[p2p-research] john pilger on the greeks
Michel Bauwens
michelsub2004 at gmail.com
Wed May 26 09:42:19 CEST 2010
isn't progress always relative, certainly Ryan could point to a remarkable
series of improvements, while J. martin would point to parallel increases in
misery in the last 30 years, they can easily co-exist ..
so isn't a better question, progress for who? and at what price?
On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 1:11 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
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