gdp's Comments

ACADEMIA NERVOSA : The dominant paradigm (BDSM pun intended)

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:11:32 +0000

But, speaking of "deviations", I don't think that we can draw parallels between the significance of BDSM-related behavior and that of homosexuality. We could perhaps draw parallels between the social significance of BDSM and gender-based cultural movements like queer culture. In that sense, someone who is part of a certain culture that society deems 'deviant', is not exhibiting an innate behavior but is making a choice to participate in such a culture. As long as that participation is consensual there is nothing to discuss really. On the other hand I think that perhaps our disdain for culture-wars, like for example the wars waged by the dominant culture against other cultures, like LGBT, BDSM or other, has made us essentially uncritical regarding the meaning of certain behaviors.

ACADEMIA NERVOSA : The dominant paradigm (BDSM pun intended)

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:51:48 +0000

The fact that social deviations have in the past been considered examples of mental pathology doesn't say much about the nature of the specific "deviations", only about mental science. In particular it betrays the fact that in psychiatry, personal behavior, roughly speaking, that is correlated with problems in the social arena has always been considered suspicious from a pathological standpoint. Perhaps that is not so unreasonable, although it is certainly not precise.

A Division by Zer0 : Exploitation cannot be obscured in time

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:44:31 +0000

But the creditor at least has a right to the available property of the borrower. The capitalist does not have a right to the consumer's paycheck. So if a bank lends money to you (invests in you) so that you may buy a house, in the event of your default they have a right to take your newly bought home. If a capitalist invests in the means to produce something he assumes all the risk of his product not being wanted by consumers, whereas the consumer assumes no such risk but still benefits from the added value of the capitalist's labor.

A Division by Zer0 : Exploitation cannot be obscured in time

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:39:09 +0000

Why is friendship needed? people can survive without friendship. But in any case what do you mean 'survival'? 10000 years ago survival meant living until your 30th birthday. In any case life is not a binary value, there are qualities, and it's not 'luxury' to want to live a better life rather than merely survive until the arbitrary day you die.

vrypan|net|weblog : GGD Athens

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:51:41 +0000

δεν τα κατάφερα αυτή τη φορά, αλλά στο προηγούμενο που πήγα πέρασα πολύ ωραία και ωφέλιμα. Μοναδικό «μελανό» σημείο ήταν η διαφημιστική παρουσίαση της Sony που μας έβαλαν να δούμε.

vrypan|net|weblog : το IntenseDebate μεταφέρει τα σχόλια από το FriendFeed

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:11:09 +0000

θα το μεταφέρει το intensedebate στο friendfeed?

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:06:35 +0000

perhaps you are confusing evolution with cell structure and behavior. The latter can be examined in petri dishes, but the former can't. Evolution is much more than DNA. And of course the law of supply and demand is only one proposition of economics. There are many other theorems, like the Welfare Theorems which tell us about market efficiency and other 'good stuff'. And no, having an ideal free market is not a prerequisite for research into free market operation. So assertions about idealized markets operation can be tested against contrary assertions. This is what science is all about.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:00:49 +0000

it's funny how someone arguing rationally can claim that human rationality is false. in any case, rational humans may be a simplification but not an invalid one, in almost the same way that newton's laws of motion are simplifications of the truer einsteinian laws of relativity. And, once more, you are confusing libertarians with economists in saying that it is an especially libertarian thing to say that free market capitalism is a better system than any other so far. It is economists who know why, and tell us, that free markets work better. Libertarianism is only reinforced by this discovery by economists but is not based on that discovery.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:30:59 +0000

for example, monetarism (Friedman perhaps the most well known monetarist) is an economic theory that requires government to have a monopoly over the money supply. This is for pragmatic reasons and to one degree or another is contrary to more anarchic aspects of libertarianism.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:29:11 +0000

Just as evolution is a sound proposition regardless if there are people supporting it for other reasons (say a dislike of religion) so it is with economic laws which are sound regardless if there are people, libertarians, who support the laws' conclusions for other, moral, reasons. Your criticism of libertarians is unfair because the laws of economics are established independently of libertarian moral preferences and therefore libertarians are not being dogmatic when they use them as arguments in favor of libertarian ideology.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:24:09 +0000

that is like a religious person saying that because atheists are evolution's proponents they can ignore the scientific basis for evolution by concentrating only on atheists with a 'religious' (since they haven't necessarily conducted economic research themselves) adherence to evolution.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:20:01 +0000

no, you should read a peer-reviewed economic journal and talk to the economists who are publishing in it.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:16:08 +0000

every economic transaction is a repeated experiment and we have statistics to help us falsify economic propositions. For example there has been no good idenfitied where supply and demand are positively correlated. If there had been then the law of supply and demand would have been falsified. And in any case the same could be said of evolutionary biology, where is the repeatability and how could it be falsified? Of course the scientific method has many faces and evolution has been established scientifically through the fossil record (repeated experiments over millions of years) and has been given many chances to be falsified. But still there are many people who believe that evolution cannot be falsified. Do I have to convince you that indeed evolutionary biology uses the scientific method or do you believe at least that?

A Division by Zer0 : Back to the needs of Capitalism

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:05:24 +0000

ok, then at least give a reference to a source that discusses in detail the supposed 'deregulation' that led to the crisis. I can offer the Mises Institute Bailout Reader as a source explaining in more detail how regulation was the primary cause of the crisis.

A Division by Zer0 : Back to the needs of Capitalism

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:03:38 +0000

what do you base that on? I think most economists would disagree.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:01:42 +0000

as an example, all serious economists propose a free market to one degree or another, but they are certainly not libertarians since they will also propose elaborations on the free market theme which might not be compatible with libertarianism.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:58:32 +0000

I have no idea where you are basing your proposition that economics as a discipline does not follow the scientific method. Could you explain? As for religious fervor, the same could be said of biologists in favor of evolution. What makes them less 'religious' than economists to you is beyond me. Last I must once more point out that libertarians (or objectivists) are not the closest thing to a free market proponent! Someone is libertarian for moral reasons, whereby a free market proponent most often has utilitarian reasons. Most free market proponents today are utilitarians and therefore not libertarians.

A Division by Zer0 : The Free Market is your God

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:13:09 +0000

I'm assuming that the joke you are attempting is directed at economists rather than libertarians, since the image you've shown is basically an economic proposition, not a libertarian one. In that respect I suppose the same joke could be played against any scientist who tries to understand physical reality. You could say, those scientists have an absurd belief in objective reality, it is their 'God'. Hey you don't even have to say it because actually many people already do use the exact same argument against other kinds of science, like biology. People will say that belief in evolution is 'religious' on the part of scientists. Of course these people are usually religious fundamentalists or post-modern philosophers, which I'm not insinuating that you are, but the argument is pretty much the same. In any case, the argument usually continues by citing any economist, or biologist, who might criticize the established scientific view as something that proves that that view is just unsubstantiated nonsense and belief in it must be 'religious'. This happens in arguments against evolution, where any biologist who adds constructive criticism to the mainstream view of evolution is considered by anti-evolutionists as proof that evolution is unsubstantiated and merely a belief. In reality though, both in economics and in biology, the underlying principles (whether it is the free market or whether it is evolution) are very well established through the methods of science and the criticism that these principles attract, when serious, is attempts to add more to the principles, not to disprove them. It is like Einstein's constructive addition to Newton's law. Einstein did not and could not have lessened the significance of Newton's laws, he could only have added a valuable extension that improved the precision of Newton's predictions. So with the free market, so with evolution. Deviations from these principles (which are fewer than their opponents usually claim) do not 'disprove' them, they only permit us to improve them. So, even if you accept the view of some economists that the present crisis as a deviation from the free market principle, this is still not any reason disestablish that principle. Economists who criticize the free market do so in an attempt to improve our understanding on the basis of that principle. This has nothing to do with dogma or religion but a critical adherence to all the evidence you have available on a given matter.

A Division by Zer0 : Quote of the Day: Legacy

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:21:56 +0000

ok, it seems your philosophical, economic and psychiatric knowledge is so high that we should probably just elect you king so that you will provide us with Food, Shelter and Friend.

A Division by Zer0 : Back to the needs of Capitalism

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:10:46 +0000

based on the results of previous deregulations of course and based on laws of economics established by decades of empirical research. Your argument, that one needs a pure free market in order to establish theories and laws of the economics of free-markets is decidedly unfair and naive. Science, as does economics, has methods which can identify what is significant and what is not in order to formulate a theory and it also has methods with which to test these theories. When we speak of a free or non-free markets we have in mind economic features that can be found in different spatio-temporal regions and to many different degrees of similitude. It is based on these very real cases that economic theories are formulated and tested and answers to questions are given. It is not a crime to extrapolate from case-studies as long as you follow a scientific method whereby your extrapolations are tested. This is not mathematics, it is empirical (social) science.