Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

[Einherjar86]

This is from the middle, it's too long to be quoting the whole thing. I can't believe I'm reading it in a CFR publication.

Ah, thanks.

Reading about its history, it seems like it's entertained a host of right-wing contributors, including Fukuyama. It is kind of ironic though to find this position being promoted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

I'm afraid I don't understand the significance here, you might need to parse it a bit for me.

There are a few things, some more significant than others.

First, most Western philosophy criticized Derrida when he first came onto the scene. He was famously criticized by American philosophers in the 1960s when he delivered a now-canonical lecture titled "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." At that time, American philosophy was dominated by pragmatism, and they saw Derrida's remarks as unnecessarily obscurantist (a fair criticism), but also as not really saying anything new or revealing. As Bakker suggests, to pragmatists Derrida's point was "obvious": "Nothing is given, least of all meaning and experience." And this is true, Wittgenstein already made basically the same argument far more convincingly in his Investigations, if not in a roundabout way in the conclusion of the Tractatus (from 1922).

Bakker's point, and what I appreciate his post for, is his perceptiveness regarding the language in which Derrida makes his argument. As Bakker says, Derrida makes his point "within the phenomenological idiom" - he's "reproducing" the phenomenological argument in order to expose its internal contradictions from within. At the time Derrida was coming onto the scene, phenomenology was still a ragingly popular philosophical model, namely because Martin Heidegger was still alive and had published the monumental Being and Time in the 1920s. There are still plenty of phenomenologists today, albeit mostly across the Channel; but phenomenology also manifests in disciplines beyond philosophy - even in the rudiments of thought itself. Bakker has a problem with the phenomenological method, so Derrida's work has value for him.

For Bakker, phenomenology embodies something very literal about what he's calling the "horizons" of thought, or the methodological oversight of "keyhole neglect." These are material issues for current neuro-scientific inquiries (neuropsychology, neurophysiology, neurophenomenology, etc.), and Bakker is suggesting that Derrida's theory of "the trace" and other deconstructionist concepts can help us identify and understand these issues when they crop up.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

More people with college degrees = a slightly more "cosmopolitan" group of people, but I don't know that that has actually proven beneficial in any measurable way.

Here's your proof:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...tion-level-sharply-divides-clinton-trump-race

"Clinton wins the college-educated segment by 25 percentage points, 59 percent to 34 percent. ... That’s vastly different from what was recorded in the 2012 presidential election, where exit polling showed 47 percent of voters were college graduates. In that contest, President Barack Obama only narrowly beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney among college graduates, 50 percent to 48 percent."

 

[Dak]

Here's your proof:
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...tion-level-sharply-divides-clinton-trump-race

"Clinton wins the college-educated segment by 25 percentage points, 59 percent to 34 percent. ... That’s vastly different from what was recorded in the 2012 presidential election, where exit polling showed 47 percent of voters were college graduates. In that contest, President Barack Obama only narrowly beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney among college graduates, 50 percent to 48 percent."

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?

 

[arg]

College graduates today are fucking stupid. They have been brainwashed by liberalism and their degrees are worth jack shit. Fuck the college vote; doesn't mean anything.

I'd value a redneck tractor driver's vote over a sheltered left-wing college loony any day because the former knows what the real world is like.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'd value a redneck tractor driver's vote over a sheltered left-wing college loony any day because the former knows what the real world is like.

If the real world is driving a tractor in the fucking boondocks, then please give me the fake world. It sounds way better.

 

[Dak]

If the real world is driving a tractor in the fucking boondocks, then please give me the fake world. It sounds way better.

Having "driven a truck in the boondocks", I'd say many alternatives are better. However, it is important to note that truck driving is a large sector of the economy, and supports nearly all economic activity. The voice of truck drivers shouldn't be denigrated.

 

[Einherjar86]

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.

 

[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.