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1 | #title Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time |
2 | |
3 | I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am **not** |
4 | a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional |
5 | socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the *political compass* two |
6 | dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described |
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7 | as *curmudgeonly bastard* if you must have a label for it. This is only |
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8 | because being a curmudgeonly bastard isn't an ideology, but rather a |
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9 | broad set of ideas centered around the rejection of traditional |
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10 | political and social structures (*i.e* hating everything). I reject the |
11 | *ressentiment* (lookit I'm Nietzsche) of traditional anarchism and |
12 | believe not that every man should have no master (for then *all* would |
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13 | be weak), but rather that he should be his own master (does that even |
14 | *mean* anything? Eh, it sounds nice so who cares). |
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15 | |
16 | These short essays are mere stubs I wrote a long while ago, and each |
17 | will perhaps be extended in the future. |
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18 | |
19 | * [[Wisdom][The Basis of My Philosophy]] |
20 | |
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21 | I read some things and thought they were cool. Now I can make people |
22 | think I'm smarter than I really am. |
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23 | |
24 | * The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken |
25 | |
26 | ** The Government of the Unites States |
27 | |
28 | I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being |
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29 | broken beyond repair (perhaps this is a bit conservative, but one must |
30 | hope). As it stands the government above the local level (and even |
31 | there!) ignores the individual citizen and instead is only forced to |
32 | do anything by large scale action. As far as the individual is |
33 | concerned we no longer live in a Republic, but rather in an Plutocracy |
34 | which is quickly descending into something far worse. |
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35 | |
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36 | *** Healthcare *Reform* |
37 | |
38 | Upon airing my objections to the current Healthcare *Reform* bill, I was |
39 | asked: did you read the bill? To which I replied with action and read |
40 | [[http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590&tab=summary][the official summary of the bill]]. And now I ask those who asked me if |
41 | I had read it: have *you* read it. I received as a reply an unequivocal: |
42 | *why should I have to*. |
43 | |
44 | Fun fact: it isn't as bad as some people make it seem, but guess what? |
45 | *It does nothing beneficial to the individual*. All it does it require |
46 | that anyone over 30 purchase insurance, severely restricts the usage |
47 | of Health Savings Accounts (which, may be not so bad--I have no |
48 | opinion on their usefulness... but *Republicans* created them so they |
49 | *must* be *evil*), and is generally a piece of hey-look-I-did-something |
50 | (but nothing goes into effect until I am out of office) |
51 | legislation. This has never happened before, obviously. We are on the |
52 | surface of Mars now too didn't you know. |
53 | |
54 | Meanwhile there is what amounts to no price controls, an actual *ban* on |
55 | the formation of State run healthcare (until 2017, and then only at |
56 | the discretion of the HHS secretary), and token (unfunded) support for |
57 | the formation of healthcare cooperatives. There are some taxes on |
58 | large drug makers, but the research required by the FDA for drug |
59 | approval is *tax deductible* (and so the larger drug makers can avoid |
60 | most of the new taxes, har). And... an excise tax on overly fancy |
61 | healthcare plans... more or less, a nice bill that, if it manages to |
62 | not be overturned by 2018, will do absolutely nothing one way or the |
63 | other. |
64 | |
65 | It is obvious that I am indeed a dirty Nazi redneck terrorist |
66 | teabagger Republican piece of shit who hates the poor and black |
67 | people. I guess it's time for my white ass to move to Iran and see how |
68 | I like it there! |
69 | |
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70 | ** Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil |
71 | |
72 | Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an |
73 | economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an |
74 | attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some |
75 | profit? |
76 | |
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77 | But then again, what does *evil* mean? |
78 | |
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79 | * Misc |
80 | |
81 | ** Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (=Draft Revision 2=) |
82 | |
83 | ; maybe reinsert intro [[clintons-plans#Writing]] |
84 | |
85 | ; - Craft work compensated directly |
86 | |
87 | It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The |
88 | material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally |
89 | derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each |
90 | item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure |
91 | that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort. |
92 | |
93 | ; - Creative work indirectly |
94 | ; - Harder to regain effort spent on creating |
95 | |
96 | Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous |
97 | route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance; |
98 | the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs |
99 | (printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible |
100 | importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective |
101 | way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can |
102 | make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations |
103 | to determine the value on their own. |
104 | |
105 | ; - Works contain ideas |
106 | ; - Focus on written works |
107 | ; - Inherent nature of ideas |
108 | ; - Absorbed into the mind of the reader |
109 | ; - Freely copied orally, libraries, ... |
110 | ; - Absorbed into the culture |
111 | |
112 | |
113 | Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A |
114 | painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the |
115 | structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form, |
116 | an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works |
117 | weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to |
118 | them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life; |
119 | a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts |
120 | which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who |
121 | control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a |
122 | result of the ability of ideas to change the individual. |
123 | |
124 | After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a |
125 | creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created |
126 | continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book |
127 | written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases |
128 | to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract |
129 | works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New |
130 | ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into |
131 | the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the |
132 | old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a |
133 | work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works |
134 | that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the |
135 | property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved |
136 | by *someone* and avoid death. |
137 | |
138 | ; - Copyright helps authors |
139 | ; - Gives reasonable period for ideas to be commercially exploited |
140 | |
141 | Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are |
142 | compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to |
143 | the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public |
144 | property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human |
145 | judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to |
146 | copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to |
147 | determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright |
148 | give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained |
149 | within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to |
150 | continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright |
151 | and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural |
152 | stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works |
153 | becoming unavailable. |
154 | |
155 | ; - Copyright should be short |
156 | ; - Purpose is to give the creator time to compensate himself for the |
157 | ; effort spent writing |
158 | ; - Works often have short commercial life (cite) |
159 | |
160 | The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to |
161 | ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for |
162 | their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from |
163 | unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not |
164 | be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year |
165 | that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the |
166 | number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a |
167 | creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his |
168 | work. |
169 | |
170 | A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of |
171 | copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may |
172 | keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply |
173 | sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal |
174 | coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the |
175 | public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A |
176 | person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to |
177 | them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible |
178 | (e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able |
179 | to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large |
180 | increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance |
181 | made special arrangements to have them preserved. |
182 | |
183 | A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are |
184 | really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be |
185 | relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems |
186 | reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a |
187 | generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second |
188 | generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good |
189 | (issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into |
190 | play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span |
191 | of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication |
192 | for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance |
193 | between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from |
194 | dying (from my eyes). |
195 | |
196 | The works of the current generation, their parents, their |
197 | grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in |
198 | the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the |
199 | lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six |
200 | generations. |
201 | |
202 | ** Fewer Laws Are Better |
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203 | |
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204 | *** Individuals should not have their actions regulated |
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205 | |
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206 | *** Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated |
207 | |
208 | Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the |
209 | power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals |
210 | that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem |
211 | is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities |
212 | and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals |
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213 | gives a large corporation much more than this. |
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214 | |
215 | **** Corporate Personhood should be revoked |
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216 | |
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217 | **** Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics |
218 | |
219 | * Social Ills |
220 | |
221 | ** Mass Culture |
222 | |
223 | American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there |
224 | is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million |
225 | people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do |
226 | not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move |
227 | to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is |
228 | nowhere to go. Everywhere a *social deviant* goes he will feel alienated |
229 | and have his social options severely limited. |
230 | |
231 | A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively |
232 | hostile toward anything not falling in line with the |
233 | mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as |
234 | individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical |
235 | thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is |
236 | discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic |
237 | are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been |
238 | exposed to propaganda from birth. |
239 | |
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240 | *** The Talking Heads |
241 | |
242 | Poison the well. Burn a strawman. |
243 | |
244 | This is real argument. Real thought. |
245 | |
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246 | ** The Automobile |
247 | |
248 | ; How far is your average trip in a car? If you don't often go further |
249 | ; than twenty miles have you thought about getting rid of your car? |
250 | ; Twenty miles! Quite the distance, isn't it? In reality it is a short |
251 | ; [[Bicycle][bicycle]] ride that is often under or only slightly longer than an hour |
252 | ; long! If this pathetic nerd can do it so can you! |
253 | |
254 | ; We have finite natural resources, and oil is a resource that we have |
255 | ; foolishly exploited to the point of exhaustion. Ethanol and other |
256 | ; biofuels are pipe dreams, and you **shall** have no choice but to learn to |
257 | ; live without a car as oil is going to increase in cost substantially |
258 | ; over the next twenty years. Why wait until you are forced to give up |
259 | ; your car to do so? It makes more economic sense to give it up now |
260 | ; rather than spend more and more of your income every year just to |
261 | ; travel. Even ignoring that aspect the confidence it fills you with is |
262 | ; quite wonderful; there was a time when I walked staring at the ground |
263 | ; fearful of the world, and now I stand tall and can stare a driver in |
264 | ; the eyes and tell him to go ahead and try to run into me because I'm |
265 | ; not giving up my ground. |
266 | |
267 | ; Try self transport; it is good for your body and mind. The relative |
268 | ; low cost of automobiles has forced us into a false sense of needing to |
269 | ; be transported by machine. We are humans; the lone bipedal upon this |
270 | ; planet. We were born to transport ourselves! |
271 | |
272 | ** Learned Ignorance and Weakness |
273 | |
274 | [[Old Viewpoints][obsolete]] |
275 | |
276 | [[TRUTH]] |