Gratitude, Tacos, Expanding Networks, Dangerous Ideas

[tcpip]

Firstly, enormous gratitude towards those who expressed kind words over the little incident on NYE. I am indeed blessed with extraordinary and wonderful friends. A report has been made, our injuries have been photographed and the unfortunate fools have forgotten one slight issue with attacking people in the city - cameras. There's a very good chance the entire thing is on film.

Not one to let injuries impinge on my social life, caseopaya and I attended a fine Kerry Packer wake-cum-Taco Party hosted by rogue_scholar and dodgethis. Also had the opportunity to meet fryboy in person. An excellent night and I look forward to associating more with these bright young people. Later in the week we both had the great opportunity to visit splodgenoodes and briefly chat with tenbears

I have been having curious name resolution issues with my Red Hat/Fedora laptop. It has been very frustrating and time consuming to say the least. Actually Red Hat/Fedora as a curious distribution so I shouldn't be surprised. An odd amalgamation of the bleeding edge and conservatism. Whilst on topic, many of my half-alive boxes have been stripped and rebuilt increasing the size of the home network by another three machines; all currently running Windows 98. I am planning one Windows 98 box (lets face it, you only need one), and two FreeBSD installations. Why? Because they exist.

The Edge has come out with a "Dangerous Idea" competition (from fraerie) "The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

What should I choose? Jefferson's idea of confederacy of neighbourhood republics, Thomas Paine and Henry George's land tax or my own proposal of adulthood and citizenship being based on assessment of cognitive and moral reasoning?

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Because the Greek city states worked so well.

They certainly worked very well at the time.

If it doesn't drive farmers out of business. (And the IT sector really messes up the theory).

The only farmers that would be driven out of business are those who are actually pretending to be farmers whilst in reality they're just waiting for the ideal time to sell.

Very beneficial for the IT sector. Produces high value, with low resource usage.

Hmmm... I'd never really thought in details how much IT workers could benefit from such a scheme.

Jump, Jim Crow! (Being more serious, I see a massive case of both the "IQ test bias" and teaching people to lie to pass moral reasoning tests).

I don't know whether you could "pretend" to engage in formal operations in moral reasoning. Either you take into account the rights and feelings of another person or you don't. As for IQ test bias, Carol Gilligan already took Lawrence Kohlberg to task on this; of course, Gilligan is actually a strong supporter of Kohlberg and actually saw her work as an improvement not as a rejection of the discipline of moral reasoning in developmental psychology.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

They certainly worked very well at the time.

Tell that to the Helots. (I won't say the women because the whole structure was bad that way). Or to the people who died in regular confrontations between the city states. Yes, there are far worse systems - but I think we've moved past their being good systems.

(The point about Helots is that federations in such a pattern allow some groups to get away with being fairly seriously uncivilised).

Very beneficial for the IT sector. Produces high value, with low resource usage.

IT also messes up land valuations because with the Internet (or even, to a lesser extent, telephones), you don't need to be near someone for fairly close communications to take place. I spy high-rise towerblocks in the middle of almost nowhere as the consequence.

I don't know whether you could "pretend" to engage in formal operations in moral reasoning. Either you take into account the rights and feelings of another person or you don't.

And bullies are superb at taking into account the feelings of others...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

1) Ummm... The helots were under the Spartan monarchy, which most certainly wasn't a confederation of neighbourhood republics.


2) ICT is still more efficient where there is good telecommunications infrastructure which is a factor in land values.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

1: It was part of the Greek confederation of city states. My point is that having a vast collection of small governments almost ensures that some will be fairly repressive. As for repression in republics, remember that the Tyrant of Syracuse was elected. And that Jefferson lived in a republic which endorsed slavery. In a collection of city states, getting a sufficient weight together to ban something that is considered immoral is very difficult.

2: But the cost of that is falling... Also, a Land Value Tax (as opposed to a Property Tax) counts the unimproved value of the land... (Quite how this even can exist, I have no idea).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

1) Fair enough. You are quite right about this of course, and indeed there was almost a celebration of the diversity in the confederation. At least in theory one can have a confederation where membership is based on universal human rights.

2) Unimproved value is based on the rental value of a block without anything on it; thus the real value as estate agents always tell us is "location, location, location" - the value is very dependent on the surrounding infrastructure (it also includes natural resources intrinsic to the block).

I think it's very fortunate that telecommunications cost are low in proportion to other costs.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

"I don't know whether you could "pretend" to engage in formal operations in moral reasoning. Either you take into account the rights and feelings of another person or you don't."

One problem i could see with this would be the many, many people in the world who would equate moral reasoning not with taking into account the rights and feelings of another person but with obeying the will of God as they interpret it.

(Well, that and a general problem with whether it would be a 'green light' for discrimination of various sorts - eg making non-citizens of the mentally handicapped could lead to some very dark places. Dangerous ideas indeed.)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

... but with obeying the will of God as they interpret it.

By definition that's not reasonable; reason implies that there are testable standards.

... making non-citizens of the mentally handicapped could lead to some very dark places.

Ummm.. They already have significant legal restrictions (for example they can be removed from the Electoral Roll) based on capacity. It's the same thing really.

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

"By definition that's not reasonable; reason implies that there are testable standards."

Depends who's deciding what the definition is. :)

"They already have significant legal restrictions (for example they can be removed from the Electoral Roll) based on capacity. It's the same thing really."

Dunno, i see a big conceptual difference between 'ineligible to vote' and 'non-citizen'.

I guess i'm seeing the idea of 'citizenship as a privilege' as an express ticket to creating new over- and under-classes. (Well, more than already).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Depends who's deciding what the definition is. :)

Well, as I mentioned previously using those standards as developed by Kohlberg and Gilligan.

Dunno, i see a big conceptual difference between 'ineligible to vote' and 'non-citizen'.

Conceptually the distinction is about various legal capacities. Our society assigns many legal capacities automatically on conference of arbritrary age. I question that wisdom

[strang-er.livejournal.com]

"Our society assigns many legal capacities automatically on conference of arbritrary age. I question that wisdom"

Fair enough, though i feel sometimes arbitrary can be preferable to discriminatory.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Arbritrary is a particular type of discriminatory (after all, everything discriminates - it just depends on what basis one discriminates on).

For example, there is an arbritrary rule in one state to be member of the voting public (i.e., the Vatican City) that you must be at least 80 years of age and male. This is regardless of the competence of said voter.