168900+ entries in 0.102s
mircea_popescu: even if it's conspicuous consumption in
the manner of "burn all
these decadent bourgeois rembrandts"
mircea_popescu: still,
the masterpieces and discoveries are not objectively valuable, even
though
the socialists love using
them whenever
they figure how
to.
mircea_popescu: and so yes, a functional commercial environment will have you do some
things, such as painting masterpieces and discovering
the new world, in preference of others.
mircea_popescu: knowledge has you stick finger in some holes as opposed
to others ; depending on
the kind of knowledge so vary
the kinds of holes.
mircea_popescu: in
this configuration, it spins an axle. in another configuration, it'd have fed a mold or w/e.
mircea_popescu: take
the combustion engine -- yes,
the fuel burns ; yes it'd have oxidized anyway, eventually.
phf: this is
turning very much into "how i spent my summer" essay
phf: so
to revise
the original point, markets create additional conditions under which higher payoff is obtained
through cooperation in a situation of conflicting interests.
though i'm not quite sure how
that applies in
the drowning situation, since it's missing
the whole exchange of resources
phf: well,
those
things
that i brought up, kinship, religion,
they are part of identity. "he's not my brother i won't go out on a limb" vs "my life's not my own, god
told me
to help even if i die".
mircea_popescu: the problem with
this view is
that most cultures ethnonym is "man". raider/trader/etc would have
to be exonyms.
phf: smooth, i suppose you could say
that a raider wouldn't make a choice
to
trade, likewise
trader doesn't necessarily have
the inclination for raiding
mircea_popescu: this doesn't happen just when you want it, but generally. if you're gonna kill
the dude drowning
to
take his underwear, you'll be stuck wearing a pair of stained underwear which you didn't stain yourself.
mircea_popescu: the problem with payoff is, of course, identity.
to quote
that splendid film, "when a man
takes an oath, he is holding his soul in his hands, like water. if he opens his fingers
then, he shouldn't worry about ever meeting himself again."
phf: i suppose
that's
the point of prisoner's dilemma, it establishes simple example of such conflict
phf: ok, i'm convinced of "cooperation is what happens anyway". now i
think
that it doesn't work with conflicting interests. save person from river, potentially drown yourself kind of situation. or
trade with
them with smaller payoff, kill
them and
take
their stuff for higher payoff.
mircea_popescu: unrelatedly alf --
teh russkis came up with
the following item : a 20
ton
truck with
two engines, one powering
the left side wheels,
the other powering
the right side wheels. i
thought you should know.
mircea_popescu: 1. phf is walking down
the road ; 2. phf perceives something in river ; 3. phf goes
to help ; 4.a. phf discovers it was scarecrow, unloads helping module ; 4.b. phf discovers it is muscovy and he's from lvov, unloads helping module ; 4.c phf discovers it's his brother AND CARRIES ON.
mircea_popescu: but you're not helping him because he's your brother. you're helping him because you were going
to help ;
the part where he;s your brother is a 2nd step, where he doesn't get not-helped for being on do-not-help list.
phf: i understand
the reversal (and it's a neat one) but i don't see how it's supported by anything but itself. you're basically saying
that "oh someone's drowning,
that's not my brother, fuck im" is what's happening, where's i'm saying "nothing's happening of note, oh it's my brother drowning! i should help him" is what's happening
mircea_popescu: 16yo is going
to suck some cock. unless she's biologically broken, mentally retarded, in some manner not-human, dysfunctional failure, she is. now, whether she sucks hunter's cock because
that's who daddy brought home or wolf of wallstreet cock because
that's what
the cat dragged into
the bar is an ulterior consideration. she's not gonna be without.
mircea_popescu: the
trick here is
the usual "sleeping mind goes backwards
through causal-time".
the kinship is a particular shaving of
the cooperation field -- you're supposed
to help your kin and not help
the nonkin.
this does not mean "kinship made you help your kin" ; you wer going
to help and
this
told you who NOT
to help.
mircea_popescu: cooperation is a behaviour ; kinship is a status.
they're not compatible in
this sense.
phf: but i'm not even sure if kinship and cooperation are similar nature of happen. does kinship promote cooperation as it's only source, but
then you can do mental
tricks
to extend kinship beyond actual kin
to likewise extend cooperation?
phf: well, but if you're saying
that cooperation is what happens,
then at
the very least same can be said about kinship.
mircea_popescu: doesn't specifically care who desdemona fucks, but very much cares if
the moor sent any venetian coins back
to mauretania.
mircea_popescu: whereas usg is very dedicated
to "anti money laundering".
mircea_popescu: for instance,
traditional family ie kinship say discourages very acutely some specific cooperations, such as romeo and juliet's coop.
mircea_popescu: much in
the vein of "hair-grows on face ; we call a moustache
this particular shaving pattern, and sideburns
this other shaving pattern" ?
mircea_popescu: so is
there any argument against
the "cooperation is what happens anyway,
there's a number of known ways
to discourage kinds, such as market, faith, kinship, etc" ?
phf: hmm, i'm saying
that market is one of
the ways
to encourage cooperation, where one wouldn't necessarily exist otherwise;
there are other better ways, kinship, religion, king/leviathan
mircea_popescu: i mean, "advanced" folk can't get a carpool
to work, whereas "backwards" folk can drop a supernumerary child with
the first woman/gaggle of children
they run into, and it'll work out. "here,
take
this, i'll
take it back
tonight".
mircea_popescu: if your notion of cooperation excludes reproduction you'll have
to define it somehow because i'm not sure i know what it means
thne.
phf: i
think
that's competing ideologies setting conflicting goals
mircea_popescu: seems
the natural basic quanta of cooperation, "making a new child".
mircea_popescu: phf wouldn't you expect, if market encouraged cooperation, for fucking
to be most common in market-driven societies and least common in marketless ones ? whereas europe has a fertility problem and chuka very much does not ?
phf: yes, but
then you're substituting village for city
mircea_popescu: market organizes capital, of course, and man is capital, yes, but it doesn't encourage cooperation anymore
than it encourages
the grass
to grow.
phf: if you screw somebody in a repeated
trade,
they won't necessarily do
trade with you again
mircea_popescu: consider
the case of kitty genovese ; or else a more general, abstracted point : you go into a field where men are working, in a rural,
traditional,
thereby market-clean setting, and i dunno, sayu a man is drowned in
the river and ask for help.
they will cooperate, won't
they ? whereas if
there's a market going
they'll go... "go
talk
to
the market-specialist, we're not in
that line of work", yes ?
phf: i wasn't actually
thinking
to
the west, i was
treating soviet union as a self-contained system.
the point i was
trying
to make is
that (and
this is all very RANDian) in
the absence of a market graph you needed an alternative mechanism
to encourage cooperation, which in
this case was
the propaganda system "real soviet man does X" etc.
mircea_popescu: you had any contact with
the living memory of soviet punk ? was
this
thing early on, "soviet
too soft, gotta be moar hardcore" youth movement, wouldn't wash, didn't ask women
to fuck, somewhat vaguelyt like
the great leap forward kids in china.
mircea_popescu: this puts
the problem in context : "don't defect
to west because even if materially stronger, it is morally weaker. BUT ALSO!!!! don't defect
to fucking mongoloids because even
though morally stronger
they... don't have enough dachas ?"
mircea_popescu: i know for a fact kgb had chuka defection directorate because hey, during
the groznii siege all
the signals folk involved had "experience in
the problem".
mircea_popescu: no, see, you're
thinking "to
the west" with such intensity it can't even be voiced. suppose for
the sake of argument, defect
to chuka. why not ?
phf: it's in
the statement of
the prisoner's dilemma, "defect"
to
the hypothetical inquisitors by betraying
the other prisoner (i know
that
the
terminology used introduces interesting connotations within
the soviet regime, but i don't
think
that's
the intent)
phf: game
theoretical one, cooperate/defect with
the corresponding payoffs
BingoBoingo: "Gifted students are creative students" <<
This point was alluded
to in pseudoscience guy's creativity vs.
tinkering essay
phf: i understand
the point
though, my understanding
that i haven't evaluated in a while was
that soviet were attempting
to solve prisoners dilemma by
training "a soviet man". brain
tattooing makes sense in
that respect,
though my interpretation is generous
to
the goals
mircea_popescu: brain
tattooing. because unlike skin, brain can present different facet in different context.
to some degree.
BingoBoingo: Most common meme was "Our school is
too poor
to afford
the new world maps"
mircea_popescu: "Ce frumoasa este iarna!" ie, "how beautiful $item is!". early, cheap,
typewriter-and-indigo-paper powered shanonizing. fill in
these blanks, and memorize
the
template
they go into.
mircea_popescu: in
the way of "in our democracy" and "rights of all people" and so on. it's emergent in
teh anglo.
BingoBoingo: Students were not
trusted with commas until 8th grade. Sometimes until High School.
mircea_popescu: in
the way of "la revedere, gara din pascani!" ie, "goodbye,
train station of pascani!"
mircea_popescu: (and yes, of course
this is
the ancient papal legate rulebook for message composition.)
BingoBoingo: [1]
Thesis, introduce points 1, 2, and 3 [2] Elaborate Point 1 [3] Elaborate Point 2 [4] Elaborate Point 3 [5] Conclusion, i.e. repeat
thesis and reiterate points 1, 2, and 3
phf: perhaps it's because it doesn't come with a high pitched, clear voice of a
true pioneer singing about rodina
mircea_popescu: recount
this. what's
the rules for
the construction of
the item ?
BingoBoingo first remembers encountering "5 paragraph" in 1992 at age of 8 in
third grade
mircea_popescu: strangely,
the us version is a lot less endearing, perhaps in
that it so carefully avoids appearing naive
to itself.
mircea_popescu: i'm aware. complexity in us world has been dropping abruptly in mainstream
terms.
teh people can no longer support an actually deliberative senate.
BingoBoingo: <mircea_popescu> writing up an incident report or whatever else in
this manner. << US has similar "5 paragraph essay" format used on standardized
tests
through High School
mircea_popescu: substitute
tattoo of wooden
tongue was employed in soviet world,
to
the amusement of early postmoderns in
the west.
mircea_popescu: and
the story it
tells is
that cca 1950 soviet / 1800 western world, it was already impossible
to produce meaningful
tattoos due
to growing complexity.
mircea_popescu: allows comparison of
the item with its summary for maximal comprehension.
mircea_popescu: soviet is very instructive for
the anthropologist because it is roughly speaking "summarized early modern".
mircea_popescu: writing up an incident report or whatever else in
this manner.
mircea_popescu: but see,
that's not at all
the point. for one
thing : all scholarship is nonsense. for
the other, soviet school si entirely propaganda, which is
to say "prepare organ donors for a certain way of life".
the fucking point of
the fixed form 3rd/4th grade composition is
to allow
the submarginal intellects making up
the bulk of
the population
to
tattoo
their brains into a form
that'll
then allow
them
to survive, as
traffic agents
☟︎ phf: i'm not sure, i went
to "humanities special school" it's possible
they didn't
torture us with such nonsense
mircea_popescu: like, say,
the vacation page ? wit hthe "goodbye so and so landmark" closer sentence ?
☟︎ mircea_popescu: phf did you live
through soviet long enough
to know
the 10yo fixed-form composition ?
☟︎ mircea_popescu: "the more
things
there are
to be,
the fewer beings you will have". eventually
that reaches 0 and
that's
that.
mircea_popescu: leaving alone
that none of
the
things are anything but
time-compatible :
they're not mutually meaningful in any meaningful way.
mircea_popescu: this is
the problem -- we do SO MANY
things. "oh i'm a father and an employee of
the month", says
the office plankton. well... also a consumer, and a sayer of VERY finely
tuned nonsense. wut now.
mircea_popescu: not just
the animals, either.
the people are SO FUCKING SUSPICIOUS if
they lived in lafond's own
they'd be shot like
twice a week just "on general principle"
to borrow a
tarantinoism. and utterly unaware of it, also.
phf: would it be appropriate if slightly simplified for, say, knuth
to get a algorithms/computation
tattoo?
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo he slid over
the floor at
the rate and in
the manner of a
tiny
tumbleweed being blown by wind a coupla days ago. i jumped up because wtf,
tiny
tumbleweeds blown by wind ??!?!
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform
that's
the
thing, it's not measurable! certainly not pixel resolution. it has a bizarre sort of say pre-compressed multi-cell-linked sort of resolution.
mircea_popescu: this is what it is : you get your stars, you are now an adult, protected by
the storied item as all adults.
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo
they're fabulous,
the little shits. you know
they actually change color, BUT NOT in
the "oh, i have an ipad, i get how
this works"
thing ?
they're not gonna display fucking sluts on
their backs. but it CLEARLY works for
the purpose (camouflage) shockingly well.
phf: i ran out of
the
thought half way
through and hoped you wouldn't notice, but it's not even consistent with
the narrative
that i was ripping from. in
the original after
they make
the
tattoo
they are now ready for
the highest office, etc.
BingoBoingo: Nah, need living gecko skin skinwrap. Maintain just enough life in each skin for it
to function as a pixel
mircea_popescu: (rather :
the proposition
that
they
thereby must ascend
to nirvana / retire / disappear in a loud pop and
the laws of
the universe becoming more complex is very much a symptom of
teh problem!)
phf: what you need is a glass bead
tattoo, a hypothetical multidisciplinary meditative practice
that culminates in a
tattoo
that fully encompasses
the complexity of modernity and
that
the practitioner can apply
to himself before finally retiring from
the public sphere
mircea_popescu: dividual lego piece and make
the "tallest pyramid" with
the half dozen items available
to
them.
there's uncounted items available
today, what fucking X-property-deductively-proven item.
mircea_popescu: anyway.
the
tattoo situation (me asking girly "why haven't you yet figured out a
tattoo
that works
to put on yourself!!!") is very much like me asking alf "where is
the proper computer!!!".
the complexities involved in making sense of
the immense jumble
that modern world puts at disposal are exponential on
the base, and
the base grew exponential on
time. we'll, likely, never catch up. yes ppls 5k years ago could lick every in