A journey through China's economic crisis
Post categories: China, Credit Crunch, Economic policy, Energy, Trade
| 12:50 UK time, Tuesday, 16 June 2009
My two films on the impact of China's economic crisis have been postponed slightly due to the situation in Iran. The plan is, as long as we are not seeing a 1990 Romania-style live feed from the IRNA studios in Tehran, to run the first report tomorrow.
Look out for it. I travel from the deep west of China to the industrial heartland of Inner Mongolia, meeting poor peasants, bikers and a very unfriendly Communist Party official who took exception to local residents in Shizuishan complaining about pollution levels that make them vomit.
In the meantime, see some of my stills and essays about the trip here. And watch my Money Programme special on short-time working in British manufacturing, tonight at 2200, on BBC2, or catch the second of the China trip reports on BBC World News America, if you are in the USA.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~22~RS~)
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Hi Paul
Also, take a look at the Bank of England Q2 Bulletin. In answer to the question as to whether QE is working there is a resoundingly confident ' dont know'! Bearing in mind we are now 66.859 billion into the programme...They say " There is considerable uncertainty about the strength and timing of the effects.Standard economic models are of limited use in these unusual circumstances and the empirical evidence is extremely limited." They appear unable to assess what sellers of gilts may or may not do with the liquidity provided. They worry about the banks stifling the effect because of their balance sheet troubles, capital pressures and long term funding issues. What they give us no angle on is whether gilts sellers reinvest QE in to new HM DMO gilt issuance. Remembering that budget forecasts have translated QE into a direct boost to nominal GDP, this is very worrying and deserving of attention.
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Correction - we are not 66.859 billion into the programme ( in May), we are 86.5 billion ( ?6.23 % of nominal annual GDP growth) into the programme at 12 June.
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Never mind their economic crisis - we are importing their internet policy !
How long before 'Digital Britain' decrees that to protect corporate interests and the status quo a 'Great Firewall of Britain' must be built to keep us all safe from harm, and from finding out the failures of our public services and the rapacious greed of the corporations ??
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It is not just manufacturing on short time working, I work for a civil engineering consultancy on short time working and I am aware of many others doing the same. The raw unemployment figures are only part of the emerging story.
If you can get one of your backroom analysists (or sharpen a pencil yourself) I think it would be an interesting statistic to pro-rata in the number of people on short time working into the quoted unemployment figures to get a more accurate picture of the true change in employment i.e. for every 5 people working 4 day contracts reduced from 5 day contracts (like me) add 1 more onto the unemployment figures.
I can only imagine it is becoming increasingly pervasive throughtout the employment sector as a whole and is masking the true 'unemployment' rate...except for the government sector of course.
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A couple of years ago somebody (I think it was a German engineer) sent me a short JPEG movie of a Chinese man actually sitting inside the tool of a 10/20 tonne steel press machine! I think the press was pressing out one half of a steel fuel tank aproximately every 5 seconds. The Chinese man was acting as a 'human robot' by taking out the pressed steel part after one pass, then placing a new steel blank into the press for the next one.
One false move...and he would have either been killed or seriously maimed!
Do we really want to compete against that?
Humaun rights has a whole different meaning in China...couldn't we send Cherie Blair out there fast to sort them Chinese out?!?
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#5
Please, keep the Blairs, Peter Mandelson and the gang of political elites to yourself. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, you guys are certainly no expert at interfering with other country's business.
Btw, can you post the video link? I would like to see the hero who was allegedly trading his life for...1 dollar an hour.
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I've been watching your reports from China on BBC America. Fascinating in themselves but I was intrigued by your accent. As an ex pat living in San Fran I pride myself on being able to detect a Bolton accent! but there seemed to be a bit of Scots hiding in there too(?) Imagine my surprise when I looked you up on Wikipedia. I went to Bolton School - several of my friends were at Thornleigh - and then I went to Sheffield university - it gets better - where I did a music degree (1977). I now compose music and teach in the San Fran area!
Small world!
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So driving a sidecar combination, wearing army surplus combats, and drinking warm guinness earns you adoration of beautiful women and envy of fashionable society ? No recession, little rainfall and if you've got £1000 you are rich ?
Why come back to UK !
Sure there's a wiff of chlorine in the air, but to someone who spent their childhood in the lee of Scunthorpe steelworks and Immingham refineries it sounds like Nirvana.
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#7, Having spent my computer-game-playing years being dragged from Newcastle to the tropical lake district I thought I had Paul picked as a Cumbrian. Would never have picked Bolton. But then I've never been. Next on the holiday list.
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Paul, the first China film was fantastic- 20 minutes of fabulous, eye-opening TV. I can't wait for the next part. What fine, lovely people you found to talk to!
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Interesting last night. So, when Stephanie heralds the Eastern savings glut as the driver of economic imbalance in the world , you are neatly explaining how it evolves. And its not pretty.
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Pheww ... at least one BBC blog that hasn't been invaded by an internet stalker called JadedJean!
You are absolutely spot-on about the short time working thing. SO MANY people are now in this situation. It has distorted the umemployment figures, which in reality are much higher than officially stated.
My guess is that the devastating impact of this on falling tax receipts and rising debt are only just starting to be noticed.
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Good work Paul and your stuff for the money program in/on West Mids small business and impact on workers lives.
Nos12 Pheww
Yeah its why I stopped posting.
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11 ShireBlogger
Even more interesting than the Eastern savings glut is that China is
also printing money to stop their currency from rising.
Is this what they are buying our debt with?
So off we go with loads and loads more liquidity pouring back
in at a time when it needs to be gradually taken out.
The outcome becomes even more complicated so who would really be able to work out the right model for this and calculate the end result?
What we are seeing is another illusion that things are improving and a lot of deluded politicians who want to believe it.
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Why do you indulge in the idea that the European and American style economy, spending and spending on borrowed money, is good for Chinese or anyone at all?
"Save now for the hardship and the future generations" is common sense. I guest this is the difference in culture.
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6. At 02:57am on 17 Jun 2009, mademoiselle_h
Here's the link to the video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjNaUHA2KrY
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Paul,
Your lungs may not have enjoyed being there, but I did enjoy your report on Shizuishan City... and frankly thought such places no longer really existed in modern industrial China. So, you are obviously hearing from an optimist, but one who also has some experience in this area. As such, from everything your camera was showing, I strongly suspect there is relatively inexpensive technology that would rapidly ameliorate many of the airborne pollution sources shown. Hence, in your travels to Western China did you encounter any environmental, industrial, or government officials (we know you met the police, and at least someone from the local Communist Party!) with responsibility for what is currently happening in Shizuishan City? Further, if so, could you kindly share any of their contact details. With luck, we can catch a few flies, monoxide, and Chlorine emissions with honey... by preventing them in the first place, before they enter everyone's breathing air.
Sincerest Thanks
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#14 virtualsilverlady
I'm no currency boffin - are you sure they are printing money to avoid appreciation? Couldnt they be following Bernanke's lead to avoid their own deflation.The yuan / dollar peg is a story all on its own. One day the Chinese will decouple from the good old reserve currency but only when they work out how to sell their dollar assets without a massive loss/upsetting their big customer and find a better alternative or float.I perceive the Chinese to be very cautious and astute. The dance, meanwhile, carries on cos China and US are buddies linked at the hip - just my view. What would be good for all is for Chinese home demand to open up and tick up and drive our exports. Meanwhile, we take the medicine with the Chinese as our bank manager maintaing the overdraft.The only model I see is 'interdependence'.
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#12 TheNewPonzi and #13 streetphotobeing
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news...but JJ's a regular on this blog.
I quite like most of JJ's posts...in a weird sort of way.
On a plus point though...barriesingleton regularly posts on here...and he's sublime!
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I was not sure if I was watching Paul Mason or Paul Merton at some points last night. Captivating, charming, amusing and on occasion hard hitting too.
looking forward to watching you hit the Beijing nightclub scene tonight, puts your earlier posts talking about beds with cigarette burns in and staying in rooms you pay for by the hour into context..your not fooling me you had a great time..admit it..and what is more as a TV licence fee payer I dont begrudge you a moment of it.
On a more mundane matter i am with #12 on the unemployment figures, i am sure the greater than predicted deficiets is in part due to the real unemployment level being hugely understated. If you do a bit of research and have a stab at what it really is, taking into account short time working, then plug that into AD's already wonky budget, borrowing predictions and banks balance sheets you may find a bit of a scoop.
You will have to be quite robust about researching how many people this is affecting but if you want to have a back of a fag packet go, from my personal experience here in the real world I would say short time working is probably affecting somewhere between 1 in 30 or 40 of the working population in some form.
There are approx 33 million employed then that means an extra 170,000 to 250,000 full time jobs (approx) have been lost that are not reported in the figures (about a 10% under reporting say).
Feel about right in terms of short fall in tax receipts someone?
How does that effect budget predictions?
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#16 BankSlickerminustheR
What a great collection of feel-good clips on Chinese factories amidst a world recession! I wonder what conditions your grandparents and great grandparents were working under, while Britain was rising to the industrial power centre of the world? Did they get expensive machines to dig their coal, and robotic arms to replace manual hands in labour-intensive manufacturing industries (like making pot pans in the video)? Oh no! They all sat in their comfy chair, having regular coffee breaks every few hours as well as air conditioning in the summer. It is called workers protection schemes under human rights, you stupid!
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#21 mademoiselle_h
Actually...my grandmother worked very hard in a dirty factory on a lathe making gun shells! I think the gun shells were used on British gun boats during the Opium Wars.
By the way...Paul, your Chinese meal (on Newsnight tonight) looked very nice!... mademoiselle_h...did you sit at the same table with Paul?
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Thank you Paul, your China report was exceptionally interesting.
Newsnight was excellent last night, my respect for Dr Vince Cable grows every time I listen to him.
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Nos19
Yes barrie is word sublime but the love-in with JJ is subprime.
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Good piece last night on China. Will foreign companies be allowed to bid for Chinese infrastructure contracts like the ones you mentioned - new rail links Baotou to Beiging eg
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oh ya !
atleast they are not forcing the person to work in that circumstances,
people work by will and they are forced by there needs and indeed why not ?
atleast not like british who invade other people and than steal things
and try to preach human rights.
what a shame !
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Hi Paul,
I am a Chinese, and I watched the two parts of the movie about your journey through China. The movie is very interesting because it really shows me partly about how the foreigner view about China. But frankly speaking, I think the title of the movie and and content do not match: the title saies about "the economic crisis" while the content focus mainly on westen-China normal people's lives, the environmental sounding and so on. (BTW, I am from southeast of China, and the Chinese living style that you showed in the movie is also new for me). We all know that the main part of Chinese economics comes from the east of China, and so the main impact about the economic cries on China should also be from the east. The western part of China, with its well-known lowest population and the least developed, is reasonable to be likely affect by the global economic influence. Also, some of the problems that you mention, like the communism, the pollution in China already exist long ago before the cries and I really do not see where is any link between them.
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Hello to all who have posted. I will try to pick up some themes:
#27 I decided to start in the west because the story is never told. What you saw is my agenda (economic crisis) colliding with reality (poverty and eco-crisis)
#food: the food on the train was the best of the entire trip: chicken stew with potatoes. Hotpot is too overwhelming. BTW Chinese long distance trains beat Indian longdistance trains on all measures by about 50 years of development, but are about equal on food quality in "soft" class
#Shizuishan: frustratingly I did not have time to investigate the SZS situation. But please help me out here. Send me your email and help me to get to the bottom of what's in those clouds
#Bolton: I am from Leigh, Greater Manchester. Not Bolton or Cumbria. I went to school in Bolton but grew up in Leigh.
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Thank you Paul for the two films on the impact of China's economic crisis.
I am Chinese and have been living in the U.K. for the past five years, currently studying economics. I only wish those two films can be watched by my friends back home in Shanghai.
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This by Oliver Blanchard ( IMF ) adds perspective :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e8bcc516-5c33-11de-aea3-00144feabdc0.html
Will increased Chinese consumer consumption, with a resulting expansion of middle classes meet political resistance ?
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Thank you very much Paul for an insightful film. Some of them are new even to me. I am chinese from eastern part of china.
Chinese people sometime are not very open-minded. Even people from east having difficulty to understand the people from the west.
This film gives a glinpse of several aspect of chinese society. I think it is very good. I finally can see BBC quality in it. Keep it up and thank you again for doing such a great film about china, my homeland.
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Paul,
Have been enjoying your reports from China. Nice camerawork too.
Good to see that some in the BBC still have a sense of world issues.
Ron Taylor.
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Just to note, live translation is never easy. Some of the Chinese interviews are lost in translation. For instance, when you asked a member of the desert motorcycle club,'what's the attraction'. His answer should be translated as 'power, freedom, democracy,uniting and happiness.'
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Growth is as much a curse as a blessing.
Paul, the films on China were truly facinating, but they show that China has bought into the Chicago school of infinite economic growth (i.e. by viewing the strategic long game as stimulating domestic demand to rival the West).
The orthodox economic canon cannot distinguish between growth and development (true / constructive progress). Measures such as GDP obscure the real distinction. To quote from Eric Zencey:
"Daly and his coauthor Joshua Farley, in Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications, make a distinction between economic growth and economic development. They use the term growth to describe economic change that requires an economy to increase its uptake of matter and energy (and its emissions of degraded matter and energy). Economic development, though, comes about through changes and improvements in the use of a steady, unchanging stream of throughput. Development comes about as a result of improved efficiency, or through change in the ways the throughput is used."
China has bought the whole Chicago school premise that: Debt stimulates demand, demand creates consumption, consumption pulls production.
But, production is, by and large, a trashing of natural resources. So who really benefits, the community as a whole, or the owners of capital who obtain rent (interest) from the loans in the first place?? Follow the money (a.k.a. the paper trail!).
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#34
Nicely put (again).
It is extraordinary isnt it, it is so bleedin obvious, the logic of it is irefutible yet coverage and debate time is not based on the quality of the logic of an argument it is based on the incumbent popularity of an argument!
How are we to progress with a media who behaves in that way!!
Even the inventors of democracy knew that it was flawed in that in it's purest form (without some form of pure intellectual counterbalance) democracy perpetuates the lowest common denominator view. In that sense through our passion for democracy in its current form we have ended up with the governments and the media we deserve.
For economics the chicago school is fundamentally flawed but its flaws only become exposed in an economy that is now shifting into a different modus operandi, one of a global economy where we are starting to hit the buffers of resource and environmental limits (peak oil being the classic one which was a contributer to the crash.
The Chicago schools fundamental flaws are exposed for all to see now yet there is no mainstrem debate on what the next system needs to be, the vast majority of debate in the media is focussed around how to 'fix' the existing economic system.
Democracy fails when the correct view is a minority view or (in other words)a view which may require an element of sacrifice amongst the people. You have to really understand and beliebve something to vote for a change that will see (initially) your life becoming worse, but which may offer more hope to your children or your children's children.
I am not even sure that this is the case here, I dont think peoples lives wopuld get significantly worse, even in a transition to a 'throughput' economic system.
We are a million miles away from the realisation required,it would be nice this time if we could learn the lesson before we get taught one.
Jericoa
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Why not have a holiday outside your logical boxes ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
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Lorries taking food to supermarkets drive slowly and cause traffic tailbacks.
It's the price of economic success.
The traffic tailbacks lose British business 10% of total GDP per year, as it takes 1 hour for goods and consumers to travel 20 miles.
The only way for the economy to expand is for road traffic to catch up with the speed of modern efficient production. Due to modern technology, we are now producing goods and services faster than they can be distributed and consumed.
This is why the economy is contracting.
It has nothing to do with the quantity or speed of money in circulation.
It's all down to the traffic jams.
Cure the traffic jams, and everything else will automatically come right.
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#36
Externalities are indeed the costs that society bares in order that private individuals benefit. The modern high-priests of economics have been seduced by the trappings of finance. Not only have they failed to accurately price risk (hence the current crisis), but far worse is the failure to account for environmental and resource degradation in their economic "models".
But don't let the Pigovian tax out of the box!! This is merely an Economic solution to an Economic problem. It leads to property rights being enforced for all of nature's wonders - one step at a time.
The solution is to accurately account for "natural capital" - the resources that we essentially get for next to nothing from nature: spring water, clean air, coal, oil & gas. The market does not price these correctly or for long term sustainability - it merely facilitates the quickest exploitation of them.
As for #37 - consumption is the mother of all debt. Why consume that which we do not need, and can ill afford?
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Tesco is the largest UK food retailer, and recently became the largest non-food retailer.
The large supermarkets are the only enterprises creating jobs in Britain at present.
It is estimated that by 2014, around 65% of all British jobs will be in someway connected to the supermarket sector.
In this context, the travelling speed of Tesco's and Sainsbury's lorries (and the odd Ocado van) is extremely important.
If the lorries cannot attain more than 40mph in the national speed limit zones, it will eventually trigger a massive collapse of the whole British economy.
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#39
We surely will become a nation of shopkeepers then!
It is crucial to remember what underpins the hypermarket model (imported from Walmart in the US, and most ferociously applied by Tesco):
1) Exert tremendous buying power over suppliers (not good for local providers, and instead leads to outsourcing of manufacture)
2) Rely on cheap fuel (to ship goods over long distances)
As if the social consequences of the first point were not dire enough, the sheer economic realities of the second one will hit far harder.
Forget the dark satanic mills; instead our country will be littered with the pre-fabricated temples of the excessive consumption generation, with neither the means nor the motive for social interaction.
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#39
If by 2014 65 % of all jobs are connected with those architectually and managerially souless entities known as supermarkets I think I would welcome an economic collapse with open arms!
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#36
Knowing it does not seem to be the problem, applying what we know seems to be the problem, which brings us back to questioning certain things which have become 'sacred' like how democracy works and many more modern taboos besides.
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#42
"A democracy is too prone to put its wishbone where its backbone ought to be." Frederick Soddy, 1926.
He goes on to say:
"The result has been a mad democratic uprush into the possessing classes without changing by one iota its essentially parasitic character."
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No.43. Hawkeye_Pierce
The backbone wishbone mix up reminds me of one of JadedJean's quips on Stiffy Flander's blog (the original comment having been removed during a crack down by the moderators).
It went something along the lines of:
"....the liberal consumer society has delivered the luxury goods of obesity, adultery, deteriorating mental health, criminality, family breakdown, vulgarity, drug addiction, infertility, over-indebtedness, noise polution, gambling addiction, gaming addiction, weak at the knees media, and cajun squirrel flavoured crisps........."
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#43
Great quote that,I have not heard that one before.
If we agree that democracy in its current form is part of the problem (it feels like treason or something just typing that!). What is the answer?
Perhaps our fellow Chinese contributers on this blog could point us in the right direction?
If not..what?
It is a very fine line is it not.
Deng Xioaping's visual concept of how he saw capitalism and democracy developing in China was to liken the situation and represent those things as a bird in a cage. Lots of things flow from that analogy to explain the global situation.
#44
I agree with everything except the cajun squirrel flavoured crisps.
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#45
Don't worry there are plenty more acerbic comments from Mr Soddy.
As for the ideal political form, this is not an easy solution, but certainly one that requires more attention than it currently gets. Soddy himself was connected with the Technocracy movement.
In Plato's Republic the problem with democracy leads to "too much freedom, the people become drunk, and tyranny takes over."
The courage needs to come from accepting that a benign form of autocracy is indeed feasible, and more importantly is preferable to the sort of tyranny that would result from societial collapse (occurring if we failed to adapt quickly or in the right way).
First we must recognise that we have been conditioned to maximise self-interest (see The Trap by Curtis), when in fact it is more human to engage in conditional co-operation and strong reciprocity.
The new economic and political order needs to reflect this, that we are stronger working together than against one-another.
I myself await the Philosopher King!! (Now where is Barrie Singleton these days?)
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#45, Nah, I reckon the weird flavours of crisp are about the only thing that "liberal consumer society" can take the rap for. Too much advertising. Well, maybe noise pollution. The rest have been pretty much ubiquitous throughout history wouldn't you say? Plenty of fat adulterous and infertile Romans gambling down the pit. Religion used to tell people "it's the devil making you do it", now Jaded Jean tells us it's liberal consumer society responsible for all our problems. Or perhaps on other days JJ would tell us "it's your genes, stupid ;)". Whatever makes it easier to abdicate responsibility.
If only everyone was more like me there would be no problems. Or perhaps if everyone like me was more like them then there would be nothing to disagree about. That would certainly make everything hunky-dory in the best of all possible autocratic dictatorships.
It is very human to cooperate and reciprocate, never more in war, when it's good form for lots of cooperating peoples and nations to reciprocally slaughter each other. Perhaps that's why we have to "declare war on cancer", or on drugs, or on climate change in order to try and persuade people anything is worth doing. And there's nothing better to get people cooperating in reciprocally destructive wars than a load of parallell benign autocrats all competing to out-benign each other to ensure the continued cooperation of their loyal and grateful subjects.
So when will the king return to unite us all and persuade us, in every time zone in every church in every culture in every tongue that we need to work together. To achieve what? Utopia. It has to be utopia. Not a Marxist utopia, nor a Capitalist utopia? How about a Barry Singletonian utopia? Heaven on earth. Or maybe we can just believe in heaven after earth. But which one? Perhaps we all don't have to choose the same one. Just believe in our own, whatever that may be, until the inevitable. So hard to accept, maybe chatting about our own political and societal utopias are how we silence the calling of the void in the distance.
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No.47. UltraTron
I find that by posting on here, I use up all my revolutionary energy, and relax into a comfortable apathy. I fear I am just an idle chatterer at heart. By saying and not doing, I enter my own kind of utopia.....
Regarding co-operation in war, it's interesting to hear the likes of Denis Healey saying the Labour party believed for the first time that a command economy would work because it had worked very well during World War II. However, despite it working well while the country was on a war footing, the British command economy didn't work so well during peace time, with the NHS forced to survive on borrowed money from America. By the late 1970s the question was "is Britain governable at all?". The UK held the much vaunted title of "sick man of Europe", and industrial strike action was all the vogue.
During the 1970s I remarked to Denis Healey that I planned to work 24 hours a day, to earn enough money to buy a comfortable large sized house similar to one he lived in. He told me I would never be able to buy a house like his, because he would tax me until my pips squeaked. He thought me a right wing tory boy middle class chatterer from a sheltered upbringing, and he said I would never be able to live in a comfortable house like his because he would tax and spend all my hard work from under me.
Apparently, Mr Healey is now great friends with Mrs Thatcher. They are a Baron and Baroness, respectively.
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Hi Paul,
An interesting change of tack by Spencer Dale of the BoE on QEeasing. Apparently, buying second-hand gilts with funny money could now be a good thing by reducing the exchange rate on sterling............ 96 billion in and no word from anyone as to whose gilts are being purchased and what is being done with the liquidity.
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#47
''The rest have been pretty much ubiquitous throughout history wouldn't you say?''
Yes I would agree with that, you also touch on many issues in your post. I only take issue with one thing.
''Whatever makes it easier to abdicate responsibility''.
I think as an individual you only have responsibility if you truely understand your actions will be bad, yet still undertake those actions.
If I was born in the tribal areas of Pakistan would I be writting this now or would I be riding shotgun in a pickup with a kalashnikov in my hands? Is that my responsibility?
Does free will actually exist in an individual? This is the premise for all our systems of justice, it assumes that free will does exist.
However latest research shows that the brain functions that preceed a physical 'willed' action start to happen before the 'conscious' part of your brain is aware of it (by about 0.3s to be precise). So which part of us initiates the action if we are biologically incapable of being consciouly aware of it? Consciousness it appears is like riding 0.3 seconds behind the wave of ...something else....reality perhaps?
I have often thought we really do need to get to the heart of what we are (as oppose to what we think we are) to resolve our ever emerging global dilemma. It is a philosophical issue at its heart.
The same old issues play out through history as you suggest, what is unique about this time in history (the paradox is deliberate there by the way)is that those empires of ideology previously could only play out on a regional scale, now they can effect us all, even to the extent of affecting the planet we live on by cause of our efficient technology.
We do not appear to be mature enough as a species to manage our global responsibility. I dont even think we can blame ourselves for that, it is in part the way we are made. We need to evolve yet we lack the tools and 'hard wired' instincts to manage that ourselves in a civilised way (the only way I might add in my view in case people are wondering where this is going).
It all points to a replay of that which keeps getting re-played..yet another slow motion fall of the roman empire, a period of turbulance and instability followed by some form of collapse. Except this time our technology and our reach is global.
But is it our responsibility? Is it within us to change that path or are we 'hard wired' to fail? Or is this 'just another recession' will we move away from fossil fuels gradually plugging the gap with renewables, will rogue nations, once they have a nuclear capability by virtue of its fearsome power and MAD behave responsibly and never use them? Will we manage population better and reduce the risk of a global deadly pandemics.
I dont know the answers, I am however extremely interested in the questions.
Heck, I dont even know if I am responsible for writing this..or anything else that I do. Does 'I' even exist?
The real answer is a philosophical one not a materialistic or managerial one.
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Jericoa, I think you've posed enough questions there to give people sleepless nights for eternity.
I've been grappling with the free will question for about 9 years now. And by grappling I mean revolving on the spot and occasionally sobbing. And I have nothing of use after all that time thinking about it.
Joking aside, I was plunged into a serious rut of depression after reading a book called "Freedom Evolves" a few years back by Daniel Dennett. The basic premise was that although still fundamentally constrained by physical causality, we were "free" to make our own decisions. But it was so unconvincing that it in fact convinced me of the opposite. Which helped precipitate a protracted period of alcoholic nihlism.
Most of my education was in evolutionary biology and I was embarking on a PhD at the time in some utterly pointless attempt at clarifying the relationship between some butterflies. Very much a rationalist and what some people would describe as a hard determinist, certainly though philosophy was a dirty word unless it was follwed by "of science".
Anyway, attempting to get to the point, my ideas have changed since then. Especially regarding the value we place on what we call rational thought. The word rational itself is, I think, a problem. People often (myself on a daily basis in the past) call religious people irrational for their beliefs. In fact it is now fashionable to deride any faith position as irrational.
But if the logical answers to the existential questions give us no comfort, and we were forced to confront our own mortality every cold waking moment, then what? It is evolutionarily "rational" for people to hold faith positions in various falsehoods if it increases their evolutionary fitness. And much to the disgust of people like Richard Dawkins (who I still think is great) all the evidence suggests it (religion) does (increase fitness).
But religion is a sideshow, I think faith positions in general are fascinating. I used to think the world would be a better place without people basing decisions on faith. But I failed to recognise that my assertion itself was a faith position. There is absolutely no proof that the world would be a btter place, but I believed it would. Just as Marxists have their utopian dreams.
It is impossible for people to live based on rational thinking alone. If you came to a fork in the road and you were lost, how would you decide, in the absence of any clues as to which way was home, which way to go. "Rationally" it would be impossible to choose, so then a leap of faith becomes the rational choice.
This ability of people to employ heuristics in decision making could be a crucial factor in why all economic models seem doomed to fail when they are based on the assumption of uniform rational behaviour. Some times the cost of deliberation itself is greater than making a suboptimal reflex decision or faith. What seems like irrationality can sometimes reap massive rewards in terms of evolutionary fitness. Explains roulette. Maybe.
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Sorry for all the typos in the above object lesson in unfocused rambling.
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With reference to the idea of decadence throughout history.
"Decadence" means "to decay".
When faced with the accusation of liberal over-indulgence, Libertarians resort to their usual flight to safety by saying "but it has always been like that".
For instance, if I were to complain about the increase in pornography or prostitution, Libertarians will reply "but this is nothing new, even the Victorians indulged in pornography and prostitution". The catch phrase of "Victorian hypocrisy" is always talked up by Libertarians, as an excuse for their own bad behaviour. However, everyone knows the Victorians were very tightly laced and did not indulge in the sex industry in a major way, and certainly not anything like today's exploits, as the Victorians were very afraid of catching sexual diseases. Hence the saying "a night with venus followed by a lifetime with mercury", as mercury was used to treat syphilis. Even in the 1930s many young women still thought you could get pregnant from simply kissing a man.
Whenever there is no fear of the consequences, decadence will inevitably ensue.....
When looking at history, we see repeated swings from periods of decadence to periods of puritanical behaviour and back again, as society simply reacts against the excesses of the preceding moral code.
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THE WORK OF THE DEVIL
MrTweedy (#48) "Regarding co-operation in war, it's interesting to hear the likes of Denis Healey saying the Labour party believed for the first time that a command economy would work because it had worked very well during World War II. However, despite it working well while the country was on a war footing, the British command economy didn't work so well during peace time, with the NHS forced to survive on borrowed money from America. By the late 1970s the question was "is Britain governable at all?". The UK held the much vaunted title of "sick man of Europe", and industrial strike action was all the vogue."
I'd better be brief so as not to attract the Basij.
The USA had no need to subvert Britain until the Iron Curtain came down. The fact the UK had the temerity to try to establish Socialism in One Country in 1945 effectively sealed its fate for the next 35 years until the USA could put one of their Austrian School anarchists in charge. It's just got better and better ever since. Healey was clearly never a true socialist. As you point out, like so many politicians, he just wanted to 'get on' :-(
UltraTron (#47) "Or perhaps on other days JJ would tell us "it's your genes, stupid ;)". Whatever makes it easier to abdicate responsibility."
Indeed, the evidence now strongly suggests it's nearly all genetic expression plus shaping by reinforcement by consequences. We're all pretty stupid when it comes down to it. Ignore Dennett, he doesn't understand Quine or Skinner but considers himself an expert on both - that's why he should be ignored. Read Herrnstein instead - it won't cheer you up, but it might help you accept what is and what must happen in order to change what is.
I agree with much of the rest that you write above, and I sympathize too. I fear we are headed towards being the innocent victims of forces working to oppose universal anarchism. The little devils know not what they do - they think of themselves as 'the cognitive elite' where in fact they just have slightly gender switched brains and arrested social development :-(
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Good luck with the search for a foundational philosophy - INMHO it's best just to cheat and just cobble something to suit the task at hand, something Derrida called bricolage ( DIY ! ). However it only works for you and only you, so don't expect anyone to agree with your results.
Remember though "hell has a special place for those who disregard David Hume "( Bertrand Russell ) Which says something about Russell's own frustrations as a rational atheist.
It's funny that there seems to be a correlation between personal disposition and what philosophy you settle on. Maybe that's why the Chinese tend toward Confusius.
In the case of pessimistic, idealist, anti-democrats, then Spengler has already been down the road. So maybe there's no need to repeat it all here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
Finally the real danger is that a really good, unique,economics blog gets turned into pseuds corner - see Stephanie Flanders Blog, and the moderators firm reaction.
Be warned, stay on piste.
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Addendum (#54) Social Democrats indeed. Now the Liberal-Democrats-New-Labour-New-Conservatives
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superiorsnapshot (#55) "INMHO it's best just to cheat and just cobble something to suit the task at hand"
Epistemological anarchism was set up Feyerbend so Lakatos could expose it as absurd, so Feyerabend said in 'Against Method'. Lakastos died alas.
See end of #54 - and let's see you define 'really good, unique,economics blog' given what's happened in recent times. Whilst you're at it, have a stab at 'insight' having just lauded the canonical obfuscationist of all time, Derrida.
You are definitely down for the GULAG. ;-)
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#51
At least alcoholic nihilism beats the religious kind hands down, although admitedly I have only tried the former.
Perhaps we should convene a convention for PM blog contributors, can you imagine the conversation!
We could sustain ourselves with a combination of alcoholic nihilism and cajun squirrel flavoured crisps locked in a room until we had resolved the major financial, political and philosophical issues of our day. We would need to ensure JJ and barriesingleton dont sit together or it could get messy.
Perhaps PM himself could make a guest appearance for the opening address.
I would show up anyway.. I wonder how many others would be prepared to uncloak themselves. A radical opinion is easy to have in the anonymity of cyberspace, not so accross a table.
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OVERWROUGHT, OVERLOADED AND (cowering) OVER HERE - DROWNING (#46)
At the risk of repeating myself (!) the sustainable model is there to see, in the few tribes we have not yet seen off. And the missing 'moderator' to the runaway-pile of humanity, on this planet - I suggest - is 'Taboo'. We are now through the looking glass and in a world of INVERSE TABOO where all that destabilises the natural order is espoused as de rigueur, while conducive ways and means are eschewed. The centre, not only cannot hold, it has dropped out, and rolled right under the fridge.
We broke with taboo long ago, and went for 'growth' in everything nihilistic and obscene. Only mature adults can play with fire safely . . . I know of no law that says there is a way back. Ever since that first taboo 'went' we have been turning the planet into garbage - little realising we were converting ourselves, likewise.
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#46 Hawkeye_Pierce
He's still alive then!
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Last one before bed time...
I visited Chicago week before last. Stood right outside the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank building...even took a picture!...It was an impressive building!...however it also looked very sinister!...it was a Sunday though and nobody was around.
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BankSlickerminustheR (#61) "it was a Sunday though and nobody was around."
Perhaps they'd been transported to Tehran?
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#59 Barry,
I'm not sure I'm with you on the existence of the "noble savage" sustainable model. Most tribes living in putitatively natural ecosystems still have a profound effect on things like species composition. Take away humans and the ecosytem would look very different, but then the same is true of elephants and termites, which I guess is your point, that these systems are closed to an extent and sustainable.
BUT, what I think is interesting is that in almost all cases, impact on the environment is not limited by ethos, but by available technology. Sadly, everything points to the fact that when people (groups) don't take more than they need, it's because they can't, not because of any high ideals. We're all game theorists at heart. And if we're not, we soon fall prey to those who are.
The exceptions are even more interseting. Saitoyama systems in Japan for instance, exist in almost perfect balance with nature. They are nature. But they are dying out rapidly, all the young in these communities flock to the city. People just want to get laid. We certainly wouldn't be here if they didn't. Sustainability just doesn't look so glamorous.
I'm guessing that the taboo you are talking about is population control, but please tell me if I've got the wrong end of the stick. China has shown it can be achieved, certainly for those not rich enough to bribe officials, but it is not without problems. For one, generations of only-childs. It also has a nasty tendency to skew gender distribution. There are 120 boys born in China for every 100 girls owing to illicit sex selection. That's going to mean a lot of dissapointed young men looking for a woman's touch. Lot's of dissapointed young men might make lots of angry young men. Especially when jobs are hard to come by.
It also means at some point a massive elderly population to be supported by relatively very few people of working age. This could be trouble in any circumstances, but in a recession it could be very nasty. Or perhaps just red in tooth and claw.
I agree that there's no law saying there's a way back, I don't think there is, but then I don't think we've really come forward. 100s of years worth of advances in medicine, technology, agriculture, is only so much window dressing. We are as civilised as we can afford to be.
#58 Pitch it to Endemol. Could be the next guests for the Big Brother House.
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"There is a deep-rooted belief in Iran that Britain is always up to something, is never passive and always devious" said Rosemary Hollis, Middle East analyst at City University in London.
Those words do have a poetic ring to them - "never passive and always devious".
The devious British.......
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Mr Tweedy #64
"L'Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre"
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
We are well practiced.
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UltraTron (#63) "There are 120 boys born in China for every 100 girls owing to illicit sex selection."
This needs to be looked into more closely perhaps, especially given the PRC's 1995 'eugenics' legislation (ref. elsewhere). Given the more conservative range of females in terms of cognitive ability (ref. elsewhere), and there being twice the number of males to females with an IQ of 120 (the ratio increases as one moves to the right) the same goes down at IQ = 85, i.e there are twice as many males as females. It would be interesting to see if the 120:100 ratio is uniform throughout the distribution.
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Erratum (#66) IQ=80
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#65
Its a bit rich coming from a nation that used secret agents to blow up (badly) that international threat to global stability also known as the greenpeace ship 'rainbow warrior' then wrings its hands of anything that may prove slightly more likely to fight back!!
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JJ, careful not to conflate IQ with cognitive ability. IQ is certainly important, but is only part of the picture when it comes to intelligence. Being a human calculator doesn't do you much good when it comes to intuiting what other people are thinking or feeling - pretty essential for a social species. I know you probably don't have a lot of patience for people with what you might term as 'feminized brains', but the big swinging dick alphas running the banks/governments seem to have done a pretty good job of selling us all down the river.
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JadedJean
I stumbled across a television documentary the other day, which claimed China was forced to move towards capitalism, as its command economy was running at a loss amd racking up huge debts, which the Chinese government could no longer afford to fund.
This proves that Conscientious Consumerism is the only workable economic model for the modern world (not too liberal, not too commanding, but just the right balance of goodness all round)..........
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No.69. UltraTron
I once knew a chap with a low IQ who survived World War II.
This proves that World Wars are not really dangerous and that a low IQ is not a hindrance.
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UltraTron (#69) 'emotional intelligence' is much over-rated and hopelessly under-measured. So is 'intuition' - which seems to morph into withcraft, angel-reading and other peculiar behaviours post-30 in so many of its practitioners.
I've attempted to explain rogue bankers' behaviour in terms of low conscientiousness or high prevalence of ASPD/NPD (see Hare). What we in the Liberal-Democracies need, I suggest, is selection (breeding) of higher 'g' and higher 'conscientiousness', yet what we appear to be doing is selecting/breeding for lower 'g' and lower 'conscientiousness'.
What's required will, alas, never happen so long as we reject 'dictatorship' and continue to deny that this dysgenic trend is a direct consequence of Liberal-Democracy. :-(
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MrTweedy, speak to the "local residents in Shizuishan complaining about pollution levels that make them vomit" if you think China has got the just the right balance of goodness all round. Not to mention the fact that this balance of goodness could only be achieved with the help of the rabid consumerism of the West buying every disposable washing machine that China could produce. China is an amazing and awe-inspiring place for many reasons, but economic growth pornography isn't one of them.
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JJ - a dysgenic trend assumes that we started out with higher 'g' and 'conscientousness'. This being true, how do you account for the appearance of liberal democracies in the first place? Why did all those high-g conscientous turkeys vote for christmas?
I'm not sure breeding is the way mate, just look at the state the kennel club has got itself into. Maybe genetic enhancement and cognitive doping will deliver you your utopia. Kids in America are already increasingly turning to black-market ritalin to make them more 'conscientous' while they study for their finals.
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No.73. UltraTron
We're not there yet and the journey still has some distance to travel, but it will all be alright in the end.
The right balance of goodness will be achieved through some new technology which hasn't yet been invented, but will be invented just in the nick of time.
The new technology will be free energy, or something.
While we wait for the new technology to happen, we can pass the time and amuse ourselves by coming on these blogs and moaning and whinging..........
I'm off now, to see if I can measure how feminised my brain is, as my verbal fluency seems to be on the wane.
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NO FLIES ON DENG XIAOPING
MrTweedy (#70) Was it produced by the same people who have been bringing us the excellent coverage of the Iranian elections and aftermath?
The 90 minute BBC-2 special on China's 'Capitalist Revolution' did have its moments.
"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a thousand battles without a single loss."
Sun Tzu
I wouldn't like to be a fly.
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UltraTron (#74) "JJ - a dysgenic trend assumes that we started out with higher 'g' and 'conscientousness'. This being true, how do you account for the appearance of liberal democracies in the first place? Why did all those high-g conscientous turkeys vote for christmas?"
This is pretty easy to answer and I have done many times. Natural Selection used to do eugenics but we interupted it around the time of the demographic transition. We made matter worse by liberating females early in the C20th so the brighter ones sought education and financial indepdendence, which reduced the birth rate in the upper half of the ability curve whilst swelling it in the lower. Result:- dysgenesis (last complete cohort analysis indicated 1/3 graduate females remain childless). I've gone through this many times. If one wants to destroy a culture today, use demographic warfare, e.g. implement Neocon policies like 'education, education, education' as people will vote for it aso long as your persuade them it is not all genetic (hence behavioural genetics is taboo like IQ, race and sex-realism).
People need to be protected from their own short-term interests and those of others amongst them who are solely self-interested. The Islamic/Stalinist world knows this and so is under constant Neocon pressure. Those who want hegemony preach Liberal-Democracy for others (even those they live amidst) whilst hypocritically practicing eugenics endogamously. It's an ugly group competition business which defines free-market liberal-democracy. They undermine state socialism....... with a deadly vengeance ;-(
Conscientiousness and making lots of money for oneself are not good bed-fellows, you'll only get socio-economic stability in a socialist state.
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MrTweedy (#75) "I'm off now, to see if I can measure how feminised my brain is, as my verbal fluency seems to be on the wane."
Suggestion: Spend more time with Wallace. Cheese should ultimately increase your BMI and concentrate your estrogen levels. The downside will be that you may become less sexually active, get Type II diabetes, risk heart-disease/stroke, become fascinated with angel-reading, crystals, brain-gym, changing people, find yourself spending a lot more time talking to people you don't really like (but not know that till you hang up, and then forget, and call them again) as well as getting very economical with the truth without even realising it. Oh, and at one time of the month you'll very much like being with your partner whilst at another you'll want as little to do with them as possible. Just eat lots more cheese or chocolate at such times (although you may find youself inexplicably losing your sense of direction if you get the timing wrong)!
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Looking for an alternative to Chinese Hotpot ?
Jaded Bean Salad,
Recipe 1 : Conflate psychology with epistemology, ignore scepticism as to causal chains.( Half)bake with some iffy eugenics, sprinkle with intolerence and serve luke warm.
Verdict: Tedious, tasteless and slightly poisonous.
Best seved with (il)liberal portions of Quine
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superiorsnapshot (#79) As I've explained elsewhere, epistemology reduces to operant behavioural analysis and management once one gives up on intensionalism and the two dogmas, and causality has nothing to do with science per se, it's just imputation studied by behaviourists as animals' conditoned/shaped operant modus vivendi. Eugenics is good breeding (you like others, could do with some) which Galton, Pearson, Spearman, Fisher and many others (including Keynes) considered necessary in order to compensate for dysgenic fertility and its adverse socio-economic consequences, i.e what we are now witnessing in the Liberal-Democracies.
You know a few names, but you don't know the empirical facts/trends. Sadly, I do. Look into them.
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#77 WAAHHHH. I can't work out whether you're being wilfully obtuse, tongue-in-cheek, confused, or just attention seeking. But, just this once I'll take the bait.
"Natural Selection used to do eugenics". Wrong. Natural selection is value neutral. Traits that increase fitness spread. Eugenics is not value neutral, and involves placing an explicit and subjective value on traits. It is not 'natural' selection, it is selective breeding by whim. Do you work for the kennel club?
"We made matter worse by liberating females early in the C20th" Oh how careless 'we' were. What could have possessed us? Not sure it was in your hands mate. Pankhurst might have had something to say about it.
"Result:- dysgenesis (last complete cohort analysis indicated 1/3 graduate females remain childless". Wow, how many in this particular cohort. I assume by complete you mean that all of them are now past the menopause. Dysgenesis? Surely the opposite, clearly media studies doesn't increase your fitness. Dysgenesis is a very subjective term, and as such is totally meaningless in the context you use it in.
"If one wants to destroy a culture today, use demographic warfare", progress can be a destructive process. What particularly enlightened period would you like us to return to?
"People need to be protected from their own short-term interests and those of others amongst them who are solely self-interested." By whom? I guess you know what's in the long-term interests of others? Do you have a high IQ JJ? Is that why you would like the rest of the IQ distribution curve to bow and scrape to you and be selectively bred out of existence, so we can all live in a happy world of hyper 'conscientous' JJ clones? Where would you keep the women? Physician, heal thyself. And get a train set or something.
As for "the Islamic/Stalinist world knows this and so is under constant Neocon pressure". North Korea does look lovely.
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UltraTron (#81) I wasn't arguing a case with you. I was merely informing you of the empirical facts, and the history. If you don't want to learn, that's fine by me. If you do want to learn, change your tone.
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#81
my IQ is pretty modest as is my vocabulary and spelling and grasp of grammer(some may have noticed). However this does give me a big advantage in life.
1) I dont actually unedrstand what JJ is talking about a lot of the time so it does not worry me, I just get the faint sense that if I did understand it I may find it objectionable so iIshrug my shoulders and get on with the stuff I do understand.
2) As a consequence of my relatively low IQ I am too busy looking after my young family (2 young kids and my wife is asales assistant) to put in the hours of research needed for me to understand what JJ is on about..so I dont...and probably never will..
In conclusion, with my IQ being more in line with the general populus rather than those who post here (I would say) it is safe to say that what ever JJ says in the socio- economic- political - evolutionary sphere will not make an impact on the world....hes just too clever in a rational sense to make a difference in that field.
So what use is it?
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jericoa (#83) "..put in the hours of research needed for me to understand what JJ is on about..so I dont...and probably never will.."
OK, watch this and appreciate that you are right, people do ignore it because they don't like it, but that does not mean it's not happening. In fact, it goes some way towards explaining why it is happening and will continue to happen.
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Intensional == Extensional
MUHAHAHA!! You thought you could escape me! JJ, you are doomed.
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FrankSz (#85) OK, here it is again. What fails in intensional contexts (such as the 'mentalistic' idioms of propositional attitude e.g. the psychological verbs like I 'believe that', or s/he 'said that') is a) substitutivity of identicals salva veritate and b) existential quantification-in (were the existential quantifier is SOME(x) or AT LEAST ONE(x). Rfernece goes opaque, i.e not transparent. These conditions do not fail in extensional contexts like 5+3=8 and 4+4=8. Extensional languages are critical to science. The intensional is loved by politicians and those who like opining...:-(
For the practical relevance see any reporting where something else is substituted for what someone else allegedly said. Or listen to people talking about what people allegedly think. Bottom line is they just make stuff up but don't know it because they readily slip into other idioms of propositional attitude, like 'think that' etc.
Please don't provoke the local basij.
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JJ, nase mila, moje draha
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg04931.html
Extension - the set of x for which f(x)==true ??
So you tell me how that is different from the intension, namely f(x). As long as f(x) must be evaluated, it MUST BE EVALUATED BY SOMETHING. Or do you believe in an absolute adjudicator? Those poor consultants at ieee, deliberating for so long without recognising that once they have a machine including or excluding elements in their 'ontology', it is all a subjective and therefore mental matter...
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FrankSz (#87) No, what you have to explain is why Oedipus wanted to have sex with Jocasta but not with his mother.
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#88 It is simple
The meaning of "his mother" (or any other term, symbol, character, picture, sound wave, or other sensory input) depends on the knowledge (ie "state") of the system (eg: brain) processing the input data. In Oedipus's case, "his mother" is "Merope". In your case "his mother" is equivalent to "Jocasta". Oedipus did not want to have sex with "his mother", he wanted to have sex with Jocasta, which are not equivalent to Oedipus.
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Gordon Bennett
What it boils down to is this:
Will the new bridge stay standing or not: yes or no?
Is the ship seaworthy: yes or no?
"I believe the bridge will be stable" is not good enough.
"To the best of my knowledge the ship is seaworthy" is not good enough.
"I believe the huge debts of households and businesses and the government will not matter as long as they can afford to service the debt" is not good enough.
Debt is bad - because you are spending tomorrow's earnings today, before you have even earned them. Debt is bad. Don't be fooled by the intensional words "leverage" or "gearing"............
Extensional is more reliable than intensional.
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"I believe the bridge will be stable" is not good enough.
Sorry MrT, but there is no other option. What JJ alludes to, but does not admit to, is that the "extensional" is the collective belief of a committee, who agree to specific terminology. In other words, if you want to know if the bridge will be stable, you call upon an engineering community, and even then you get more than one opinion.
So no, MrT, it does not boil down to that at all.
What it boils down to is that everything is a matter of opinion.
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FrankSz (#89) MrTweedy has astutely observed that civil/structural/mechanical engineers (like all scientists/engineers from doctors to behavioural scientists) benefit from courses in Newtonian Mechanics etc rather than epistemology and rhetoric. What you do not appear to have noticed is that you used yet another intensional context (knowing that) in your reply. Quine and Skinner were incredulous at the rise of Cognitive 'Science' in the 70s and 80s, as this language was what requires excplanation, it can not be used as explanation. Good neuroscientists do not study brain states, they studies functional neuroanatomy, chemistry in conjunction with oter behaviours.
I've asked you before, do you wnat to learn, or are you going to keep making misakes and claiming it is all a matter of opinion? The latter is anarchism. Much of psychology and neuroscience these days is nonsense because of our neoliberal times. Like economics, it has to be read with care.
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Frank
There are only two outcomes: the bridge will stand or the bridge will fall. It doesn't matter what anyone's "opinion" is.
The premise is that facts override opinions. The engineers who built the bridge know whether it is stable or not; they deal in absolutes. It is either yes or no. If there is any doubt about the safety of the bridge, the engineers will answer, "no it will not stand". Not many bridges collapse these days.
Admittedly, it's not always as clean cut as that, as interpretation of the facts does play a very important part, especially in the world of medicine. Therefore, it is extremely important to assemble as many hard facts and hard evidence as possible, in order to make an informed diagnosis.
In matters of great importance, like medicine or banking, we need more hard facts, and less feelings. The more relevant and reliable the facts and experiences are, the more reliable the resulting interpretation will be.
Ratings agencies and CDO valuations are unreliable, as there is too much opinion and not enough fact or experience underpinning them......
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Oh dear jj, looks like FrankSz has deconstructed your arguments.
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FrankSz (#91) "What JJ alludes to, but does not admit to, is that the "extensional" is the collective belief of a committee, who agree to specific terminology. In other words, if you want to know if the bridge will be stable, you call upon an engineering community, and even then you get more than one opinion."
Truth does not come down to consensus (see theories of truth, focusing on correspondence of disappearance theory). Look up the other papers to see why, i.e. if you can not grasp it from 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (1951).
One could say that the analytic-synthetic distinction of statements was abandoned in favour of pragamatism, but it's a pragamatism which blurs the line between irrational belief and scientific knowledge only becausue the latter works in the real world by demonstrably making life more predictable/manageable given the current critical mass of evidence. Oe can't easily stop people talking nonsense of course, except in a statist society..... which takes us back to the price of freedom.
It is the business of detailed research in the sciences to use what we have learned to keep expanding our web of belief at the edges and we do that by testing to destruction and making predictions. It is not a democratic process. One has to master what is known in order to make a contribution, for what should be obvious reasons.
Some of what I have been posting to these blogs in recent years is material from the edge. Some of that is censored elsewhere for purely political reasons at the general publics' expense. :-(
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MrTweedy (#93) "Ratings agencies and CDO valuations are unreliable, as there is too much opinion and not enough fact or experience underpinning them......"
Esxctly. They have merely appropriated the language of risk assessment. We have even seen some of the 'poor' raters admit how they were bullied into providing these meaningless assessments. Outside of a planned economy, inefficient though they may well be, I can not see how the language of economics is more than pseudoscience. Restricting oontrol to that of the money supply is really just testament to how little control there is by design.
I'd like Paul Mason to report on some of the demographics throughout China. Regional (normative) measures of attainment in maths and science etc. PISA covers oter Eastern countries. I'd also like to see him cover just how much the state still regulates business. I'd like to see this done positively.
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#92
Nothing you say in that post actually addresses or deals with the topic at hand.
What you have failed to notice is that a "term" is nothing until it has been recognised by an entity receiving sensory input.
Let us take Intensional Transitive Verbs as an example:
"A verb is transitive iff it usually occurs with a direct object, and in such occurrences it is said to occur transitively. Thus ate occurs transitively in I ate the meat and left the vegetables, but not in I ate then left (perhaps it is not the same verb left in these two examples, but it seems to be the same ate).
A verb is intensional if the verb phrase (VP) it forms with its complement is anomalous in at least one of three ways: (i) interchanging expressions in the complement referring to the same entity can change the truth-value of the sentence embedding the VP; (ii) the VP admits of a special unspecific reading if it contains a quantifier, or a certain type of quantifier; and (iii) the normal existential commitments of names and existential quantifiers in the complement are suspended even when the embedding sentence is negation-free."
Apart from being mostly useless, this 'rhetoric' conveniently ignores what you also ignore: the problem of identifying if terms are "referring to the same entity." Whether two terms refer to the same entity (eg: morning star,evening star), depends on who is processing the terms, ie who is reading the sentence. You may claim that the morning star and the evening star are the same. It may turn out not to be the case. (This must be so, as 'facts' must be falsifiable) To an advanced community that knows that the morning star and the evening star are not the same, the two terms are not interchangeable because they do not refer to the same entity.
Regarding the 1st rule above, intensional basically means "sentences whose truth values depends on the actor in the sentence's interpretation of terms". For example, "Lois Lane is looking for Superman" If we substitute "Clark Kent" into "Superman", the sentence is apparently no longer true and therefore intensional. Right? Wrong. Both sentences are true to an outsider who treats Clark Kent and Superman to be equivalent. Only one sentence is true if you are Lois Lane. So depending on who you are, the sentence is either extensional or intensional.
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#93
MrT
I am afraid none of what you said is correct. Assessments such as whether or not a bridge will collapse are always probabilistic. Given that at the lowest of detail our most advanced models of reality are statistical and probabilistic (Quantum mechanics), and that knowledge itself is probabilistic, there is no other option than "opinion" (probability/likelihood)
If the assessment is carried out by a trained engineer, according to certain norms, techniques, etc., then the engineer is as proxy representing an engineering community, and expressing the opinion of a community.
What really distinguishes fact from opinion is the repeatability of the observation and the level of agreement in the results. The same applies for terms. If most people call it a bridge, but a few call it a viaduct, then it is more bridge than viaduct.
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superiorsnapshot (#94) "Oh dear jj, looks like FrankSz has deconstructed your arguments."
Deconstruction (Derrida) being the egregious term. Read Chapter 6 of Word and Object 1960. The battle for civilization/hegemony extends to academia. Guess where the Neocons aggregate.
Keep your eye on those TFRs and economies.
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Errata (#95) Oh dear double typo: - 'pragmatism, but it's a pragmatism'.
Failure to see the merits of Quine's case for extensionalism is to fail to find an answer to Hume's scepticism (see Popper and Russell on poached eggs), and to take a headlong plunge into irrationalism.
Those happily making a case for intensionalism please take note, there is no reason to such a case, just anarchism, and ultimately, interminable conflict, criminality, if not psychosis (see Axis II DSM-IV, especially Cluster B) :-(
That is what prevails today according to the figures I submit. That's Liberal-Democracy, and it's insidiously subversive, hence the Great and Little (Israel) Satan charge. Keep your eye on SCO membership and expansion.
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In some respects, economics is similar to medicine.
Sometimes you have to make a diagnosis based purely on symptoms alone. The symptoms can point you in different directions, and even suggest conflicting courses of treatment.
However, from many years' experience, a doctor can use their knowledge to build a diagnosis by seeking evidence which supports or dismisses a particluar diagnosis. Just think of Conan Doyle - by a process of elimination, the one remaining explanation, however unlikely, must be correct.
Economics can provide a stable economy, if one uses experience and theory together. Empirical evidence is slow to emerge; so by the time we receive a clear picture of the state of the economy it's usually months after the event, and too late to do anything about it. Therefore, prevention is extremely important rather than cure. This means intervention through adequate regulation, which sets safety limits, like speed limits on a road and crash protection in a car. For example, keep investment banks separate from commercial banks; no-one will then care if an invenstment bank goes bust. Safety limits protect us.
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#100
"Quine's case for extensionalism"
Any case for extensionalism is a case for the adoption of a centrally administered set of terms and rules for classifying things (an ontology). This is what the scientific community is about.
This is fine, so long as it is recognised that that central body does not represent the absolute, but is yet another subjective interpretation chosen for pragmatic reasons.
In essence I support the notion of central administration and systematic approaches for the general benefit of all, and I am in support of the socialist approach for these reasons. However, I do not think it is correct to draw a distinction between intensional and extensional, which is to propose that terms have an inherent association with some physical, objective extension. We must recognise that community A may believe that termX and termY refer to the same "thing" (ie, are equivalent), while community B may not, and that communityA and communityB may have entirely different systems of comparing which has the truth.
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#98
As an engineer who does exactly the kind of thing you are talking about, as a matter of opinion ! I agree with your take on this. Your explanation is accurate as to how we assess the risks and make a judgement on the balance of evidence at any given time (they are all snapshots not absolutes).
I would add that we are a hell of a lot better at predicting when bridges will (or will not) fall down than our equivalents in the financial profession. Having an understanding of both I would say that there are no fewer variables to determine, evaluate and pass judgement on in looking at the stability of a bridge than looking at the finances of a nation or a company.
If experienced engineers, trained and used to the kind of impartial level headed behaviour essential to design a bridge ran the financial sector it too would behave more like a modern well maintained functional bridge that is fit for purpose and less like a bull or a bear in a china shop or with a sore head respectively.
I really dont think it would take us long to switch skills and sort it all out for the world, we would also only charge a fraction of salaries the incumbents charge.
But of course nobody in the ruling elite would ever want it to be sorted out in that pragmatic way, it is not in their interests.
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There is the virtuous way, and then there's the dark way.
The dark way is easiest, and requires little effort. The virtuous path takes years of effort and self discipline.
Products which appeal to the easy/ dark human instincts take less effort to market......
There is no need to do anything, as children know what is right and what is wrong. There is no need to intervene in anything, as everything is just "opinion" and social problems have always existed and always will, so just accept the "vibrancy" of human frailty.......no need to worry about anything. The banking crisis and economic recession could not have been avoided, it's just down to bad luck......
Money grows on trees. You do not need to work hard and save; that's simply old fashioned.....
Credit where credit's due: bank loans and overdrfats, government debt and spending tomorrow's income today.......that's entertainment.
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FrankSz (#97) What you have missed in all this is that the bottom line is language. Sentence structure. What the classic examples highlight (going back at least to Frege and the establishment of Predicate Logic as a mechanical system in 1879 - ultimately the foundations of computing) are logical anomalies with some fragments of verbal behaviour but not others. The verbs used in critical/explanatory positions in scientific observation statements e.g. 'weighing' do not have the troublesome characteristics which the intensional idioms/verbs of propositional attitude have. I have highlighted what these logical problems are, and you have quoted another variant of the same. It is because of these problems that science seeks alternatives, hence physicalism/behaviourism. Of course people continue using the intensional verbs. They do so because they are not scientists, or, are not, at such times, behaving as scientists.
Learning the difference is what learning to behave as a scientist is all about. You need to learn the difference between rhetoric and logic and you need to spot it in other posters too. You cited a standard account of the difference between intensional and extensional contexts. A non extensional context is intensional. The problem with intensional contexts is that they are subject to equivocation, and deductive logical inference fails in such contexts. In other words, (mechanical) reasoning fails in such contexts. Hence the bridge-building example. This is quite radical, hence Radical (or Evidential) Behaviourism. Do not underestimate how radical this is. It is anti-mentalism. It dispenses with mind and all its trappings.
If you can not accept this, we have nothing of use to to say to one another. I am aware of the flaws of mentalism and I am aware of the power of science. If you are not prepared to listen and learn, that is OK by me.
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#103
For this reason I am particularly interested in the works of economist Steve Keen ( www.debtdeflation.com/blogs ) , who successfully predicted the financial crisis using the application of engineering tools and techniques (dynamic systems). He is working on models of the economy that avoid neoclassical fallacies and it all looks pretty promising.
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No.103. Jericoa
Banking, medicine, and structual engineering are extremely important. If they go wrong, people will suffer and the consequences can be catastrophic.
Beware of the word "opinion".
My main point is that liberty is no good without wisdom.
Wisdom is more than just a matter of "opinion". A bridge is stable because it has been built well, as the risks have been quantified or accurately estimated and the correct mitigation put in place by the engineers. There may still be a small probability the bridge will collapse, but if it did you would be able to find the reasons why. In short, bridges very rarely collapse. We are dealing with informed opinion, or expert opinion. It is more extensional than intensional.....
Intensional language, like collateralised debt obligations, seeks to hide the truth.
Language is important, and very interesting.
Listen to how often you hear the words "hard task", "hard work", "hard times", "hard to do".
You won't hear them at all, because the whole population now says "tough" instead of "hard". But how is it that a whole population changes its speech patterns? Why can it be influenced in such a way?
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"I am aware of the flaws of mentalism and I am aware of the power of science. "
False dichotomy. Science treats the physical and the mental as ontologically (substantially) the same.
You are confusing 'science' with epistemology. All it takes is for someone to experience a strong fever or a hallucinogenic drug, and they will immediately realise that the elements of all knowledge are the qualia of experience. I can only infer that you experience at all.
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FrankSz (#102) "This is fine, so long as it is recognised that that central body does not represent the absolute, but is yet another subjective interpretation chosen for pragmatic reasons."
1) Read the last third of Two Dogmas of Empiricism. Try to see that the relation between the intensional idioms and the language (and scope) of science has been a directional flow. We start with intensional and make improvements. Peer review is how science advances. Reviewers are tasked with identifying if anything new and useful is added to the literature.
In recent times this process has been sabotaged, I have explained how. We have devalued education and lowered standards. Why did we have mass immigration and female liberation? Because the birth-rate was low, and low birth rates increase the power/cost of labour. Sadly, high levels of low-sklled immigration and female education dumb down the population.
2) CORVUS laid off 2000 today. They don't see their order book improving for some time. Over 99% of population growth in London over the next 30 years will be in BME groups. Look at the unemployment rate in London, the school exclusion rate, the crime rate, the ethnic composition. Where is the socialism? Where is the government? They have been squabbling over who has most devolved power to the people i.e who are the greater anarchists. Why do people vote for people who say they will govern less?
3) China manages its population. More on how please Paul.
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And society treats art as more important than science.
That is why an aluminium model of a plastic blow up lobster by a "recognised" artist will sell for $2,000,000
Compare that to the wages of engineers, doctors, nurses, chemists, physicists, and anyone else who has spent years learning their profession.......
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FrankSaz (#108) "You are confusing 'science' with epistemology."
Really? You clearly have not grasped that Quine, Skinner and other Evidential Behaviourists like Herrnstein (and even myself) study the processes of 'learning' (aka growth of knowledge (epistemology) or 'pursuit of truth' (science) as naturalised epistemology, i.e as contingencies which control rates of behavioural change, and we do so empirically (see The Roots of Reference for the philosophical side, see SEAB site for the empirical).
There are, of course, those who have not grasped this. Many just refuse to listen and persist with what is familiar folk psychology with all its cognitive witch-doctoring. It's practically useless. That's an empirical fact. Now have had the opportunity to grasp why.
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Erratum (#111) You have had the opportunity to grasp why.
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#111
JJ - teehee. "Empirical fact." There are many things in life that I have not yet grasped. What is important to these discussions is that it is clear that you have not grasped the concepts fundamental to your general position here.
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#106
I dont think it is the modelling framework it is the moral framework that is the problem.
Engineers (and doctors / scientists etc) are by virtue of their own value systems self regulating in the overwhelming majority and abide by a voluntary code of conduct written by the ''voluntary regulatory'' institutions (Institution of Civil Engineers etc).
Nobody wants to design a bridge that falls down in the first place, most don't do it for the money, they do it because they like designing bridges.... it also happens to provide a reasonable steady wage that allows you to have a good standard of living and bring up a family.
I honestly think if you retrained all the engineers now becoming unemployed (numerate intelligent, responsible, modest individuals in the overwhelming majority) for working in finance and even applied the old regulatory system it would still work much better. It would still work because they would bring their moral framework with them.
The answer is therefore that if you apply to go to university with the intent of working in the city of london by virtue of that very ambition you should be barred from doing so, as it poses too much risk to the global economy. Or you could salary cap all financial people at the level of a professional engineer / doctor etc. re-designing the modelling framework is a waste of time, it may work for a while until someone motivated to do so finds a way around it...and off we go again.
let those who want to be filthy rich do so but only by generating something of real value like cold fusion or something, not by shuffling and manipulating other peoples money about the planet.
It really is very simple..but will anybody ever do anything to make it that way?
Wisdom or happiness is not related to IQ is what I conclude from the balance of what I can understand of the numerous posts on here.
Jericoa
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FrankSz (#113) Then perhaps we should just leave it there, as it sees to me that I have nothing substantial to learn from you, and I do not wish to argue with anyone who is dismissive.
In my assessment, based on your posts, you have persistently failed to grasp (or have explictly dismissed) what many regard to be some of the most influential work in Western philosophy and psychology whilst providing nothing substantial. I have pointed out what's happening economically and politically, and why.
Your verbal behaviour here is representative of exactly what I've said is the product of anarchistic education in our degenerating liberal-democracy. In my view, you have learned to argue but not how to learn, and the first 2/3 of TDoE covers why that's a pointless form of self-stimulation :-(
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Jericoa (#114) "Wisdom or happiness is not related to IQ is what I conclude from the balance of what I can understand of the numerous posts on here."
You have gone to some lengths to point out that you do not understand much that you have read, and yet that insight does not appear to have prompted you to ask any questions or do any research. On the contrary, it appears to have led you to conclude that you can safely ignore what you do not understand/know.
Do you not think that remarkable? Especially for an 'engineer'?
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#116
I will take that as a compliment..thank you.
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#114
Interesting. I also think the general constructive enthusiasm in engineering is what is needed. It is unfortunate that somehow over the last few decades healthy skepticism has been labelled pessimism, while blind optimism has been the mode. Skepticism goes hand in hand with the will to improve, critical thinking and generally positive outlooks. The engineering communities are, by and large, in my opinion both skeptical and positive, and inherently creative and constructive. Yes I agree - the benevolence and problem-solving mindset of the engineer, anathema to the narcissism and greed of the salesman and trader, is probably the basis of any positive change that may come from the application of engineering techniques...
#115
"In my assessment, based on your posts, you have persistently failed to grasp" == "I think you fail to understand..." and therein lies the problem.
I think I understand perfectly. You think I do not. Is there any more that can be discussed?
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#118
In danger of getting back on PM's original theme, as others here have noted most of the highest ranking officials (including the premier)in China are engineers by training.
Dont get me wrong I dont hold China to represent the ideal by any means or suggest the engineering, scientist, doctor , teacher classes hold all the answers but....
Do you think China would have progressed so rapidly if the top people in China were essentially career politicians, products of their selected parties think tanks or ex lawyers as broadly makes up our political class here?
Paul Mason..if you are still out there..please save us from ourselves and make another post so we can move on!
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Jericoa (#117) "I will take that as a compliment..thank you.
It's certainly very unsual for people to welcome constructive criticism these days. They appear to be very happy to dish it out (post it) though.
See FrankSz's comments on narcissism above.
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#119 People seem to like to criticise China, but I am sure that if the UK or US governments had to manage 1.4billion people with a resource shortage, the last thing on their minds would be free market ideology.
The free market is a luxury that the stupid and lazy can afford for a while.
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No.106. Jericoa
I agree with your moral proposition.
A profession is different from a job, because it takes years of study and experience to become a professional. It is "professional judgement" which allows a person to weigh the evidence and make a decision. Judgement is much more than mere "opinion". Such professional people are remarkable in how consistent and reliable their judgement is.
Banking is a profession, as the inherent risks involved in the financial system are complex and must be constantly assessed and mitigated. Many of the senior bankers running the likes of Northern Rock, RBS and HBOS actually possessed no banking qualifications; which is one fundamental reason why those particular banks got themselves into such severe trouble.
There are many reliable professions, which are regulated by examinations and institutions. Engineering is but one of these professions. We should also include craftsmen and trades guilds, as such people also take years to learn their craft and take a high degree of pride in their work.
Respectable, reliable and sensible should never be allowed to go out of fashion.
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122
Reliable is all you need - I would pay more regard to a weather forecast made by meteorologists than by astrologists not beacause of their methods, but soley based on reliability of the results.
For what it's worth in my opinion sensible and respectable are just accolades made by a society that recognises the reliability.
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MrTweedy (#122) "Respectable, reliable and sensible should never be allowed to go out of fashion."
Sadly, it has though. Present and past governments have actively facilitated this alas. In my view, their anarchism has largely amounted to opposition to exagerated, fabricated, evils of Soviet statism with the USSR as the bete noir.
Our anarchists in exile (Neocons) are going to have a much harder time vilifying the PRC and her friends as the original, pre Stalinist Bolshevism never took root there in the first place. This will be Western anarchists' final undoing, one hopes, as they'll have nothing to vilify but their own diabolical creations.
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No.124 JadedJean
It's interesting to note that neocons are anything but conservative.
As you say, their policies have resulted in unregulated free market anarchy.
The power of words and the english language has given us "anarchic new conservatives"; whatever next?
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Is it really possible to attribute universality to "anarchist" e.g Western Anarchists ?
Once again I think several understandings of "anarchist" has been conflated, such as Anarcho-capitalist, Anarcho-communist, Syndicalist along with individualist. Hence the faux paradox of referring to anarchists as a group and anarchism as a doctrine. Once this is dropped and we are forced to talk about groups of individuals with pluralist needs, then the accusations dissolve.
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superiorsnapshot (#126) "Is it really possible to attribute universality to "anarchist" e.g Western Anarchists ?"
Yes. There are those who like classifying terms, or worse, 'ideas/intentions', and there are those who classify behaviour in terms of its consequences or outcomes. If you look into any form of anarchism you will usually find Jewish anti-statism at work. Anarchism just means without rule or government, which is the predatory free-market 'conservative' model - see Disraeli.
Statism is the opposite. One should just classify polices of whatever party along this basic dimension. Power to the people, i.e democracy from below, is just divide and conquer anarchism/consumerism. The original Bolshevisks were sent into Russia by the Germans to topple the Tsarist state in order to get it off Germany's Eastern front, they were not sent in to build a state or to govern, that only happened after Stalin ousted Trotsky and the original anarchists/Bolshesviks in favour of Socialism in One Country which was essentially Fabian (see the Webb's book from the 30s and 40s).
This is not as complex as some like to make out. All of the main British parties today are practically anarchistic judged on outcome.
This is the real Clash of Civilizations. Stalin would have described Western ways as terrorist Social Fascism/Democracy, and he was right - as the 'War on Terror', is, in practice, a war against order/morality :-(.
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O.K jj I don't want another ride on the intentions(=)or(v)extensions merry-go-round. We can draw our own conclusions from the foregoing.
If anyone is interested then I'll leave a reference for David Miller's discussion on anarchism :
Anarchism, David Miller, 1984, pub J.M Dent & sons ISBN 0-460-11093-4
Where is Paul Mason ?
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superiorsnapshot (#128) "I don't want another ride on the intentions(=)or(v)extensions merry-go-round."
In other words, rather like FrankSz and LibertarianKurt etc you won't be told anything.
Who were The Fabians?
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Paul
I watched your films on China with interest and wonder if you're looking for a new issue to report on.
I'd would love to see your analysis of what is being reported as another commodity bubble particularly in relation to oil. There are a number of interesting pieces which I have read on this recently and it would be great to have your analysis and views on this. From what I have read, it seems that the money is moving out of US Treasary bonds into commodity speculation and this may include "cheap" money provided by central banks to financial institutions which was meant to be used to enable banks to lend again. It seems that it is this speculation rather than any real belief in an economic recovery which is driving up commodity prices.
I have also read that one of the implications of this is that we are going to be looking at a W shaped recession; the higher oil prices will kill off any green shoots (if indeed thewre are any) and the economy will start heading back downwards again. There was an interesting report on this recently by Douglas Westwood, the energy analysts, looking at the impact of oil prices rising to $80 on the US economy from a historical perspective. I have also read recently that the increase in gasoline prices in the US since January means that, on an annualised basis, US consumers will be spending more by way of increased gasoline prices than the total value of the Obama stimulus packages. It would be good if you could investigate these issues.
I have to confess that I subscribe to the peak oil theory. What I find interesting from reading all this stuff on the effect of the recent increase in oil prices is the possibility that we may never see $200 dollar; that in fact, the world cannot afford oil at that price and economic growth is impossible if oil reaches anything near that price. Form a UK perspective, a lot of the reserves in the North Sea are not economic above a prive of $40-50. It does therefore make me wonder whether these reserves will ever be produced.
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No.129. JadedJean
The Fabians wanted to maintain the social order but improve the standard of living of the working class.......or was that the conservatives? I'm still confused by all this political science lark.....
Still, it's a lot easier now we only have one party to vote for in modern presentation politics - the conservative labour liberals.
Political presenters, backed up by speech writers, is all we need (with Roy Hudd writing the jokes.......)
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#129
Hehehe.
"The Fabians" refers to the set of all things for which f is true, where f is defined as "Is Fabian?"
LOL
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#130
Peak oil and the breakdown of the oil/USD link is blatantly obvious. It is one reason why there is a vast WESTERN ARMY in the middle east.
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Ahhh, at last more of JJ's belief and classification structure becomes apparent. Being so different from other peoples, it is no wonder that communication is hindered.
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Paul,
I just watched one of your China documentaries on News24, it was the first BBC News report that I have seen on China that I felt was properly balanced, previously I have found BBC reporting on China to be overly biased against China, but I thought you captured the real situation very well and were very balanced in your reporting. A also found the balance and breadth of elements you covered really informative.
Excellent, well done to all involved.
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