[p2p-research] john pilger on the greeks
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Tue May 25 20:11:05 CEST 2010
On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 10:09 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Interesting!
>
> How, I wonder, do you suggest to address the extreme inequalities that
> exist in the world and which are maintained as they are in great deal
> through the use of science and technology by people like Ridley? How
> will our lot be improved when someone like Ridley has been born
> immensely rich and continue to be so, while speaking about improving our
> lot, yet sitting in his mansions?
>
>
Well inequalities are interesting. London is said to be the most unequal
city in terms of GINI in the world. But as I travel it, I am not struck by
the suffering I see regularly in Latin America, the Caribbean or what I saw
in Africa. So is London unequal, or is the world? And why should the world
be equal? Isn't rich relative? To a person in many parts of Africa or
Central America or Asia I am fabulously wealthy for having a car, a washer,
a stove a TV and a computer. So who is unjust, Ridley or me? Why should he
balance if I do not? What amount of consumption is ultimately fair?
> In other words, how can science and technology become emancipatory as
> long as it is in the hands of the few, without some ideals other than
> status quo are worked on? The elite is hell-bent on killing anyone that
> tries to take away even the slightest piece of their cake. That has been
> the case for hundreds if not thousands of years and they continue to use
> science and technology to maintain their position, suggestiong to me
> that the path dependency in science and technology (not per se, but de
> facto) is one of inequality and domination.
>
Emancipatory from what? Science has freed us from a lifespan of 40 in 1820
England to one that is now well over 75. It has freed us from plagues,
etc. Is the world perfect? No. Will it ever be. Depends on how you
define perfect.
>
> Where is the transcendence?
>
These are metaphysical words that really have no reality to them...like
artificial scarcity, they are implicity rhetorical. Transcend from what and
to what? At whose behest?
>
> Where is the promised improvement, beyond the misleading rhetoric
> forwarded to blind the masses?
>
>
Read the book...the improvement is everywhere. We move forward in great
leaps. When I was 20, I had no inkling of the power of the Internet I use
over 10 hours most days...at age 47. That's astonishing improvement. In
1963, the GDP per person in Korea (South) was 200 USD. Today it is over 50x
that. People starved daily in China in 1968...millions upon millions. Now
they sell 100,000 PCs a day there. Are these misleading pieces of
rhetoric? Is there no goodness afoot? My life is hugely better than it was
when I was young. Perhaps I just lucky. I enjoy better healthcare, better
learning, better entertainment...all at a fraction of the costs it once
was. I have access to software like R which is astonishingly powerful and
absolutely free. I see everywhere around me the price of access to learning
and power dropping rapidly. Anyone who cares to can learn amazing things
for free on the Internet all day every day. And access is reaching people
who never dreamed of it. China has more Internet users than Europe. In my
lifetime, they felt wealthy if they had a bicycle. How can this not be more
desireable for millions and millions?
>
> On 25/05/10 15:55, Ryan Lanham wrote:
> > On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 8:22 AM, j.martin.pedersen <
> > m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I agree that post-this and post-that often tries too hard to sound
> >> clever, but I just filter that if the political arguments are useful to
> >> criticise the dominant elite and received wisdom - and otherwise
> >> philosophically engaging.
> >>
> >> How do your ideals of technology and science differ from other ideals
> >> (which you reject)?
> >>
> >
> > To my mind, idealism is the hope that there is an ideal...a best way of
> > living...a best that is attainable or worthy of directing oneself toward
> > (e.g. heaven, justice, truth, spirtual enlightment, etc.) I don't much
> > care for that as a general worldview and see virtually all manifestations
> of
> > it as problematical.
> >
> > That said, I think there are local optimums, local plans, local
> > possibilities, but that these are quite autonomous of any ultimate
> harmony
> > or purpose including "justice." They are, in short, consensus.
> Consensus
> > never lasts.
> >
> > I see Nara Japan as a beautiful and functioning society, but my Western
> > views find many of its precepts flawed. Does that mean my society is
> > "better"? No. It means we are different and have arrived at differing
> > views of local optimums. Europe sits in judgment of the US regularly and
> > sometimes vice versa. I see few differences really, but people have
> local
> > preferences and ideals. Americans strongly prefer the US by and large,
> and
> > Europeans strongly prefer Europe in the main. What can we learn from
> this?
> > People like what they know. Culture is path dependent. I like different
> > things about both of them. When pressed, most experience people would
> say
> > the same. Sometimes the things one person likes are mutually exclusive.
> >
> > Science does not seek an ideal or a perfection. Technology is meant to
> ease
> > a demand or need or to fulfill a desire. Those are not grand ambitions
> to
> > my way of looking at it. They are attempts to understand or live in a
> > pragmatic, local and useful way. Science, to my way of looking at it,
> isn't
> > a "thing" or a philosophy. It is the concept of the pursuit of better
> > answers where better means more evidential and compelling. It is
> > specifically opposite to idealism which has an answer that if feels is
> right
> > and then tries to apply it...I call that metaphysics. It is a system of
> > reasoning where reasoning itself becomes the deity. Science is not about
> > reason but about more compelling conceptualizations. It isn't "done."
> > There is no final answer. It is more of a way of thinking...or a way of
> not
> > thinking that there is a single solution or an optimum body of knowledge.
> >
> > Scientists who I admire are at best ambivalent about answers that exist
> even
> > in their own fields. That is, they tend to approach things with a
> > skepticism about finality and accuracy. Instead, they are all about the
> > unknown. The problematic. Engineers tend to solve problems with more
> and
> > more refined sets of solutions. They are about "fixing" or solving. It
> > uses science, but science is more about walking into the darkness with
> > minimal preconceptions other than that which is highly evidential.
> Still,
> > it is tentative.
> >
> > No engineer or scientist can "dream" a vision of an optimum. That makes
> > them something else. Science only allows doubt and the attempt to be
> more
> > evidential or factually compelling. If you add "consensus improved"
> science
> > links to engineering, medicine, etc.
> >
> > Markets are defined as the means by which people trade to achieve
> consensus
> > optimums at a local level. Some lose in markets by finding their choices
> > sub-optimal or their starting points unsatisfying. My own view is that I
> am
> > glad I am not those people. Do I hope they will live better? Yes. Do I
> > work to make their lives better as a purpose? Sometimes. Compassion is
> a
> > useful part of our being. But I do not envision systems where unfairness
> > and bias are removed by rules. That seems contradictory to me with a a
> long
> > trail of failure to suggest it doesn't work. Instead, I see a local
> problem
> > that requires technology (e.g. business and management solutions) or
> > science/engineering (e.g. improved means of understanding value-creating
> > outcomes) as more realistically pragmatic solution sources.
> >
> > Capitalism and socialism are theories (metaphysics) about how markets
> ought
> > to work. I doubt both of them have much long-term value but rather were
> > tenative social experiments whose flaws are now mostly evident to
> consensus
> > bodies. If you follow Matt Ridley's ideas, he'd argue that only the
> liberty
> > to adjust and the process of continued interaction to arrive at various
> > stable consensus positions will improve our lot. Mostly, that means
> science
> > and technology as I mean the terms.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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>
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--
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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