Charles Hope and the Luminous Top

Ideology and Pragmatism

Ideology is good counsel and long-term thinking.  Ideology looks for root causes and larger patterns.  Ideology understands that good policies may begin with the pain of readjustment, and that the easy way now can lead to suffering later.  Ideology can be hard, but Pragmatism is always easy.  Pragmatism is just enough to paper over problems until I get out of office.  Pragmatic builders get by with cheap materials.  Ideology insists upon quality and adherence to a higher order. What do pragmatists do when nobody's looking? It is pragmatic to sell tainted food and dangerous automobiles if the risk of getting caught is low.  Wisdom solidifies into ideology.  Pragmatism is happy to compromise between wisdom and folly.  Ideology seeks truth, pragmatism seeks whatever works, but what works better than what is true?

In the long term, ideology is more practical than pragmatism.  Are you looking to pump and dump or are you in it for the long haul?

Natural rights, succinctly

I found a very clear exposition of the natural rights and their consequences, thanks to Gerald Casey.

1. Adam may legitimately command Benjamin to refrain from action C if and only if C is a demonstrable initiation of aggression against the person or property of Adam or against the person or property of another innocent human being.

2. Adam may legitimately command Benjamin to perform action C if and only if C is an element of a freely (non-coercively) arrived-at binding agreement between Adam and Benjamin, and C does not violate condition 1.

3. In no other case may Adam legitimately command Benjamin.

4. If, in 1, Benjamin refuses to refrain from the action C, then Adam may use proportionate force to restrain or punish him.

5. If, in 2, Benjamin refuses to perform action C, Adam may use proportionate force to elicit compensation.

6. If, in 3, Adam commands Benjamin, Benjamin may refuse to comply with such a command and, where appropriate, may resist that command with proportionate force.

Blogging in E-prime

(originally posted here on 13 Oct 2005)

In a comment, Julie said:

The simple fact that objectivity is an impossible achievement for any human journalist is one of the main reasons why so many people have begun to question if tranditional media outlets really do have a monopoly on “the truth.”

It reminded me of E-Prime, a dialect of English without the verb “to be”.

The “A”-type statements (Standard English) all implicitly or explicitly assume the medieval view called “Aristotelian essentialism” or “naive realism.” In other words, they assume a world made up of block-like entities with indwelling “essences” or spooks- “ghosts in the machine.” The “B”-type statements (E-Prime) recast these sentences into a form isomorphic to modern science by first abolishing the “is” of Aristotelian essence and then reformulating each observation in terms of signals received and interpreted by a body (or instrument) moving in space-time.

I have found repeatedly that when baffled by a problem in science, in “philosophy,” or in daily life, I gain immediate insight by writing down what I know about the enigma in strict E-Prime.

E-prime and blogging achieve increased objectivity by revealing the narrator’s subjectivity in the transaction.

Aggregating Divergent content?

(originally posted here on 18 Jul 2005)

Sunstein is looking for an analogy between the information aggregation of free market prices, and Wikipedia. But prices take the form of numbers; content in a convergent language. Wikipedia entries are written in divergent natural languages.

We could say that the Wikipedia article converges upon the average, mainstream narrative, but in some cases, that doesn’t even exist.

Convergent Languages

(originally posted here on 18 Jul 2005)

Languages fall into two categories.

Convergent languages are Formal Systems; the words have well defined meanings, sentences are subject to deduction, and arguments can be proven. I call them “convergent” because historically, discussions carried in such languages tend to converge upon agreement. Examples of such languages are mathematics, computer languages, chess notation.

All other languages are divergent. Over time, discussions held in these tend to diverge as ever more sides argue over an increasing number of disputes. Natural languages obey this property, as religious, political, and philosophical discussions spawn more factions each century.

“Convergent” is a usually a good synonym for “objective”.

Stringent application of the Verification Principle of the Logical Positivist philosophers denies the concept of “meaning” to sentences written in divergent languages. (Upon reading this, the usenet troll was enlightened.)

Test-driven development turns the process of software design into a convergent activity, by establishing a method of verifying the meaning of the work.

“Vishnu” is Slack

(originally posted here, 25 Jun 2005)

Whenever sacred duty decays
and chaos prevails,
then, I create
myself, Arjuna.

To protect men of virtue,
and destroy men who do evil,
to set the standard of sacred duty,
I appear in age after age.

Bhagavad Gita, chapter 4, verses 7, 8

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In all its central planning, government is forever declaring the major combat operations are over, whether in foreign or domestic policy, only to discover that its real struggles and battles last and last. A good example is in the area of foreign trade. If a good or service is more efficiently produced abroad, the logic of the market will reassign production patterns until they conform. An attempt to protect domestic industry can do nothing to change this reality. Instead, protection only increases prices for consumers, subsidizes inefficient firms, and brings about ever increasing amounts of wasted time, work, and resources.

Working Around Leviathan, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

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Those who wish to change the world
According with their desire
Cannot succeed.

The world is shaped by the Way;
It cannot be shaped by the self.
Trying to change it, you damage it;
Trying to possess it, you lose it.

Tao Te Ching, verse 29