Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

Sure, there certainly used to be corrective measures. Prisoners used to be forced to pray, attend lectures on the evils of alcoholism, perform hard labor, etc. With funding for federal prisons what it is, it's no wonder corrective punishment is on the wane.

But discipline is also a function of observation and subjectification. Institutions frame individuals as subject to correction, which in turn has the governmental advantage of making individuals see themselves as subjects susceptible to corrective measures. Foucault also talks about how good behavior is rewarded in a disciplinary institution, and this "double-system" is still at work in prisons today: i.e. prisoners are rewarded for good behavior, and are punished for bad behavior (they have a certain number of strikes, for instance, or they're put into solitary).

 

[Dak]

https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/

Robots are taking human jobs. But Bill Gates believes that governments should tax companies’ use of them, as a way to at least temporarily slow the spread of automation and to fund other types of employment.

Wonder how that will go over.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/?utm_source=twb

Maybe it’s the values of hierarchy, authority, and tradition that churches instill. Maybe religion builds habits and networks that help people better weather national traumas, and thus retain their faith that the system works. For whatever reason, secularization isn’t easing political conflict. It’s making American politics even more convulsive and zero-sum.

For years, political commentators dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and ’70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.

 

[Einherjar86]

https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/

Wonder how that will go over.

Well, robot ethics is an actual field. Obviously, in this case robots wouldn't be "paying taxes" themselves, the business-owners would be; and I'm sure that won't go over well at all, seeing as the shift to automation is for the purposes of cutting costs.

However, I have to think that taxing automation would be less expensive for employers than paying wages to individual employees, of whom it will take more to do what fewer robots could (probably) do. So if there's some concession to be made, perhaps it would actually be desirable...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/?utm_source=twb[/QUOTE]

Establishing causation is difficult, but we know that culturally conservative white Americans who are disengaged from church experience less economic success and more family breakdown than those who remain connected, and they grow more pessimistic and resentful.

I read about this from a link on Facebook the other day. I think it makes sense.

The truth is, institutions like church and the military provide foundations for solidarity. Obviously, there are other communities that can do this (school, employment, family, etc.); but the modern disenchantment between personal religious belief and participation in a religious community do seem to correlate with poor social consequences.

Coincidentally, Frederic Jameson wrote back in the 1970s (in a piece called An American Utopia) that a utopian society should practice mandatory conscription because the military strips you of personal beliefs/commitments and molds you as part of a community--e.g. "we don't give a shit if you believe in Jesus or Mohammad, if you're Christian or Jewish," etc. I'm not sure this is true, but I was talking with someone whose brother is in the military now, and his experience seems to correspond to this (but maybe you have an opinion on this, Dak). At any rate, Jameson's ideas on Marxist praxis have always been a bit too Stalinist for my tastes, but it does go to support the argument for solidarity that derives from community participation of this kind.

 

[Dak]

Well, robot ethics is an actual field. Obviously, in this case robots wouldn't be "paying taxes" themselves, the business-owners would be; and I'm sure that won't go over well at all, seeing as the shift to automation is for the purposes of cutting costs.

However, I have to think that taxing automation would be less expensive for employers than paying wages to individual employees, of whom it will take more to do what fewer robots could (probably) do. So if there's some concession to be made, perhaps it would actually be desirable...

Maybe there could eventually be robots that can pay taxes . But yeah, I think instead of having "payroll" taxes you see something more in the direction of VATs that take into account production regardless of whether or not there is related payroll figures.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/?utm_source=twb

I read about this from a link on Facebook the other day. I think it makes sense.

The truth is, institutions like church and the military provide foundations for solidarity. Obviously, there are other communities that can do this (school, employment, family, etc.); but the modern disenchantment between personal religious belief and participation in a religious community do seem to correlate with poor social consequences.

Coincidentally, Frederic Jameson wrote back in the 1970s (in a piece called An American Utopia) that a utopian society should practice mandatory conscription because the military strips you of personal beliefs/commitments and molds you as part of a community--e.g. "we don't give a shit if you believe in Jesus or Mohammad, if you're Christian or Jewish," etc. I'm not sure this is true, but I was talking with someone whose brother is in the military now, and his experience seems to correspond to this (but maybe you have an opinion on this, Dak). At any rate, Jameson's ideas on Marxist praxis have always been a bit too Stalinist for my tastes, but it does go to support the argument for solidarity that derives from community participation of this kind.

Psych research into this sort of thing notes a few important components (for solidarity): Common experience (particularly if an unpleasant experience), shared goals (superordinate goals), and a common enemy. 19th and 20th century nation states did a pretty good job of hitting these (of course with lots of problems because of them as well), and the military - particularly a volunteer force - also does a good job of hitting these. Clear in groups and outgroups, with more or less concrete superordinate goals. Churches not only functioned as another type of ingroup, but generally supported the nation - giving it a moral veneer. From the end of the 20th century through today though, forces of globalism have tried to eliminate national groupings and arguably religiousity. There has been much success for the better part of 20+ years, but the problem is that when there are no outgroups, there is no ingroup either, and we see this atomization of the individual start doing serious social damage - and people will look for anything to create a new ingroup - and giving those new ingroups moral veneers.

Every so often the idea of 2 year mandatory public service commitments for 18 year olds is floated. I think, in practical terms, this is a much better idea than mandatory military participation. The military is for fighting wars. If you increase the size of the hammer, we are likely to go looking for nails moreso than we already do. But it won't do any good anyway if there's still this push to eliminate the nation state while at the same time using them. There's a high level of dissonance required to be dedicated to the ingroup known as America and also be pro-globalism, and dissonance is psychologically painful. The "international society" is going to have to come up with some other way to avoid constant war than the attempt to eliminate borders, cultures, etc.Unless we find some sort of unfriendly aliens which are technologically equivalent anyway.

 

[Dak]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/are-liberals-on-the-wrong-side-of-history

 

[Einherjar86]

I read that when the issue came out. What did you think?

 

[Dak]

I don't really know what the writer was ultimately trying to get at. Reading it felt like a bunch of boxes being opened with a bunch of semi-related concepts pulled out that suggest a lot of problems going forward, and then a quick wrapping paper job with a messy bow over the mess trying to appeal to "things are actually better than they feel".

I did like the bit about how the West progressed because big thinkers talked to people who make cool machines. Ideas need application to be ultimately worthwhile.

 

[Dak]

Not sure exactly where this quote comes from but it's decades old at the least:

a profound crisis is inevitable at the point when prosperity and comfort will finally become boring

Seems pretty spot on.

 

[Einherjar86]

Is the the implication that prosperity and comfort are the reasons for dissent and dissatisfaction in modern society? Because prosperity and comfort have never been globally present or evenly distributed; and in plenty of places, prosperity and comfort don't exist. I'm not sure I think the upheavals of our historical moment can be explained by the boredom of success.

 

[Dak]

Dissatisfaction occurs not when people have it the worst, but just when they think they might could have it even better. From another direction, the banality of cycle of produce-consume-(sleep), divorced scientifically and socially from any higher meaning or cause, drives one to either dispair or desire for that thing lacking. In the age of Reason we have no reason for living.

 

[Einherjar86]

So people who suffer under violent regimes aren't dissatisfied?

 

[Dak]

So people who suffer under violent regimes aren't dissatisfied?

If there appears to be no possibility of improvement and/or the situation is so dire so as to consume all your energy to get along from day to day, thoughts of dissatisfaction are in the first case pointless, and in the other case, dangerous.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think it's pretty obvious that people in such places do feel thoughts of dissatisfaction though. Hence you have feminist movements in Islamic countries, self-immolation in the Arab Spring, refugees fleeing in masses to come to European countries, etc. It seem to me that people can acknowledge their dissatisfaction just fine.

 

[Dak]

I think it's pretty obvious that people in such places do feel thoughts of dissatisfaction though. Hence you have feminist movements in Islamic countries, self-immolation in the Arab Spring, refugees fleeing in masses to come to European countries, etc. It seem to me that people can acknowledge their dissatisfaction just fine.

I see your examples as proof of one of the points. The primary point is that our empty comfort is fertile ground for upheaval.

 

[Einherjar86]

Whose empty comfort? Whom does "our" refer to? Because while I agree that you and I experience comfort in relation to women in Islamic countries, I'd say that their resistance is due more to their discomfort than our comfort.

 

[Dak]

Whose empty comfort? Whom does "our" refer to? Because while I agree that you and I experience comfort in relation to women in Islamic countries, I'd say that their resistance is due more to their discomfort than our comfort.

If you seek examples of these resistors, what you will most likely find are women in, say, US occupied countries (or in the somewhat occupied portions), or in countries which are more liberal (ie Iran or Jordan).

I'm looking at the West though. We have killed transcendence with god, and with transcendence, purpose. That's why you get stories like these:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/03/europe/isis-behind-the-mask/index.html

He says Islam offered him the promise of purpose and structure, providing strict rules and moral clarity in a world where the prevailing liberalism favored shades of gray over black and white.

Michael became Younnes, Arabic for dove.

He saw his new religion as a step up from Christianity: “I can compare it with buying a computer. If you know there’s a Windows 10, you’re not going to go with Windows XP … It’s an upgrade.”

The man, being fed, housed, and clothed by the child of Christianity (secular humanism) and in the shadow of the grand works past, longs for the dirt and violence of the Levant - for there is purpose there. Christianity has castrated itself, and Islam is virile.

Of course, that is one direction to go. Another is some form of populism - nationalistic or racial. Maybe the emergence of the religious left
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-religion-idUSKBN16Y114
or atheist churches
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21319945
or maybe any number "movements". Maybe go trash the Dakotas to prevent an oil pipeline from trashing it later. Maybe Occupy a Street. Maybe go to the same place as a bunch of other people while carrying signs.

And yet the emptiness lingers and grows. Because in the end it's all for dust and ash, and we know it. Tyler Durden laughs and knows time is on his side.

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/0...ow-leading-cause-of-ill-health-worldwide.html

Depression has become the leading cause of ill health and disability across the world, now affecting more than 300 million people globally, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The worldwide depression rates increased 18 percent between 2005 and 2015, according to the WHO.

 

[Einherjar86]

So, protesting the DAP, or going to the Women's March, or the March for Science (happening later this month), aren't in response to actual problems, but because we actually don't have anything to complain about. Sounds about right.

 

[Dak]

So, protesting the DAP, or going to the Women's March, or the March for Science (happening later this month), aren't in response to actual problems, but because we actually don't have anything to complain about. Sounds about right.

The potential problems of the DAP were overshadowed by both the need for the oil and the actual trashing of the area by activists. As for the Women's march, it isn't in response to any actual problems (in the US anyway - they should have flown to Saudi Arabia and marched there). The scientific method cannot be "endangered", and even if it were, a march wouldn't protect it.

Edit: Objective, material indicators show the world is in better shape than ever before (for example, world poverty has been cut in half in the last 25 years), yet people are increasingly unhappy and prone to radicalization. US women under the age of 30 are out performing male peers in school and at work, but we need a pussy hat march. Oil pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport a vital resource (albeit not a perfect way), and yet it's ok to swarm and trash an area to try and stop it from maybe trashing that area.

 

[Einherjar86]

Wow. You're incredible. Not only did you just admit that poor response toward an issue negates the importance of an issue (not a logical conclusion at all, which you should know), but you also somehow managed to completely miss the point about a march for science. Do you really think it's about the endangerment of the scientific method? Are you being serious?

 

[Dak]

Wow. You're incredible. Not only did you just admit that poor response toward an issue negates the importance of an issue (not a logical conclusion at all, which you should know), but you also somehow managed to completely miss the point about a march for science. Do you really think it's about the endangerment of the scientific method? Are you being serious?

I don't see how science is in danger. I do know that certain government funding sources are threatened. Government funding =/= the thing itself (unless, of course, we mean a government-exclusive service, like letter mail delivery and the uniformed services).

Pipeline spills being negated by the absence of pipelines is equivalent to killing people to prevent them from dying of any number of illnesses. Calling the DAP protests a poor response is an understatement.

This is all, still, beside the point. These movements are stabs at finding a purpose in fleeting events, in misidentified solutions to potentially inescapable trade-offs if not outright non-problems (obviously if your job is threatened by government fundings cuts or changes, these are certainly personal problems even if not systemic threats to the field). The secular/christian west lacks meaning and purpose, and ideologies (including other religions) offer Hope and Change, even (and maybe especially) if it comes with a bloody cost. There's a reason why women voluntarily don hijabs. There's a reason why people will vote in populist demagogues. There's a reason why people will blow themselves up or self-immolate, and it isn't ultimately material comfort, which is all the West has left to offer at this point.

If science is in danger, it is because it offers no meaning or purpose. Science is a tool, not an end. The West has confused this.