Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

To talk about this a bit more, TED itself is a money-making machine; it charges its subscribers something like $1000 per year. I always face a certain internal conflict when confronted by institutions like TED or the Singularity University, and similar programs.

On the one hand, I love the fact that there are institutions devoted to scientific and technological development, and the absolution of potential global catastrophes.

On the other hand, it frustrates me that such institutions only serve to widen the gap of intellectual segregation. The knowledge and information they deal in adopts an esoteric and elite status because it's reserved for the minority that can afford it. Thus, in contradiction to their proposed goals, they're actually perpetuating global inequality and mass ignorance by isolating new developments and information to an elite and erudite few.

That said, with technology continuing to develop the way it is, another internal contradiction arises: even while private institutions like this attempt to socially and financially isolate their advancements, they're also contributing to the vastly expanding field of technology and electronics that is simultaneously enabling the free and unchecked spread of ideas. So that's good, I guess.

At one point, only rich people could own cars. Only rich people could own (Car) wireless phones, computers, etc.

In a free market, "early adopters" are pretty much always going to be the rich, and then as money flows in, markets expand, competitors come in, cost is driven down on scale and competition, and eventually it is available to the masses in ways that only years before even the rich didn't have access too. (Look at smart phones for instance).

However, once an item is mandated for everyone, it generally ceases innovation, for there is no longer need for market expansion or competition.

The problem comes in when the ability to fail/succeed is removed. Then you wind up with permanent classes/underclasses, and the knowledge/skill divide becomes exacerbated and endemic.

 

[Dak]

Charting Fun with Krugman

 

[Einherjar86]

At one point, only rich people could own cars. Only rich people could own (Car) wireless phones, computers, etc.

In a free market, "early adopters" are pretty much always going to be the rich, and then as money flows in, markets expand, competitors come in, cost is driven down on scale and competition, and eventually it is available to the masses in ways that only years before even the rich didn't have access too. (Look at smart phones for instance).

However, once an item is mandated for everyone, it generally ceases innovation, for there is no longer need for market expansion or competition.

The problem comes in when the ability to fail/succeed is removed. Then you wind up with permanent classes/underclasses, and the knowledge/skill divide becomes exacerbated and endemic.

It's not so much the object-commodity that I'm concerned with as it is the idea-commodity; these institutions aren't prohibiting access to tools or mechanical instruments, they're prohibiting access to information and new ideas.

 

[Dak]

It's not so much the object-commodity that I'm concerned with as it is the idea-commodity; these institutions aren't prohibiting access to tools or mechanical instruments, they're prohibiting access to information and new ideas.

In a copyright/IP sense or merely restricting access to the symposium video/attendence?

Ideas should be free, events are different. It does cost money to put on events.

 

[Dak]

Charting Fun with Krugman

http://bastiat.mises.org/2012/05/2-98-cheers-for-bob-murphy/

A follow up on the Misesian blog.

 

[Einherjar86]

In a copyright/IP sense or merely restricting access to the symposium video/attendence?

Ideas should be free, events are different. It does cost money to put on events.

My issue is with the information itself rather than the events. Unfortunately, these institutions try and restrict their ideas to the space they dictate for their events.

 

[Dak]

Unfortunately, these institutions try and restrict their ideas to the space they dictate for their events.

Therein lies the problem.

 

[Jimmy... Dead.]

I've been reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau lately.

I'm paraphrasing - Man in a "state of nature" is fundamentally good. When the idea of private property developed, society had to develop a system to protect it.These laws bind people in unjust ways. This system evolved as laws imposed by those with property onto those without property. Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.

 

[Dak]

I know it's somewhat disputed, but this is nothing more than The Noble Savage myth (and this probably should be in a diff thread).

 

[Ov Wulf]

Edit: Whoops. Wrong thread. Apologies.

 

[Matt]

However, once an item is mandated for everyone, it generally ceases innovation, for there is no longer need for market expansion or competition.

Disagree. Consumer demand and desire for profit dictate accessibility to new technology, as well as spur innovation.

 

[Einherjar86]

I've been reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau lately.

I'm paraphrasing - Man in a "state of nature" is fundamentally good. When the idea of private property developed, society had to develop a system to protect it.These laws bind people in unjust ways. This system evolved as laws imposed by those with property onto those without property. Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.

I know it's somewhat disputed, but this is nothing more than The Noble Savage myth (and this probably should be in a diff thread).

I agree with Dak. Furthermore, it's ironic to elevate man in his "natural state" to a kind of ideal goodness, since we had to first develop into a civilized, intellectual, enlightenment-driven culture in order to even acquire the cognitive ability to be able to make that claim in the first place.

The human in its natural state, as Rousseau envisions it, is a fantasy of origins; an obsession with the primordial, pre-legislative state of human beings. Essentially, it's an obsession with the human when it was still an animal, in a kind of symbiotic relationship with the natural world, but yet somehow still in possession of humanitarian virtues and values. It's very much a Romantic conception of the ideal.

 

[Dak]

Disagree. Consumer demand and desire for profit dictate accessibility to new technology, as well as spur innovation.

Your disagreement with my statement and your follow-on sentence are at odds.

"Consumer demand and desire for profit dictate accessibility to new technology, as well as spur innovation."

This is correct. Consumer demand, or "organic market driven demand", does lead to these ends. Entrepreneurs seek to improve products and services to gain a competitive advantage over competitors and to either gain a large share of an existing market, expand an existing market, or create a new market.

Mandates have the opposite affect, as they shift the focus from customer satisfaction to mandate satisfaction, limit market participation (and thusly competition), and cement the market boundaries. They also divert capital to lobbying/counter lobbying for competition reducing mandates, and to personnel and equipment specifically for ensuring compliance in regulation/ implementation/oversight. When mandates are on product specifications, the incentive for improvement/innovation is removed, since the mandate specifies the form in which a product is satisfactory and must be consumed. When mandates are on ownership (nearly always co-existent with mandates on product specification), the market can neither be expanded nor lost, so incentive to gain market share or retain customers (through providing customer, as opposed to mandate, satisfaction)is removed.

Mandates are, in short, incentives to stagnation in innovation and service, and are contrary to consumer interest by default.

 

[Dak]

http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/fbi-domestic-terrorism-training-anarchists-eco/6199/

Guess philosophers are now terrorists.

 

[Einherjar86]

Now? They have been since Socrates.

 

[Dak]

Now? They have been since Socrates.

Point.

 

[Einherjar86]

That is a very interesting article though, I enjoyed reading it (or, I should say, enjoyed becoming infuriated whilst reading it).

I also think that any philosophy worthy of the name should pose a problem for the ruling ideology. Otherwise, what's the point of philosophy?

 

[Dak]

That is a very interesting article though, I enjoyed reading it (or, I should say, enjoyed becoming infuriated whilst reading it).

I also think that any philosophy worthy of the name should pose a problem for the ruling ideology. Otherwise, what's the point of philosophy?

Well, "tin-hatters" have been accused of the slippery slope fallacy for while, which I guess could apply, until it doesn't. We are pretty much there as far as bureaucratic bent.

Anyway:

Mises Daily: Property Means Preservation

 

[Dak]

BI: Another housing collapse is coming

Been saying this since the first collapse.

 

[monoxide_child]

BI: Another housing collapse is coming

fucking hell