimpressive. I'd say that the egyptians did a fair job of math, and they did so on the backs of TONS of slaves. Granted, they were mostly locals, and no I'm not referring to the Passover story (which is a fine parable reflecting the Egyptian use of slavery, and Baylonian bondage, but hardly accurate). The world has an educated and appreciated workforce larger than the total population of earth... not so long ago! I don't see life improving for most, just the most visible.

I've traveled a fair deal, including to some very VERY poor locales, I've seen people die from drugs, and gunshots, and I read of more people harmed by land-mines, than DIED in an average historical conflict with a thousandth of the people involved. I don't see that the leaps and bounds made are actually that good for our long-term survival. In fact, for the first time in human history, we have the ability to wipe ourselves out with relative ease, are CRUSHING the environment, and devestating a majority of life on earth. I wouldn't want to be a marine creature right now...

I think your viewpoint is genuinely beautiful... I wish I shared it.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Excuse me, but a few more facts are required here. You also need to pay attention to the mixture of human exploitation and resource exploitation that is the basis of our luxury lifestyles.

So what poverty rate are you talking about? The Millennium Development Goals for example means those living on less that a dollar a day.

Halving that by 2015 will probably be achieved (due to China becoming a factory), but whoopee. Don't insult me with whack statistics. Four billion people still get by on less than $2 a day.

Instead check out the proper inequality measures like gini coefficient if you want a sense of what is going on out there - how many sweatshop kids and peons it takes to keep a westerner in box-fresh Nikes and snap peas imported from Vietnam.

* the richest 1% owned 40% of global assets.

* the richest 10% account for 85%.

* the bottom 50% own barely 1%.

(World Institute for Development Economics Research, 2006)

[Technical note: this may or may not be an ethical picture, but it sure as heck is a familiar form of equilbrium - the powerlaw regime of an expanding dissipative structure. Or what I liken to the iceberg model. The more ice that appears above water (the world middleclass) the more ice there also has to be below the water to maintain the 'balance".]

Having considered this, then get back to the fact that the only way to make the whole world middleclass is through burning cheap oil (which is how we did it). Oh, I forgot you don't believe in eroei measures either. Yes, we will all live the grand, feel-good, dream of economic convergence via alternative technology - windmills and thorium reactors.

I wouldn't worry about it, we'll be dead and gone by then, with most of life on this planet with us. If we're lucky, we'll manage not to wipe ALL of it out in some last spasm before we return to barbarism and probable extinction. Happy, right?

EDIT: I should add we got here by burning cheap COAL... oil was just a booster that is running dry. Of course, we could get lucky and embrace fission, establish a central GEOLOGICALLY STABLE dump for the nation, guard it Fort Knox, and recognize that we won't need to worry about a glowing pit until long after we'd have killed ourselves off some other way. At least this way we minimize damage, and maximize production. Besides, the world needs more tritium, and other fun stuff for medicine, and watches. Ohhh, sometimes i just want to scream.