Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Dak]

Fair point. But arg said "tractor driver." I assume he was talking about plowing fields, since the extent of arg's "real world" appears to revolve for the most part around the opportunity to plow fields.

Except instead of making money by plowing fields, he pays for the privilege.

Oops. read it on my phone and saw tractor driver and mentally inserted trailer in the middle. Yeah, farmers are critical but farming has been requiring fewer and fewer humans to do the work.

 

[Dak]

I'm gonna post this here instead of the Mort thread because I think it's on the level of more serious discussion:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-thorny-economics-of-illegal-immigration-1454984443

Gordon Hanson, a University of California at San Diego economist who has studied the issue for the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, has detailed how large-scale immigration undermines wages for low-skilled workers. In Arizona’s case, he thinks the state is paying an economic price for its decision. “As the U.S. economy continues to recover, the Arizona economy will be weighed down by slower growth and by less export production in traditional industries” such as agriculture where illegal immigrants play a big role, he says.

Proponents of doing more to curb illegal immigration say the mass departures helped the state economically in several ways. Government spending on health care and education for illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children dropped. Wages for plasterers, landscapers, farmworkers and other low-skilled laborers jumped because of scarcity, according to employers and federal data.

“Even if the size of the state’s GDP decreased, the decrease in immigration redistributed income from employers to employees, particularly at the bottom end of the labor market,” says Steven Camarota, research director of the Center for Immigration Studies, in Washington, which favors reduced illegal immigration. “That’s a good deal.”

In other words, locally (or locally in national terms), free migration feeds inequality.

 

[rms]

Didn't even think that had to be disputed anymore

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I'm not sure what you're arguing in relation to the quote from me. Are you saying voting for Hillary is a measurable benefit of being more cosmopolitan?

As boring as this argument is by now, yes. I think a Trump presidency is far riskier than a Clinton one, and there's ample evidence that education level is uniquely relevant in this election compared to traditional partisan ideology.

 

[Dak]

As boring as this argument is by now, yes. I think a Trump presidency is far riskier than a Clinton one, and there's ample evidence that education level is uniquely relevant in this election compared to traditional partisan ideology.

You aren't making any argument, and suggesting that placing a vote for an outcome undetermined is a benefit in itself requires some serious leaps of imagination.

You are also apparently guilty of this immediatism or presentism or whatever that has been discussed. Somehow you think this election more important that the last election. Yet they are always the most important of course.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I wouldn't call it a "serious leap of imagination" to say it's beneficial to have an educated voter base who understands that the kinds of things Trump has proposed (i.e. banning Muslims from entering the US, encouraging more countries to acquire nuclear weapons, and adding over $5 trillion to our debt via tax cuts) are bad ideas.

Yes, this election is more important than others, and your generalization does not apply. No other Presidential nominee up to this point has been nearly as radical, unpredictable, or dishonest as Trump, and no other to my knowledge has received such widespread condemnation within his own party.

 

[tagradh]

I think the most worrrying thing about the current election process, like the Brexit business, isn't that the outcomes will be terrible (though Trump seems like he'd be an awful PONTUS and I believe 'brexit' is a mistake, albeit for reasons most that voted don't care about) but that such a large proportion of people are basically waving flags saying 'fuck the facts'. It makes more sense to put faith in the educated, the experts, today than it did in the 20s and yet they're practically vilified by the people that most need to hear what they're saying.

 

[Dak]

I wouldn't call it a "serious leap of imagination" to say it's beneficial to have an educated voter base who understands that the kinds of things Trump has proposed (i.e. banning Muslims from entering the US, encouraging more countries to acquire nuclear weapons, and adding over $5 trillion to our debt via tax cuts) are bad ideas.

Yes, this election is more important than others, and your generalization does not apply. No other Presidential nominee up to this point has been nearly as radical, unpredictable, or dishonest as Trump, and no other to my knowledge has received such widespread condemnation within his own party.

Well to begin with I said that cosmopolitanism hasn't provided a demonstrable benefit. Trump is as cosmopolitan as Hillary, if not more so. Placing a vote isn't a demonstrable benefit of cosmopolitanism. Theoretically education affects voting patterns, but that doesn't mean there's a benefit in the actual election outcomes. Hillary is a tax and spend chicken hawk. At worst, Trump is the same. There's no indication from Clinton that she'd address the national debt, and her hawkishness acts as a natural impetus for countries to acquire nuclear weapons, even if she doesn't explicitly support it. As far as Muslims entering the US, I'm not sure what the benefit to the US is in allowing them in, particularly from shitty sharia law nations, so again, where's the benefit from cosmopolitanism - even assuming that simply placing a vote in a certain way is a "benefit" (which is amusing to me).

As to your second paragraph, Trump is not any more radical than various candidates or presidents. He does have a level of unpredictability, or as SSC would say more technically, "a higher level of variance". He is certainly not more dishonest than Hillary. You're showing your emotions in stating that he is. In all, this election is no more or less important.

It makes more sense to put faith in the educated, the experts, today than it did in the 20s and yet they're practically vilified by the people that most need to hear what they're saying.

Uh, can you please provide an explanation of who the "experts" are, and in what ways they have demonstrated that they deserve reverence and deference?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Hillary is a tax and spend chicken hawk. At worst, Trump is the same.

You haven't done your homework. Start here: http://crfb.org/papers/promises-and-price-tags-preliminary-update

As far as Muslims entering the US, I'm not sure what the benefit to the US is in allowing them in, particularly from shitty sharia law nations, so again, where's the benefit from cosmopolitanism - even assuming that simply placing a vote in a certain way is a "benefit" (which is amusing to me).

The words of the Pentagon's press secretary in response to Trump's proposal explain the benefit quite clearly:

“Anything that bolsters ISIL’s narrative and pits the United States against the Muslim faith is certainly not only contrary to our values, but contrary to our national security.”

As to your second paragraph, Trump is not any more radical than various candidates or presidents.

If you don't think banning Muslims, mass deportation of illegal immigrants, imposing a 45% tariff on Chinese exports, and returning to the gold standard aren't radical policy positions for a Pr, there's no point in debating this with you.

He is certainly not more dishonest than Hillary. You're showing your emotions in stating that he is.

Name me another Presidential nominee who has repeatedly denied saying things they've been proven to have said in the past (i.e. Trump's former support for the Iraq War) before accusing me of "showing my emotions".

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What is radical about mass deportation of illegals or building a wall? We already have a shitty partial wall, and be already deport millions. He has never campaigned on returning to the gold standard either.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

My bad, the wall proposal isn't really that radical. Mass deportation of illegals certainly is though - we do deport a few hundred thousand illegals a year, but we haven't done anything on the scale Trump is proposing since the Eisenhower administration, and I'm not aware of other recent GOP candidates advocating that idea.

Here's a quote from Trump on the gold standard:
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/48227...ing-to-the-gold-standard-few-economists-agree

 

[HamburgerBoy]

What would be so difficult about taking our current rate of deportation and boosting it? Whether Trump can actually achieve the numbers he claims is another matter, but politicians never get it right on the specifics. The gold standard thing is one little blurb, and Trump even admits it would be hard to do (and for such a yuge achiever that may as well mean impossible). He probably said it to win over libertarian/gold-nut types.

 

[Dak]

You haven't done your homework. Start here: http://crfb.org/papers/promises-and-price-tags-preliminary-update

Clinton’s plan would increase both spending and revenue.

How is that not "tax and spend"?

Meanwhile, Trump’s plan would decrease both non-interest spending and revenue.

The difference in the total debt shortfalls are based on projected tax receipts from Clinton's plan. But those projections assume those taxes won't have an adverse affect leading to their decline - which is usually incorrect.

The words of the Pentagon's press secretary in response to Trump's proposal explain the benefit quite clearly:

“Anything that bolsters ISIL’s narrative and pits the United States against the Muslim faith is certainly not only contrary to our values, but contrary to our national security.”

I find it hard to believe that halting immigration from certain countries is going to do more to support radical Islam than all of the weapon and cash transfers we give them along with air support/bombing campaigns in their support - all things which Hillary either supported or directly oversaw.

If you don't think banning Muslims, mass deportation of illegal immigrants, imposing a 45% tariff on Chinese exports, and returning to the gold standard aren't radical policy positions for a Pr, there's no point in debating this with you.

None of those would happen, but cutting down on immigration from certain countries (many of which happen to have a Muslim majority) and ending the ability to manipulate currency for a trade advantage in "free trade" aren't terrible ideas.

Name me another Presidential nominee who has repeatedly denied saying things they've been proven to have said in the past (i.e. Trump's former support for the Iraq War) before accusing me of "showing my emotions".

...................................................Hillary Clinton.

 

[rms]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business...ctor-offer-soderberg/503186/?utm_source=atltw

Economic interview/discussion if you be bored

 

[Einherjar86]

Speaking of theory and practice, Louis Menand just published a great piece on Marx in The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/karl-marx-yesterday-and-today

He treats Marx respectfully and humbly, yet with an admirable dose of suspicion as to the limits of his methodology. He doesn't seem to harbor any delusions about empirical evidence for Marx's claims:

Marx was fanatically committed to finding empirical corroboration for his theory. That's what it meant to put philosophy on its feet. And that's why he spent all those hours alone in the British Museum, studying reports on factory conditions, data on industrial production, statistics about international trade. It was a heroic attempt to show that reality aligned with theory. No wonder he couldn't finish his book.

Comments like this are honest and many of them are enlightening; but Menand also takes care to absolve Marx from the criticisms he suffered posthumously, most of them involving accusations of absolutism and totalitarianism:

It's true that Marx was highly doctrinaire, something that did not wear well with his compatriots in the nineteenth century, and that certainly does not wear well today, after the experience of the regimes conceived in his name. It therefore sounds perverse to say that Marx's philosophy was dedicated to human freedom. But it was. Marx was an Enlightenment thinker: he wanted a world that is rational and transparent, and in which human beings have been liberated from the control of external forces [as Menand makes clear later in the article, such forces include the State].

In my opinion, all Enlightenment thought falls victim to a common flaw: the persistent belief that rational thought can yield a formulaic model of the world. For me, anti-Enlightenment critics like Adorno and Horkheimer present a more compelling theory of market relations. Cynicism sucks, but sometimes it's accurate.

Overall, I'm not sure how much in Menand's piece is revolutionary, but it certainly puts Marx in a clearer light for lay readers. It's a good read.

 

[Dak]

I don't have the time at the moment to really give this post the level of contemplation it deserves, which is to say it probably won't happen in the future either, as new time and cognitive demands constantly present. But at this point I already agree with the criticism of the general bent of Enlightenment idealism.

 

[Dak]

http://infogalactic.com/info/PR_20161010

The internet/knowledge bubble grows stronger.

 

[Einherjar86]

I haven't heard of this. The prospect is very cool, but... with this... I just can't...

CANON TWO

Infogalactic is written from an objective point of view.

Since no human being on the planet is neutral, objectivity is the most for which we can reasonably strive. Infogalactic is non-ideological and the Starlords will ruthlessly eliminate all ideological spin, framing, narrative, and context from the Fact-level pages regardless of whether they agree with it or not.

I call BULLSHIT on this! The Starlords doth protest too much...

 

[Dak]

Heheh yeeeeeeaaaaah.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

It will wind up like Wikipedia if it becomes even remotely close to as large.