Personal responsibility

If health insurance companies want to raise rates, that's their decision. That's a choice they are making. How can they blame it on "Obamacare" and not take any personal responsibility for that decision?

The sort of people who complain the most about "Obamacare" are the ones that expect ordinary people to take responsibility for their decisions. But they don't expect this of corporate "persons", apparently.

If the response to this request is something like, "they are just responding to the financial/legal environment" then guess what? HUMANS DO THIS TOO.

I have an idea. Maybe corporate "persons" should either stop bitching about the ACA and take some responsibilities with their rights, or give up on personhood and go back to being legal abstractions.

Nice to have it both ways, isn't it?

More about Money

It seems to me that the very concept we have of money is broken, whether it's symbolized by paper or by metal, whether its symbols are manufactured by nation-states or land-lords or corporations. It behaves in ways we don't allow any other technology to do.

I mean, what would people say if, once 90% of a population had cars, half of them wouldn't start?

How about school grades? What if when more than 4/5 of the people in a class knew the material, the curriculum suddenly changed so that there wasn't too much knowledge?

But money is also a technology and it does work this way. If everyone had enough money, prices would go up until some of them didn't. And we tolerate this. We celebrate this!

Money is a tool. It's a technology we created to serve us. And now is the time to ask whether the kind of money we currently have is the best tool for the job of managing the economy we currently have. Money is a means, not an end. Is it doing its job?

It doesn't seem like it to me.

TANSTALG

I suspect that there is a minimum level of restrictions and prohibitions that emerge as a function of human social behavior. This level will be maintained regardless of the status of the "official" government, though there can always be more of these controls than necessary.

When I imagine putting a thousand people on a tropical island, I don't expect those people to form some sort of coconut-fueled libertopia, even if they are all libertarians. The first thing that will happen, is that they will figure out who's in charge.

The same thing happens in basically all societies. "Government" is not so much a thing as a process, and it will happen whenever people get together. Governing each other seems to be a typical, natural, unavoidable behavior of domesticated primates.

So, what will govern - a constitutional state that at least pays lip service to human rights, or a privately owned entity that doesn't?

A society consisting of nothing but sovereign rugged individualists who interact peacefully via free contracting is a nice idea but, like communism, it isn't realistic given how humans actually behave.

There Ain't No Such Thing As Limited Government.

Economic Metaphor

"Money" is an economic technology created to help humans manage scarcity. It is one of the handful of prehistoric technologies still in use.

It shouldn't be very surprising that managing it with computers to run a global, industrial economy is a disaster. It's like trying to drive down the interstate in a Flintstones-style car by bolting a rocket engine to it.

Unspeakable

Just because something is unspeakable doesn't make it more extreme than the alternatives which can be spoken of. It just has to exist between the categories contained within the lingusitic conceptual framework.

Efficacy of Science

Science can tell us how people do live, but not how they should live. Neuroscience can tell us how the brain does function, but not which of our natural human behaviors should not be indulged in.

The idea that "is does not imply ought" cuts both ways. Because rape and slavery exist, it it true that this does not mean they should. However, principled opposition to these and other terrible things also exists, yet the existence of this opposition does not mean it should exist either. This opposition must be justified, and science cannot do this, but only tell us what does or does not in fact occur.

Cure, Prevent, and Treat

The ILHJ would like to congratulate the FDA for its vigilance in protecting the American consumer from the horrors of Cheerios, a notorious drug sold openly in many supermarkets and explicitly marketed to children.

In response, the Organization would like to make a claim of it's own: Limes cure scurvy. Limes cure and prevent scurvy. Limes cure, prevent, and treat scurvy, which is a disease.

That is to say, we do claim to cure, prevent, and treat a disease: scurvy. By eating limes. Or lemons, oranges, mangoes, or any other food that contains vitamin C. If you're worried about scurvy, go buy some limes, and eat them. Because limes cure, prevent, and treat a disease.

Description

That the only possible description of an entity entails a contradiction in terms does not prove that said entity does not exist. Existence is more fundamental than language.

The tyranny of Reason

Free-thought Constructive. One can almost hear the creed of free-thought solidifying.

A freethinker must not believe in any gods, must only hold beliefs that are supported by science and logic, must be committed to a sort of vague and wispy humanism that affirms that there are such things as human rights, and that the happiness of mankind is of paramount importance.

In other words, free-thinkers are ideologues just like any other. Is not true free-thought the rejection of all boundaries to the movement of the intellect? To reserve the right to believe in the impossible, the absurd, and the fanciful as well as the logical and practical?

When one of the major events of the Age of Reason is the Reign of Terror, it seems likely to suppose that enthralling the operation of the mind to the dictates of an abstraction results in unfortunate consequences, even if it is logic. For logic operates in the realm of necessary truths, and if one is truly devoted to pure logic, one must be prepared to go where it leads.

Show, don't tell.

First, I need to make it plain that no matter what I say, I appreciate the work being done by the people on the Black Iron Prison project. The more I think about the original PD, the more I notice that a lot of the jokes are dated. It could use an overhaul.

But I still have a criticism, and it is based on a principle of good writing: show, don't tell. The OPD showed me, at a time when I was ready for such a message, that it was possible to think about the world for myself. It did this by setting up a religious system that, in its deliberate absurdity, pointed out the artificiality of beliefs and the precarious nature of the descriptions of reality they offered.

When I later read the BIP, what struck me was that it mainly seemed to tell me that I should think for myself. But it didn't show me how; it didn't demonstrate to me what that would look like. I doubt very much that I would have understood if I had encountered BIP before OPD. This is not to say that anyone else will have the same experience.

The reason I think that simply telling people to think is not the best possible tactic is that in my experience, almost everyone believes they already are. "I think for myself, unlike those {people brainwashed by the liberal media | people who watch Faux news | Obama supporters | Randroids | Christians | secularists}." People like this will most likely respond to the BIP message with "Got it covered, buddy! Plan on me continuing to stay just like this."

So by all means update the message of Discordia for a new generation with different political, economic, technological, and cultural concerns. But avoid removing the part that makes it effective. As it is, and I think this is the conventional wisdom, BIP and OPD should be presented together. Each has strengths that complement the other.