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Tuesday, August 26, 2003
The Prime Directive While perusing multifarious leftist memes, I often encounter someone whinging about American support of horrific governments around the globe. To wit: …this article fails to mention how some of the allies our right wing buddy in the white house is paying (TAX DOLLARS) to be on our "coalition of the willing", violate human and civil rights. Let's see a report from the State Department:The whole argument seems Pollyannaish to me for a couple reasons: First, it seems these pundits would have us believe that it is U.S. influence that perpetuates the existence of governmental evil and civilian hardship in the world community. I consider this a chicanery at best. Come on! We have been in the muck for the better part of what, one or two million years? Civilization is a blip in time by comparison and the kind of information exchange we’ve got going now is so new that the umbilical cord is still attached. The evolutionary mix of technology and philosophy and culture that has produced this situation is by no means a mere exercise in political fiat. It lives on a knife edge, and that we should expect it to exist everywhere in the world – right now dammit! – is an eye-roller. Which brings me to my second reason: What is the best we can hope to accomplish? I submit that the best we can hope to do is to attempt to place incentives here and there, leading less developed nations to discover, by their own volition, the incredibly sophisticated, iterative evolution of systems and ideas that have produced our wealth and prosperity. Were the U.S. a socialist Mecca, I imagine the call to liberate the nations of the world would be legion. Look at the left’s support of Kosivo or their recent pressure to go into Liberia. “Socialists are often pacifists,” you say? Tell Anastasia Romanov or the 23 children on the 13 de Marzo. My point is, the exigencies of geopolitics are too vast and convoluted to control short of world empire, so our incentives and attempts to curry favor or provide balance are often the best we can do and we do it with the knowledge that it will sometimes fail. It is a non-invasive approach. posted by Malaclypse the Tertiary at 3:02 AM · Thursday, August 21, 2003
Environmental Misanthropy The French are demonstrating nicely, the fundamental misanthropy girding much of what calls itself environmentalism. The Independent is suggesting that “some 10,000 people - mostly over the age of 75” have been killed in the recent heat wave. While the French government points innocently at the thermometer, they belie what amounts to, in the words of one debunkers.org poster, their citizens being “taxed to death – literally.” The debunkers thread links to this nice summation of the issue. posted by Malaclypse the Tertiary at 11:38 PM · Friday, August 08, 2003
I think I may be on to something ...although in these situations, it often turns out that I am, in fact, not. I shall not, however, allow that to deter me in the least. You see, I got to wondering tonight about the motion of people in a large group. Consider, for example, the flow of foot traffic in the corridor of Busch Stadium during a Cardinals game. How, if at all, does the ostensible free will of the individuals moving through/with/against the throng effect their movement? Does the human consciousness have any sort of mathematically discernable impact on an individual’s behavior in a situation like this? Or upon the pattern of the entire motion taken as a whole? In particular I wonder, if one could describe the motion of both water molecules in flowing water and people in a flowing crowd with some success mathematically, would it then be possible to make some comparisons? Would these comparisons provide any insight into the nature of free will? posted by Malaclypse the Tertiary at 11:08 PM · |
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