Zompist Bboard Again

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:57 am No, you couldn't: assuming a UBI of $10,000 a year -- barely enough to survive on, there are 200 million adults in the US. This amounts to 2 trillion dollars a year.
(By comparison, Amazon's entire income is 26 billion a year and Jeff Bezos' net worth is 200 billion dollars.)

The US federal budget is 3.5 trillion; and in fact that sum distributed to our 200 million American that would make for a decent UBI.

That doesn't mean it's impossible (far from it: I mean even if the numbers look huge, that's only 15% of GDP.) But 'how to double the federal budget and raise 3.5 trillion dollars' isn't a trivial problem.

The way I see it, life is nothing but a loss of "money" when it's conceived of as a mysterious wealth substance rather than counters handed out to coordinate trade. There is no amount of productivity you can contribute that will make your life a net gain for the world despite all the resources you consume. That is, unless you can literally reverse entropy. Geeks like to glorify inventors, but this ignores the fact that inventions often come about as lucky breaks in a brute-force search.

In other words, Zeus is right to despise humans. If there existed gods, superheros or martial arts prodigies with qi powers who can reverse entropy, then ordinary humans would in fact be entirely dependent on them in the long run. As it is, we are all in a subordinate position to existing negentropy.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 2:57 am Libertarias are just very good at that sort of thing. That's because the real inventors of libertarianism are Robert and Virginia Heinlein: an engineer and a science-fiction writer.
Engineers feel compelled to explore solutions thoroughly and figure out where and how they'd break. Science-fiction writers or more largely conworlders feel the need to explore in some detail how fictional society would work -- it also helps that Robert Heinlein had worked in marketing and wasn't half bad at it. The two of them working as a team turned Barry Goldwater's uninspiring reactionary conservatism into a very compelling and vivid picture.

The glorification of the military in Starship Troopers, a tremendously destructive and largely unproductive profession, came off as fascist to me.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 11:06 am The way I see it, life is nothing but a loss of "money" when it's conceived of as a mysterious wealth substance rather than counters handed out to coordinate trade. There is no amount of productivity you can contribute that will make your life a net gain for the world despite all the resources you consume. That is, unless you can literally reverse entropy. Geeks like to glorify inventors, but this ignores the fact that inventions often come about as lucky breaks in a brute-force search.

In other words, Zeus is right to despise humans. If there existed gods, superheros or martial arts prodigies with qi powers who can reverse entropy, then ordinary humans would in fact be entirely dependent on them in the long run. As it is, we are all in a subordinate position to existing negentropy.

As I see it, the problem isn't a metaphysical one but a very practical one of getting tokens where they're needed most.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 11:06 am The glorification of the military in Starship Troopers, a tremendously destructive and largely unproductive profession, came off as fascist to me.

The most libertarian Heinlein novel is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I wouldn't call Starship Troopers fascist. You could make a fun drinking game out of it (each time you spot a logical fallacy, take a drink!) but it's not fascist and there's indeed something to Heinlein's thesis. (I hasten to add that, no I don't believe in restricting voting rights to veterans, or public floggings.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:30 pm As I see it, the problem isn't a metaphysical one but a very practical one of getting tokens where they're needed most.

The token collectors are motivated by token collecting. If they can't rake in the tokens, they will stop fronting businesses whose purpose is to collect tokens. The purpose of my metaphysical speculation is to explain why it looks to me like the political right secretly believes in qi.

(None of this is an issue if the survival industries operate democratically.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:30 pm The most libertarian Heinlein novel is The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Never finished that one. I read Stranger In A Strange Land, which was all weird 60's sex cult-ish.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:30 pm I wouldn't call Starship Troopers fascist. You could make a fun drinking game out of it (each time you spot a logical fallacy, take a drink!) but it's not fascist and there's indeed something to Heinlein's thesis. (I hasten to add that, no I don't believe in restricting voting rights to veterans, or public floggings.)

I don't understand what there was to Heinlein's thesis. IIRC it sounded like calling for a military coup, but adding that ex-soldiers would have a civilian democracy.

The ideology is not necessarily fascist in the sense that it's not necessarily a bad fit for the Soviet Union, but in at least one point, the Soviet Union was giving out awards to women for having lots of children!

rotting bones wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:51 pm The token collectors are motivated by token collecting. If they can't rake in the tokens, they will stop fronting businesses whose purpose is to collect tokens. The purpose of my metaphysical speculation is to explain why it looks to me like the political right secretly believes in qi.

Ah, yes, I get what you mean. I believe the answer is far more pedestrian: they feel it's their stuff and they won't give any of it away. The rest is excuses you can safely ignore.

I don't understand what there was to Heinlein's thesis. IIRC it sounded like calling for a military coup, but adding that ex-soldiers would have a civilian democracy.

The idea is that being a citizen also means being willing to make sacrifices for the common good. That's a pretty reasonable take.
Ultimately, Heinlein's system comes down to mandatory military service (with an exit clause if you don't care about voting): it's not the smartest of systems and I'm very happy France abolished it, but it's not fascist either.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:08 pm The idea is that being a citizen also means being willing to make sacrifices for the common good. That's a pretty reasonable take.

The idea that the sacrifices made by an arbitrary military force are for the common good is a questionable assumption. In this case, the civilian government is responsible solely to veterans.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 3:36 pm The idea that the sacrifices made by an arbitrary military force are for the common good is a questionable assumption. In this case, the civilian government is responsible solely to veterans.

Oh, yeah, I don't believe in Heinlein's utopia either.

But his vision was colored to WWII -- one of those exceptional case where sacrifices were actually made for the common good (I mean, for the Allies.) and the 50s Soviet Union (which was extremely scary.)

I am not against universal military service, with no deferments* or anything of the sort (aside from if one is not physically able to serve**), if the people have to vote on any non-extremely short term military action to approve it, and regularly vote on it again to re-approve it. That way the people, including those who would be fighting in the first place, ultimately have control over going to war and continuing to fight a war. Also, it means that the military would be composed of people of all social strata and equally both men and women, rather than being primarily limited to mostly men of lesser opportunities (with a smaller number of women and people who are not working class), so that there would not be the issue of those who decide on going to war not being socially like those who would go to war.

* This is important, because in Vietnam many middle and upper class men were able to get out of fighting by getting educational deferments not available to working and lower class men.
** And this has to be significant, not just something minor like "bone spurs".

I would also add to that protections for reasonable bodily autonomy (including abolishing mandatory haircuts or styles — whether gender-based, as requiring men to have very short hair, or women long — or not — except perhaps for hair dyed in unnatural colours), civil rights (an end to courts-martial, with all cases tried in civilian court), and human rights (prohibiting degrading treatment of soldiers, especially recruits, and punishing violations severely), but otherwise I also don't find mandatory service entirely objectionable; I might, however, prefer that some of it be in various civilian activities (science, research, and other things useful to society), especially for conscientious objectors.

Mandatory military service is more than a little morally questionable. Ditto for civilian service. If the State has a job that needs doing, well, it can do like any other organization and pay for it instead of forcing people to do it.
(Heinlein took pains to describe his military service as entirely voluntary. I don't think his solution works, but evidently he saw the moral issue with a draft.)

I don't think it's terribly useful either. Military service ended here because essentially the army had on its hands millions of young men that did not want to be there, that for the most part weren't any good at soldiering, and that it had no use for. (Having a large amount of cannon-fodder is perhaps useful if you want to zerg rush through Germany, but the French army in the post-colonial era has served in small scale but difficult ops that require highly motivated, highly trained soldiers.)

For that matter, 'soldier' is one of these jobs (like farmer, for instance) that don't get nearly enough respect: it's not something any idiot with a gun can do, there are some very difficult skills involved and not everyone is cut out for it.

The reason boot camps were nasty, at least in France, is that they had only a few months, sometimes a few weeks, to teach very difficult skills to all sorts of random young men, most of whom desperately wanted to do something else. I don't know how nasty military training is, these days.

Re: Heinlein, I'll note that in his review of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, zompist wrote:

It's been convincingly argued that in Heinlein a passionate love of liberty coexisted with a disturbing authoritarian streak. In all too many books Heinlein maintains that a clique of omnicompetent overachievers could obviously run things much better. Paradoxically, he was perfectly aware that such elites only rule for their own benefit, and that to resist them is a sacred duty.

( http://zompist.com/heinlein.html )

(For the record, I've never read anything by Heinlein myself. Once, at around the time in my life when I was starting to get into written SF, I walked up to the SF section of a train station bookstore, looked at some books in the Heinlein subsection, took out "Friday", opened it, read the dedication, and decided that I didn't have to read anything by that guy.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 4:03 am
The reason boot camps were nasty, at least in France, is that they had only a few months, sometimes a few weeks, to teach very difficult skills to all sorts of random young men, most of whom desperately wanted to do something else. I don't know how nasty military training is, these days.

Well, the kind of people who join professional armies are often the kind of people who take pride in being able to put up with nasty circumstances, so they'd probably be disappointed if it wouldn't be nasty.

Oh, there is that too.

(As for Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers and the Moon... are well worth reading. So are a few of his short stories. The rest is pretty bad. Friday is close to unreadable, I never got past chapter one.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 10:31 am

(As for Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers and the Moon... are well worth reading. So are a few of his short stories. The rest is pretty bad. Friday is close to unreadable, I never got past chapter one.)

Based on plot descriptions of Stranger that I've read, do I get this right that in that book, a young man who is the only survivor of the first Earth expedition to Mars uses that status to claim to be the legal owner of Mars, and the movers and shakers on Earth actually take that claim seriously, instead of saying "You think you own Mars, son? You and what army?"

Because that would stretch my willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 4:03 am Mandatory military service is more than a little morally questionable. Ditto for civilian service. If the State has a job that needs doing, well, it can do like any other organization and pay for it instead of forcing people to do it.
(Heinlein took pains to describe his military service as entirely voluntary. I don't think his solution works, but evidently he saw the moral issue with a draft.)

The problem with voluntary military service is that it naturally selects for those with few options or those who would like the idea of going to war to join the military, i.e. those that other people would see as disposable or those who want to fight in the first place. The idea of going to war would be far less palatable to the middle and upper classes if it necessarily meant themselves or their sons or daughters having to go off and fight rather than some anonymous working class cannon fodder. The whole point of mandatory military service combined with directly democratic control over authorizing military action to me, especially in the kind of socialist society I favor which may be threatened by other nations which may wish to forcibly "turn back the clock", is to dissuade aggression by other nations by being armed to the teeth while never actually going to war, as in the case of Switzerland, especially since a decision to go to war would necessarily mean the possibility of sending oneself or one's sons or daughters off to fight.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 1:23 pm Based on plot descriptions of Stranger that I've read, do I get this right that in that book, a young man who is the only survivor of the first Earth expedition to Mars uses that status to claim to be the legal owner of Mars, and the movers and shakers on Earth actually take that claim seriously, instead of saying "You think you own Mars, son? You and what army?"

Because that would stretch my willing suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

There's a bit about owning Mars, but I think this gets settled early on and never really taken seriously. The book is perhaps not for you, though: there's little plot, it's mostly satire with an outrageous premise as a pretext and it stretches suspension of disbelief more than once.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:22 pm The problem with voluntary military service is that it naturally selects for those with few options or those who would like the idea of going to war to join the military, i.e. those that other people would see as disposable or those who want to fight in the first place. The idea of going to war would be far less palatable to the middle and upper classes if it necessarily meant themselves or their sons or daughters having to go off and fight rather than some anonymous working class cannon fodder. The whole point of mandatory military service combined with directly democratic control over authorizing military action to me, especially in the kind of socialist society I favor which may be threatened by other nations which may wish to forcibly "turn back the clock", is to dissuade aggression by other nations by being armed to the teeth while never actually going to war, as in the case of Switzerland, especially since a decision to go to war would necessarily mean the possibility of sending oneself or one's sons or daughters off to fight.

The point about accountability is a good one: I'd be hard pressed to name all of France's recent foreign interventions or the objectives of our ops, or whether they're successful or not. More importantly, the subject is not brought up much during electoral campaign.
Still, I'd find it hard to justify military service. Some counter-examples: Switzerland is honestly overdoing things;
mandatory military service in Israel isn't particularly conducive to pacifism either.

IIRC most American soldiers are actually middle class. Regardless, many of the people starting out in the military are idiots without a direction in life. Their superior officers tell them what to do.

My question is: What structure ensures these officers, who could be all kinds of people (one of them possibly being Curtis Yarvin, who has called for a military coup) won't lead the people under their command in undemocratic directions?

To put it in another way: After the superior officers inevitably lead the people under their command astray, how do we prevent the deviants from causing trouble? This could either be by actively catching them or passively rendering them powerless.

For me, it's not really about being for or against specific policies. Everything depends on how these questions are, or can be, answered.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jun 19, 2021 4:34 pm But his vision was colored to WWII -- one of those exceptional case where sacrifices were actually made for the common good (I mean, for the Allies.) and the 50s Soviet Union (which was extremely scary.)

WWII was started by the Nazis. Why isn't that being counted as an effect of militarism?

I mean, It's not clear to me that humans have built a civilization yet. Yes, the Soviet Union sucked, but these days, South Korea has become a darling of "leftists" somehow. Check out the condition of gay rights over there.

PS. I hope it goes without saying that it's not obvious to me the Allied soldiers were fighting for the common good, etc.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 6:23 pm My question is: What structure ensures these officers, who could be all kinds of people (one of them possibly being Curtis Yarvin, who has called for a military coup) won't lead the people under their command in undemocratic directions?

To put it in another way: After the superior officers inevitably lead the people under their command astray, how do we prevent the deviants from causing trouble? This could either be by actively catching them or passively rendering them powerless.

For me, it's not really about being for or against specific policies. Everything depends on how these questions are, or can be, answered.

The solution is for the military to be thoroughly subordinated to a democratic government, such that officers cannot attempt to make political decisions, such that the government can readily dismiss and prosecute officers who attempt to do so.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:27 pm The solution is for the military to be thoroughly subordinated to a democratic government, such that officers cannot attempt to make political decisions, such that the government can readily dismiss and prosecute officers who attempt to do so.

Originally, we were talking about a democracy that was only responsible to veterans.

As for this new plan, you are suggesting that all young people be subjected to military discipline. What kind of a military is this? If recruits refuse to obey their officers, how are they punished? What are the escape clauses? How and by whom would these laws be enforced?

I didn't mention this before: Starship Troopers very specifically glorifies war, not just the military.

PS. I also heard that the condition of healthcare for poor people is not good in South Korea, etc, but I haven't investigated such claims.

PPS. I can't believe how much time I wasted doing nothing this week. It's not just the work immediately before me. After Chartier, I have to finish reading Deep Learning on Graphs (IIRC graph traversal is spiky: the book discusses how to perform deep learning in this space), Piketty's Capital and Ideology* (halfway through) and the Gormenghast series (abandoned after the first book a long time ago).

*IIRC he argued that medieval Europe was unique in having a celibate priestly/intellectual class or something. Is that true, though? Weren't Buddhist monks supposed to be celibate too? Weren't they the intellectual class in, say, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia?