Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: memyselfiam on February 18, 2012, 02:58 pm
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I'd value anyone's direction or insights into this. Not everyone may understand where I'm coming from. To some it may sound stupid or pedantic. And perhaps I'm being too fearful, puritanical, or suffering the scars of a protestant psychosis.
At any rate, I have a mistrust of the kind of "karma" associated with ordering from some vendors here. My feeling is a great deal of good and personal evolution can come about through the appropriate use of some of the things one may obtain on SR. However, not every vendor is pure at heart. How can one rectify with oneself when doing business with somebody who on the one hand offers a tool for enlightenment and with the other hand a substance which leads to separation and darkness?
Perhaps I've missed it, but I don't think I've seen a conversation on the forum about these moral/ethical conundrums.
One can't achieve the feeling of goodness unless one also acts with goodness. What comes around goes around. We all know this. A lot of the substances sold here though, through their production and distribution, have caused a lot of suffering to many different people. I don't want to take on that bad karma. It seems to spoil the experience to some degree. However, if that feeling really is just my own creation and not a natural reaction, how do I transcend it?
At any rate, these are some reflections I've had after being up all night after having tried something new. I recognize that sometimes it can plainly be seen which vendors have good intentions and pure products. However, sometimes these things are not completely clear and I wish it were more so.
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Karma doesn't exist. I appreciate that many people feel it should, but they are incorrect. It is quite comfortable to rest on ancient assumptions, black and white principals. Perhaps a belief in Karma was necessary at one stage of human economic development in the hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Heaven, Hell, exist in most society's cultural baggage.
Dealing in illegal drugs is based on moral arbitrage. If the vast majority of people feel it should be banned, then it will be. The resulting lack of vendors creates enormous payoffs to those without the same scruples. A good example would be the difference in price between marijuana and methamphetamine, so you see there are an infinite shades of grey. Both drugs may be manufactured or grown with relative ease, yet there is an order of magnitude difference in price. The combination of moral arbitrage and addictive qualities is the explanation for this.
The only 'karma' that exists, is imposed by DNA tests, fingerprints, witnesses and the CCTV camera. The truth is that the human conscience is the little voice in your brain telling you somebody else is looking.
For me personally, societies morality is not my morality. I chose my own morality.
Society itself, is the cause of most of the ills in the world. Minorities are generally not the cause of systemic problems. Most of these ills are silent killers that don't get a mention in any press articles.
Take the Agri-Cap of the European Union for example. Every year, millions of tonnes of commodities are dumped into the sea.
Good food, fresh food, quality food, is being deliberately destroyed by the EU. This is no conspiracy theory, the Agri-Cap accounts for over 50% of the entire EU budget, presiding over a group of half a billion consumers.
Farmers in the EU, some of whom I know personally, deliberately are subsidized by the government to grow gigantic volumes of crops, which are then shipped abroad and destroyed.
Meanwhile, Africa, whose biggest economic sector is by *far* agricultural, is effectively banned from exporting commodities in a direct fashion to the world's largest economic zone (because the quotas mean it has to cost the same as it would if it were produced in the EU, plus the cost of shipping...). The boats that come in with these grey commodities are seized and destroyed.
As a result, millions of poor African farmers don't get access to a market that would dramatically bootstrap their economic situation. Perhaps tens of thousands of people are dead, or saw their life expectancies reduced because of such actions.
Now riddle me this Mr Karma. Who is in the right here? Because the black market in African commodities is certainly illegal, but the white market is prohibited from accepting them.
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You do, when all is counted, more damage, by preventing markets from working, than you would get if you opened them.
But wait, let's go even further.
Let's say I sell a drug which kills tens of thousands of people. Let us then say I become a billionaire as a result of such suffering. Let us then say that money was invested in the white market to produce millions of jobs, creating a higher standard of living and life expectancy for tens of millions of people.
This is not some abstract philosophy bullshit. This happens all the time in the real world. At least 50% of the millionaires in emerging markets become so through black or grey market activity. Don't be so quick to judge who is right and who is wrong. You can never know that. Remember the fable of the white horse.
The Old Man and the White Horse
Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, for he owned a beautiful white horse. Even the king coveted his treasure. A horse like this had never been seen before – such was its splendor, its majesty, its strength.
People offered fabulous prices for the steed, but the old man always refused. “This horse is not a horse to me,” he would tell them. “It is a person. How could you sell a person? He is a friend, not a possession. How could you sell a friend.” The man was poor and the temptation was great. But he never sold the horse.
One morning he found that the horse was not in his stable. All the village came to see him. “You old fool,” they scoffed, “we told you that someone would steal your horse. We warned you that you would be robbed. You are so poor. How could you ever protect such a valuable animal? It would have been better to have sold him. You could have gotten whatever price you wanted. No amount would have been to high. Now the horse is gone and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”
The old man responded, “Don’t speak too quickly. Say only that the horse is not in the stable. That is all we know; the rest is judgment. If I’ve been cursed or not, how can you know? How can you judge?”
The people contested, “Don’t make us out to be fools! We may not be philosophers, but great philosophy is not needed. The simple fact that your horse is gone is a curse.”
The old man spoke again. “All I know is that the stable is empty, and the horse is gone. The rest I don’t know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say. All we can see is a fragment. Who can say what will come next?”
The people of the village laughed. They thought that the man was crazy. They had always thought he was a fool; if he wasn’t, he would have sold the horse and lived off the money. But instead, he was a poor woodcutter, and old man still cutting firewood and dragging it out of the forest and selling it. He lived hand to mouth in the misery of poverty. Now he had proven that he was, indeed, a fool.
After fifteen days, the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses with him. Once again, the village people gathered around the woodcutter and spoke. “Old man, you were right and we were wrong. What we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.”
The man responded, “Once again, you go too far. Say only that the horse is back. State only that a dozen horses returned with him, but don’t judge. How do you know if this is a blessing or not? You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge? You read only one page of a book. Can you judge the whole book? You read only one word of one phrase. Can you understand the entire phrase?”
“Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. All you have is one fragment! Don’t say that this is a blessing. No one knows. I am content with what I know. I am not perturbed by what I don’t.”
“Maybe the old man is right,” they said to one another. So they said little. But down deep, they knew he was wrong. They knew it was a blessing. Twelve wild horses had returned. With a little work, the animals could be broken and trained and sold for much money.
The old man had a son, an only son. The young man began to break the wild horses. After a few days, he fell from one of the horses and broke both legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and cast their judgments.
“You were right,” they said. “You proved you were right. The dozen horses were not a blessing. They were a curse. Your only son has broken both his legs, and now in your old age you have no one to help you. Now you are poorer than ever.”
The old man spoke again. “You people are obsessed with judging. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. Who knows if it is a blessing or a curse? No one knows. We only have a fragment. Life comes in fragments.”
It so happened that a few weeks later the country engaged in war against a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he was injured. Once again the people gathered around the old man, crying and screaming because their sons had been taken. There was little chance that they would return. The enemy was strong, and the war would be a losing struggle. They would never see their sons again.
“You were right, old man,” They wept. “God knows you were right. This proves it. Your son’s accident was a blessing. His legs may be broken, but at least he is with you. Our sons are gone forever.”
The old man spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. No one knows.
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Thank you Pine, there is some wisdom in what you say. Different traditions make similar points about judgmental-ism and creating stories.
You didn't attend the LSE, did you? :)
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Pine said it a lot better than I could have. :)
But even if we assume for argument's sake that karma is a real thing, I still don't see the logic whereby purchasing an enlightening product from someone will contaminate your karma just because that same someone also sells harmful products. Quite to the contrary, the SR is a market and obeys the laws of supply and demand. So, in the lines of the categorical imperative, let's extrapolate your conduct: if everyone bought enlightening drugs from a vendor who also offers harmful drugs, that vendor is much more likely to reinvest his profits in the enlightening drugs, since they're the ones people want to buy. The result is an increase in the good drug market, having no effect in the bad drug market. and if absolutely everyone buys only the good drugs, then that market will grow and the bad drug market will wither. So, how can a conduct which brings only positive effects when generalized bring bad karma? It's nonsensical.
That said, I'd like to point out that my use of the adjectives "good", "enlightening", "bad" and "harmful" here is just for the sake of facilitating communication, based on the sentiments you expressed in OP. I'm not referring to any particular drugs, or making any judgements of value.
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Ah! European philosophers! ;)
How about an Eastern perspective, anyone?
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I love when people say gods/god or karma or englightenment and whatnot doesnt exist....its hilarious. The one thing you simply cannot prove whatsoever either way is the one thing that people say doesnt exist more than anything else. Funny yet a bit sad.
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Ah! European philosophers! ;)
How about an Eastern perspective, anyone?
The Old Man and the White Horse *is* a Chinese story that is apparently several thousand years old.
Re: dankology, and I'll bet you already know the rejoiner, that being there's an infinity of things we cannot prove to not exist.
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It's all about "Withnail and I". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094336/quotes?qt=qt0451880
Marwood: Give me a Valium, I'm getting the FEAR!
Danny: [very calmly] You have done something to your brain. You have made it high. If I lay 10 mils of diazepam on you, it will do something else to your brain. You will make it low. Why trust one drug and not the other? That's politics, innit?
Marwood: I'm gonna eat some sugar.
[he goes to the kitchen]
Danny: I recommend you smoke some more grass.
Marwood: No way, no fucking way.
Danny: That is an unfortunate political decision. Reflecting these times.
Withnail: What are you talking about, Danny?
Danny: Politics, man. If you're hanging onto a rising balloon, you're presented with a difficult decision - let go before it's too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.
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The same moral dillema can be applied to any consumer decision and you simply can't predict all the possible ramifications you parting with your cash can cause.
In fact the whole systematization of any production and distribution process serves to separate the consumer from the supply chain: making living things (people or animal) simply commodities or cogs in a wheel.
At least when something is legal it can be regulated and a certain amount of transparency enforced, but even then we're limited by the information available and our capacity, or more so willingness, to take it on board.
The best thing you can do is be as aware as you can be: If a vendor sells something you disagree with, vote with your wallet. If you're not sure, at least be content that you haven't *directly* contributed towards somebody's suffering.
You can barely breath without contributing towards someone's exploitation these days. But remember, the guys making 10 dollars for a full day's dangerous work in Peru or the boys making Nike shoes wherever, are victims of their environment, not of you, and they're doing it because it's the most profitable option available to them.
And that's the real evil here: The fact that those that have can decide that adults are not allowed do on to themselves as they wish, and in the process, keep those without, without.
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The only 'karma' that exists, is imposed by DNA tests, fingerprints, witnesses and the CCTV camera. The truth is that the human conscience is the little voice in your brain telling you somebody else is looking.
Maybe for most, but there are many athiests that will still refuse to do something they think is wrong even when noone is looking.
You left out the end bit about God:
Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”
Intentional?
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I'd really, really like to see someone disprove karma and/or gods/god in a scientifically way.
Oh wait, you can't you say? Yeah I know, I just like pointing that out to people who say it doesnt exist.
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I've enjoyed my SR experience thus far.
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I'd really, really like to see someone disprove karma and/or gods/god in a scientifically way.
Oh wait, you can't you say? Yeah I know, I just like pointing that out to people who say it doesnt exist.
Karma is disproved when good people die. It's silly to think something works when a lot of the time it doesn't.
As for gods, it all depends on how you define god. Is he omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient? Then he doesn't exist since those traits would contradict reality. Do you define a god as that which makes the universe work? Then he exists and is called motherfucking physics. Everyone defines god differently though, so it's fucking impossible to say "god" doesn't exist when the goal keeps moving--I suppose in that regard you're correct.
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I'd really, really like to see someone disprove karma and/or gods/god in a scientifically way.
Oh wait, you can't you say? Yeah I know, I just like pointing that out to people who say it doesnt exist.
Karma is disproved when good people die. It's silly to think something works when a lot of the time it doesn't.
As for gods, it all depends on how you define god. Is he omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient? Then he doesn't exist since those traits would contradict reality. Do you define a god as that which makes the universe work? Then he exists and is called motherfucking physics. Everyone defines god differently though, so it's fucking impossible to say "god" doesn't exist when the goal keeps moving--I suppose in that regard you're correct.
Ah but maybe death is better than life? ;)
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penn & teller prove that there is no god in 38 seconds on youtube. lulz
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Anyway...God, no God...Karma or no Karma - who knows? So back to the OP. I think the biggest issue here is not specific to SR. The fact is that buying illegal drugs may, and often does, support violent murderous cartels that have ruined countless lives. The answer? Decriminalization/legalization/regulation, especially cannabis. But one could argue that the entire war on drugs is a massive failure. Just my opinion.
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The only 'karma' that exists, is imposed by DNA tests, fingerprints, witnesses and the CCTV camera. The truth is that the human conscience is the little voice in your brain telling you somebody else is looking.
Maybe for most, but there are many athiests that will still refuse to do something they think is wrong even when noone is looking.
You left out the end bit about God:
Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”
Intentional?
Whether that is a rational act depends on the situation. e.g. although stealing candy from babies could be done out of self interest, we don't often do it because of the repercussions in the event of getting caught. That is, the risk/reward ratio is heavily skewed towards not doing this act. You can never know for sure 'nobody is looking', which is why the conscience is a useful evolutionary adaption for warning of danger when your individual self interest conflicts with the collective and hence could threaten your survival.
Obviously people don't usually rationalize this in their brains, it's done at a lower more primitive level, mostly in the subconscious. It's expensive to continually think things through, which is why people follow higher level procedures some folk call 'morals' or 'principals'.
Re: Leaving out the bit about God, yes I did so deliberately. It seemed superfluous to the moral of the story, which applies whether or not you believe in higher powers.
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I'm not sure it's helpful to rationalize whether or not it's a good idea to buy from SR on the basis of Karma. You can be conscious of who you're buying from and what they're selling and their ethical standing, I guess, but I don't know if you're directly or indirectly impacting another third party's life in anyway? It's a point to point exchange. Unless the argument is that drugs are bad in general and you'll thus get bad karma? (regardless of whether or not it's real).
I sort of understand where you're coming from, in a sense. One issue that frequently niggles at me is the presence of CP on Tor and the rationalizing that I have to do in order to be OK with using a system that allows me access to substances, interesting discussions (whether they be political, ethical, about drugs, etc.), and interesting information when the same system by virtue allows, and is now littered, with child abuse. (Please don't argue with me Pedos - I'll never agree that CP is in any way understandable, regardless of whether or not you were 'born that way').
And, to bring it back to drugs, I think the same ethical (and karmic) problems can be applied to almost all consumer situations. How can you rectify access to a health system, and more specifically medicines, that not everyone has access to? How can it be justified that not everyone has access to clean water? etc etc...you see where I'm going with this.
Ultimately, I think if you can't consolidate your feelings regarding the bad karma is it worth buying from SR if you'll live in fear of karma coming back to get you?
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I'd really, really like to see someone disprove karma and/or gods/god in a scientifically way.
Oh wait, you can't you say? Yeah I know, I just like pointing that out to people who say it doesnt exist.
Karma is disproved when good people die. It's silly to think something works when a lot of the time it doesn't.
As for gods, it all depends on how you define god. Is he omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient? Then he doesn't exist since those traits would contradict reality. Do you define a god as that which makes the universe work? Then he exists and is called motherfucking physics. Everyone defines god differently though, so it's fucking impossible to say "god" doesn't exist when the goal keeps moving--I suppose in that regard you're correct.
Karma is not disproved when good people die. If you go by the traditional thinking of karma, when good people die they are evaluated and reborn into a better life(or, depending on your karma, something worse), eventually escaping the "cycle" and attaining true enlightenment, while others choose to come back to try and help those who need guidance make it(Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, etc.)
Regardless it is 101% *IMPOSSIBLE* to prove or disprove that there is a god or gods, dharma or kharma, etc. and that is a stone cold "scientific" FACT. In fact, DMT brings you quite close to entities that may teach you a lot about spirituality and change quite a few minds.
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I'd really, really like to see someone disprove karma and/or gods/god in a scientifically way.
Oh wait, you can't you say? Yeah I know, I just like pointing that out to people who say it doesnt exist.
The scientific method tries to prove something exists, not disprove it exists.
For this i'll refer you to the Floing Spaghetti monster.
But until quantum theory properly puts to rest what caused the big bang(s) or whatever time=0 scenario you care to pick from (and i don't think it can), the logical position is agnosticism.
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The only 'karma' that exists, is imposed by DNA tests, fingerprints, witnesses and the CCTV camera. The truth is that the human conscience is the little voice in your brain telling you somebody else is looking.
Maybe for most, but there are many athiests that will still refuse to do something they think is wrong even when noone is looking.
You left out the end bit about God:
Say only this: Your sons had to go to war, and mine did not. No one knows if it is a blessing or a curse. No one is wise enough to know. Only God knows.”
Intentional?
Whether that is a rational act depends on the situation. e.g. although stealing candy from babies could be done out of self interest, we don't often do it because of the repercussions in the event of getting caught. That is, the risk/reward ratio is heavily skewed towards not doing this act. You can never know for sure 'nobody is looking', which is why the conscience is a useful evolutionary adaption for warning of danger when your individual self interest conflicts with the collective and hence could threaten your survival.
Obviously people don't usually rationalize this in their brains, it's done at a lower more primitive level, mostly in the subconscious. It's expensive to continually think things through, which is why people follow higher level procedures some folk call 'morals' or 'principals'.
I wouldn't put it a cynically/simple as that. E.g. hunter/gatherer man spots a bush moving. Now it could just be the wind moving the bush, but it could also be a predator.
Being able to project your ego into that of something else is important for survival. "What would the predator do?" leads to "How would my prey feel?" leads to "Who am i?" leads to "Who else is there?"...if you get me.
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Obviously people don't usually rationalize this in their brains, it's done at a lower more primitive level, mostly in the subconscious. It's expensive to continually think things through, which is why people follow higher level procedures some folk call 'morals' or 'principals'.
Re: Leaving out the bit about God, yes I did so deliberately. It seemed superfluous to the moral of the story, which applies whether or not you believe in higher powers.
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Rational thought and comsumption of illicit substances is more often than not mutually exclusive!
As for Karma, leave it for the cosmos and Hindus to ponder, just don't hurt anyone elses joy and they'll probably leave your joy alone!
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Thanks AliGibbs and thanks JimPooly for the down to earth advice. We truly live in a fucked up world.
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By OPs logical approach every Apple user should burn in some karmic hell, for the purchased product is built in slave labor camps with unimaginable conditions. Driving a car would certainly cause you to be reborn as a dog or less, considering how much the planet's atmosphere it pollutes.
If a) karma were to exist (which I don't believe, life is a bitch and then you die), and b) OP's rationale would indeed apply, then SR would likely be the least of your "karmic" problems, as modern life is virtually impossible without primarily or secondarily supporting/furthering very "evil" circumstances. Be that by depositing your money with straight out "evil" institutions, burning fossil fuel despite knowing how harmful it is, eating animals that were bred into a short life under unimaginably horrible circumstances.
So what I am saying is, even if Karma cared one bit about your SR purchases, you'd very likely have a loooooong slew of other transgressions in line simply by living a life as we do these days.
How do you cope with that you ask? Buy something on SR, use it, relax and kick the can down the road :)
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@johnwholesome - Brilliant and a great idea. I'm going to go and smoke out any bad karma right now.
I'll always remember the saying: "My karma ran over your dogma" but I'm not sure why I've always liked that.
Edit: "MY dogma" to "YOUR dogma". (thanks JimPooley!)
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Can there be any purely evil or purely good actions? Everything we do will reverberate infinitely, so each and every action leads to an infinitude of both good and bad consequences. Of course, an attempt needs to be made to keep the foreseeable results of our actions good, but at a certain point it is no longer up to us (and some of us, including myself some days, would argue that nothing at all is in our control). The real evil is giving up, as long as we are actively trying to further the forces of good, no fault can be had.
~from the meadow, goatHerd
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Can there be any purely evil or purely good actions? Everything we do will reverberate infinitely, so each and every action leads to an infinitude of both good and bad consequences. Of course, an attempt needs to be made to keep the foreseeable results of our actions good, but at a certain point it is no longer up to us (and some of us, including myself some days, would argue that nothing at all is in our control). The real evil is giving up, as long as we are actively trying to further the forces of good, no fault can be had.
~from the meadow, goatHerd
Well said!!!
On a totally different note. goatherd, with respect to your username, does this "db" mean anything to you? Or "gedhi'izzim" ?
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By OPs logical approach every Apple user should burn in some karmic hell, for the purchased product is built in slave labor camps with unimaginable conditions. Driving a car would certainly cause you to be reborn as a dog or less, considering how much the planet's atmosphere it pollutes.
Funny you should mention dogs because owning and caring for a dog is the biggest common environmental pollutant, far more so than owning several cars.
It's due to all the waste created in manufacturing/delivering dog food.
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I'll always remember the saying: "My karma ran over YOUR (sorry, i'm a bit fussy!) dogma" but I'm not sure why I've always liked that.
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I definitely agree with OP. I'm not saying our karma is the purest (we would not decide to take a LSD thumbprint at this point of our lives), but we follow some basic principles when doing business here.
- we do not sell substances that we believe have very bad karma behind them. For example we could source 99% pure amphetamine and top quality MDMA, but we won't, because some really nasty shit stands behind dealing with this things. We don't want to support criminal organizations.
- we do not sell high ammount of DOB and we do not sell it cheap, because we believe that some of users would resell it as LSD. We will offer higher ammounts when we get the new printer and place "DOB 2.6mg" signs on every single blotter.
- we or our friends always test new batches before we put them on SR. We understand that by selling psychoactive substances to someone else, his life is somehow in our hands and we take this very seriously.
Looks like a bad advertisement of drug shop :D But I would like to see similar comments from other vendors. I believe that responsible behavior will help us keep this place low profile in means of actions taken by LE.
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I share your sentiments GammaGoblin.
This brings to mind what Terrence McKenna said when trying to understand why they never went after him. I think he seemed to feel that because he was an intellectual and his audience was not broad that he was not seen to be threatening. Contrast that with the screaming antics of Timothy Leary who set us back 40 years. The conclusion is that these things have to be done quietly and with some wisdom. Lets not scare people. SR can become a fixture, but only if handled carefully. We have a toehold now.
Also, remember the lessons of civil disobedience. Let us hope that they see themselves as they truly are as they beat us while we sit still.
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I disagree completely. The only answer to LE is to be utterly ruthless. Only then are you playing on the same level.
LEO loves it's targets to enjoy humble pie and peace. If you try to become accepted by such entities, you are fooling yourself.
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I disagree completely. The only answer to LE is to be utterly ruthless. Only then are you playing on the same level.
LEO loves it's targets to enjoy humble pie and peace. If you try to become accepted by such entities, you are fooling yourself.
Couldn't have said it better meself. Around the globe LE loves nothing more than benign "sheep herd" criminals that try to "fly under the radar by keeping their heads low". They are predictable, manageable and easy to pick up whenever they need to bolster a few statistics.
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penn & teller prove that there is no god in 38 seconds on youtube. lulz
I raise you one single hemoglobin that contains over 500 individual proteins and requires a specific ordering of said proteins in order to exist (or becomes toxic and dies). Do you know the mathematical odds of that happening at random? They are higher than if an attempt were made every second since the inception of the universe at 15 billion years old until now.
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I raise you one single hemoglobin that contains over 500 individual proteins and requires a specific ordering of said proteins in order to exist (or becomes toxic and dies). Do you know the mathematical odds of that happening at random? They are higher than if an attempt were made every second since the inception of the universe at 15 billion years old until now.
I'm not sure where you stand on this, but if you are going down the route of "the universe is too complex to not have been created", or even that "the odds of 500 proteins being arranged just right at random are too low for it to happen", then I strongly recommend "The Blind Watchmaker" my Richard Dawkins.
Interesting read. It kinda nudged me in the right direction in a time where I had the same doubts about "randomness" and "chance"
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penn & teller prove that there is no god in 38 seconds on youtube. lulz
I raise you one single hemoglobin that contains over 500 individual proteins and requires a specific ordering of said proteins in order to exist (or becomes toxic and dies). Do you know the mathematical odds of that happening at random? They are higher than if an attempt were made every second since the inception of the universe at 15 billion years old until now.
Except it wasn't completely random. It was based off of previous cells based on previous cells based on previous cells, getting more and more primitive as you go back. We do not know how the "first cell" was created, sure, but it was undoubtedly much more simple than the ones we have now and evolved over a long as fuck time due to natural selection (natural selection, by the way, is what makes it not random) into hemoglobin. Simple, basic evolutionary principles.
Also if you're going for the "chance" aspect, I implore you to explain how likely it is for an incredibly, unimaginably complex being such as god to come into being at random.
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karma is truth
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penn & teller prove that there is no god in 38 seconds on youtube. lulz
I raise you one single hemoglobin that contains over 500 individual proteins and requires a specific ordering of said proteins in order to exist (or becomes toxic and dies). Do you know the mathematical odds of that happening at random? They are higher than if an attempt were made every second since the inception of the universe at 15 billion years old until now.
Except it wasn't completely random. It was based off of previous cells based on previous cells based on previous cells, getting more and more primitive as you go back. We do not know how the "first cell" was created, sure, but it was undoubtedly much more simple than the ones we have now and evolved over a long as fuck time due to natural selection (natural selection, by the way, is what makes it not random) into hemoglobin. Simple, basic evolutionary principles.
Also if you're going for the "chance" aspect, I implore you to explain how likely it is for an incredibly, unimaginably complex being such as god to come into being at random.
MAGIC!
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I would need to see any sort of evidence that demonstrates that information is actually added and retained. As far as I know there is no information that can be transferred without marginal losses of some of that information at the edges. I mean you don't actually see material effects unless you have millions of "transfers" of the exact same data, but you do start to see it.
DNA is the most efficient information transfer in the universe. but there is still going to be some micro-amount of loss every time DNA is "passed on". There is no documentation regarding DNA that proves otherwise, that information somehow is magically added from nothing. There is no documentation that proves it is possible to have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing, even the most basic of forms. Macro-evolutionists just jam a bunch of "time" in there when they can't answer certain questions. We've gone from, what, 700 million year old universe to 15 billion year old universe in the past 25 years? I suspect that number will continue to grow.
So if it can't be proven that a cell can continually develop onward and upward to become hemoglobin, I can't accept that hemoglobin is stage X of some simple original cell that had life (information) added from nothing. Thus far the laws of physics don't allow for it. Statistical mathematics doesn't allow for it, because anything other than that specific arrangement of proteins makes the cell become toxic to the body it's living in. How do you answer that 'million monkeys with typewriters' question if half the keys on the typewriter are lethal to the monkeys?
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I would need to see any sort of evidence that demonstrates that information is actually added and retained. As far as I know there is no information that can be transferred without marginal losses of some of that information at the edges. I mean you don't actually see material effects unless you have millions of "transfers" of the exact same data, but you do start to see it.
DNA is the most efficient information transfer in the universe. but there is still going to be some micro-amount of loss every time DNA is "passed on". There is no documentation regarding DNA that proves otherwise, that information somehow is magically added from nothing. There is no documentation that proves it is possible to have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing, even the most basic of forms. Macro-evolutionists just jam a bunch of "time" in there when they can't answer certain questions. We've gone from, what, 700 million year old universe to 15 billion year old universe in the past 25 years? I suspect that number will continue to grow.
So if it can't be proven that a cell can continually develop onward and upward to become hemoglobin, I can't accept that hemoglobin is stage X of some simple original cell that had life (information) added from nothing. Thus far the laws of physics don't allow for it. Statistical mathematics doesn't allow for it, because anything other than that specific arrangement of proteins makes the cell become toxic to the body it's living in. How do you answer that 'million monkeys with typewriters' question if half the keys on the typewriter are lethal to the monkeys?
Not sure I understand you, please clarify... You're saying that monkey hemoglobin arranges itself through mathematical probabilities and that macro evolutionists transfer toxic time jam into the KARMA of Silk Road?
WOW... that's fucking heavy... HOW DO WE STOP THE MONKEY HEMOGLOBIN???
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I would need to see any sort of evidence that demonstrates that information is actually added and retained. As far as I know there is no information that can be transferred without marginal losses of some of that information at the edges. I mean you don't actually see material effects unless you have millions of "transfers" of the exact same data, but you do start to see it.
DNA is the most efficient information transfer in the universe. but there is still going to be some micro-amount of loss every time DNA is "passed on". There is no documentation regarding DNA that proves otherwise, that information somehow is magically added from nothing. There is no documentation that proves it is possible to have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing, even the most basic of forms. Macro-evolutionists just jam a bunch of "time" in there when they can't answer certain questions. We've gone from, what, 700 million year old universe to 15 billion year old universe in the past 25 years? I suspect that number will continue to grow.
So if it can't be proven that a cell can continually develop onward and upward to become hemoglobin, I can't accept that hemoglobin is stage X of some simple original cell that had life (information) added from nothing. Thus far the laws of physics don't allow for it. Statistical mathematics doesn't allow for it, because anything other than that specific arrangement of proteins makes the cell become toxic to the body it's living in. How do you answer that 'million monkeys with typewriters' question if half the keys on the typewriter are lethal to the monkeys?
Because it isn't a million monkeys with type writers trying to write shakespeare, it's a million monkeys who get a banana every time they write the right sentence. It's kind of obvious you don't get the basic idea of evolution so let me inform you:
First off, evolution says nothing about the origin of life. It doesn't answer how the first cell arrived, that's irrelevant.
Now here's what evolution is: mutations happen every time something is born. You have a child? Well that child will look different. It's expected. Now let's say you live on a planet where all the kids with longer arms than average live healthy lives and all the people with shorter arms than average get killed. Any children with small arms will be killed (and their genes will not be passed on), and all the children with long arms will live. As time goes by the average arm length goes up, until eventually you'll have kids with such long arms that their dna is different enough to forbid their having offspring with the original humans. That is, essentially, evolution (albeit a bit exaggerated).
BEFORE YOU BITCH ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT EVOLUTION, HERE'S WHY YOU DON'T:
1. "have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing" This is irrelevant to evolution. We don't need to know how life started to know how it evolved.
2. You assume that without evolution, God did it. That is a complete and utter non sequitor and greatly implies you're trying to rationalize a belief in God by refusing to learn.
3. All of modern medicine and biology are based on evolution. Evolution is why we need stronger medicine and why we frequently need new vaccines.
4. We've actually already evolved an e. coli bacteria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
I'm sorry if you don't believe in evolution, but you can't really argue with facts; you can only be ignorant of them.
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There is no documentation that proves it is possible to have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing
Humans have already synthesized life actually http://www.medindia.net/news/breakingnews/Man-Ready-to-Play-God-Scientists-Synthesize-Artificial-Life-In-Lab-69211-1.htm
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I would need to see any sort of evidence that demonstrates that information is actually added and retained. As far as I know there is no information that can be transferred without marginal losses of some of that information at the edges. I mean you don't actually see material effects unless you have millions of "transfers" of the exact same data, but you do start to see it.
DNA is the most efficient information transfer in the universe. but there is still going to be some micro-amount of loss every time DNA is "passed on". There is no documentation regarding DNA that proves otherwise, that information somehow is magically added from nothing. There is no documentation that proves it is possible to have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing, even the most basic of forms. Macro-evolutionists just jam a bunch of "time" in there when they can't answer certain questions. We've gone from, what, 700 million year old universe to 15 billion year old universe in the past 25 years? I suspect that number will continue to grow.
So if it can't be proven that a cell can continually develop onward and upward to become hemoglobin, I can't accept that hemoglobin is stage X of some simple original cell that had life (information) added from nothing. Thus far the laws of physics don't allow for it. Statistical mathematics doesn't allow for it, because anything other than that specific arrangement of proteins makes the cell become toxic to the body it's living in. How do you answer that 'million monkeys with typewriters' question if half the keys on the typewriter are lethal to the monkeys?
Because it isn't a million monkeys with type writers trying to write shakespeare, it's a million monkeys who get a banana every time they write the right sentence. It's kind of obvious you don't get the basic idea of evolution so let me inform you:
First off, evolution says nothing about the origin of life. It doesn't answer how the first cell arrived, that's irrelevant.
Now here's what evolution is: mutations happen every time something is born. You have a child? Well that child will look different. It's expected. Now let's say you live on a planet where all the kids with longer arms than average live healthy lives and all the people with shorter arms than average get killed. Any children with small arms will be killed (and their genes will not be passed on), and all the children with long arms will live. As time goes by the average arm length goes up, until eventually you'll have kids with such long arms that their dna is different enough to forbid their having offspring with the original humans. That is, essentially, evolution (albeit a bit exaggerated).
BEFORE YOU BITCH ABOUT HOW YOU KNOW SHIT ABOUT EVOLUTION, HERE'S WHY YOU DON'T:
1. "have life, whatever that actually is, come from nothing" This is irrelevant to evolution. We don't need to know how life started to know how it evolved.
2. You assume that without evolution, God did it. That is a complete and utter non sequitor and greatly implies you're trying to rationalize a belief in God by refusing to learn.
3. All of modern medicine and biology are based on evolution. Evolution is why we need stronger medicine and why we frequently need new vaccines.
4. We've actually already evolved an e. coli bacteria.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
I'm sorry if you don't believe in evolution, but you can't really argue with facts; you can only be ignorant of them.
A bacteria developing different genetic traits but remaining the same species of bacteria is not macro-evolution (what I'm talking about). It does not verify in any way that genetic information can be added as a whole to create a new species, it simply means that genetics can shuffle around within the species (which I agree with. It's actually adaptation, a more correct term than evolution).
There is equal (at best) basis for the argument that life started 15 billion years ago from some gases and water raining down in mineral concentrates on earth, versus intelligent design. Neither of these theories could be called science, they are both "religious" in their own right. At this point we don't have nearly enough information to form anything CLOSE to a conclusion, so I would argue that the question of origin is more of a philosophical one than a scientific one.
Again I'm not sure how you can argue that all modern medicine is based on evolution. It's based on an increased understanding of the human body through observation and testing of hypotheses, and using our increased understanding of genetics and synthesized chemicals to create things that cause certain elements of the human body to react in certain ways. Just because I think it's ridiculous to assume that we are completely random and that information can come from nothing does not mean that I believe that the pursuits of science are in any way wrong (other than my tax dollars being robbed to teach some hokey shit like "global warming" or the "global ice age" epidemic in the 1970's, or macroevolution as if it is fact.
I am for free markets, which have always pushed science onward and upward. There are things happening right NOW that we can't even imagine because of humans cooperating together on a scale never before see in human history. The ability to completely re-grow human organs, limbs, and appendages. The ability to attack the most basic of symptoms to almost every disease that old age brings about. Some people might call that "evolution" of humanity. I call it adaptation. I call it what happens when you allow 4 or 5 generations of humans to actually pursue self-interest in a fairly unfettered way (imagine if there were no state!).
We do not know how life evolved and how our planet branched off into millions of species that interact in a way so complicated, your mind would blow up if it could witness all of it and understand all of it happening at once. purporting to know that without actual evidence makes most of this macro discussion one of philosophy. Just like karma. They do belong in the same thread after all lol.
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Just because I think it's ridiculous to assume that we are completely random and that information can come from nothing
I think most people in the scientific community say that existence has always existed, and that it did not come from nothing. People in the religious community are the ones who tend to think that first there was God and then he created everything else from nothing. Also it has already been shown that evolution is far from completely random. Also if the universe is trapped in an infinite cycle of expansion and contraction (although not the most popular theory anymore), that means time is infinite. Over infinite time a lot of things can happen. I think right now the most popular theory is that the universe will eventually die of heat death though and time will cease to be.
I think that science just creates a model that is the best understanding of reality at a given time. Very little other than maybe math can be taken as absolute truth. Scientific theories, even extremely popular ones, are forced to change all the time. I take science not as an absolute truth, but as the best representation of reality currently available. I don't think that God or Gods can be proven to exist or not to exist. Hell, I don't even think it is possible to say that an all powerful God for some reason decided to make it look like it is impossible for him to exist. Maybe the devil planted dinosaur bones to test our faith. Maybe there is an invisible pink unicorn. I find these things to both be extremely unlikely. I find the chances of there being a God or Gods to be significantly higher than the chances of there being an invisible pink unicorn, or the Christian or Islamic or Jewish religions to be correct. But when it comes down to it, science has done more for humanity than religion has ever been proven to do. Who knows what is real. I will stick to science though :).
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Look guys I've been here as long as any of you.
The Silk Road community does have a good karma in the customers and the community. We all come from basically the same POV. We all want to feel good and help others feel good. It does get passed around in some circles.
Make friends on the forums spread karma.
Make karma circles spread information and products.
It's a the best thing for the community.
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Thread derailed by yet another Creation vs Evolution argument.
I suggest *actually* reading the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Why?
Because the majority of people think they know the theory of evolution and they really don't. That goes for atheists and christians alike, albeit they get stuck on completely different things.
Creationists usually get stuck on the difference between macro and micro evolution. The problem is that there is no macro and micro evolution because there is no reason to have a distinction between the two. The argument rapidly becomes pure semantics, which is a good indicator there's nothing to back it up. Never has a Christian managed to explain to me quite how they are different. i.e. the mechanics of their difference, what creates an upper and lower bound to evolution. Two species exist once members of a species are unable to mate successfully with all of their kind. Try imagining a Great Dane fucking a Pug and you get the picture. It's physically not possible yet they are, or were, the same species.
Atheists often forget the key to understanding Evolution Theory is to understand another theory called Malthusian Theory, or haven't actually read the full title to the book which explains it's 'via natural selection'. Natural Selection, folks, is another word for death. If you don't understand Malthus, you don't understand Evolution, period.
Unfortunately many Atheists are left wing, and because of this they don't fully grasp how Evolution works. Their comic book version of the book is actually just as ludicrous as the Young Earth Creationists version of it.
Read the damn source material. Fuck your spark notes and read the damn book. If you go at it wholeheartedly, I assure you'll have a much deeper understanding of what Evolution Theory is afterwards, it will reward you in intellectual spades.
Also because, it's an amazing book and of course controversial, so it's worth reading just because of that.
Protip: It's out of copyright... ;)
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Unfortunately many Atheists are left wing, and because of this they don't fully grasp how Evolution works.
This is coming from a very right-wing atheist, but what. The. Hell.
Please explain to me how a person's political orientation, expressed in such broad terms as "left wing", can preclude their understanding of a purely scientific concept. I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying here. =/
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The need to believe in a creator is an evolutionary remnant of the fight or flight mechanism. When Ugh and Grok huddled under a mammoth skin at night they had to believe that something is out there in the dark that they can't see or hear, otherwise they would have not given a shit, let their guard down, be noisy as hell, not be on the lookout but snoring away, in the process easily becoming saber tooth poodoo.
Funny innit? Creationism IS proof of evolution haha....
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Unfortunately many Atheists are left wing, and because of this they don't fully grasp how Evolution works.
This is coming from a very right-wing atheist, but what. The. Hell.
Please explain to me how a person's political orientation, expressed in such broad terms as "left wing", can preclude their understanding of a purely scientific concept. I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying here. =/
Sorry if it wasn't clear.
Evolution Theory is a much more broad concept than just biology. If you examine economics, you see there are many many crossovers between economics and biology. Too many for it to be a coincidence. Natural Selection, Adaption to the Environment, the size of corporations over time, the flow of sectors and industries within the economy. It all resembles an evolutionary eco-system because it is one.
Basically, evolution theory is the essence of why markets work in the way they do. I'm sure I don't need to prove that, there's just too many examples to count them all. The evidence is really overwhelming.
Now, many atheists in America are socialists. This is because they are independent types rejecting the mainstream. Socialists believe in a top down approach to the system, where centralized control over the economy is necessary for it to be 'rational'.
The thing is, is that this is identical to the belief that Christians have about God. In fact, it's the same idea. The idea that you require top down control for the System to make any sense. They have simply superimposed the government over the same ideological structure that previously existed in religion for God.
It is almost Freudian, where the Beard in the Sky (your first memories of your father) becomes God, except that your memories of religion are subliminally informing your view of the State.
It cannot be a coincidence, that the most destructive forces in the past several centuries have been religious wars and communism. Communism is simply the worship of a new, more scientific sounding God, the State.
I realize this may sound strange at first ;-)
But it makes sense, humans are associative creatures, we come up with ideas by merging or splitting or distorting other ideas we already have.
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The need to believe in a creator is an evolutionary remnant of the fight or flight mechanism. When Ugh and Grok huddled under a mammoth skin at night they had to believe that something is out there in the dark that they can't see or hear, otherwise they would have not given a shit, let their guard down, be noisy as hell, not be on the lookout but snoring away, in the process easily becoming saber tooth poodoo.
Funny innit? Creationism IS proof of evolution haha....
The way I see it, is that Creationism is actually mankind first attempt towards a rational view of the world. It's not correct, but at the time it was far more rational than believing anything. Whether that process was corrupted or not, is beside the point.
I believe humans yearn to understand the world. It's our deepest instinct of all. That much unites the Atheist and Christian, even though they are like Cats and Dogs.
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I want a more socialist society because I'd like a safety net. Or rather, I'd like others to have safety nets. It doesn't make sense that a person can be totally fucked because of a broken ankle in the US, while in most other developed nations they wouldn't be.
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I want a more socialist society because I'd like a safety net. Or rather, I'd like others to have safety nets. It doesn't make sense that a person can be totally fucked because of a broken ankle in the US, while in most other developed nations they wouldn't be.
You can have safety nets aplenty without handing your tax dollars to the government. The idea that the government is there to look out for you in every circumstance is completely fallacious. Take the NHS in the UK. The average cleaner makes between 6 and 10 pounds per hour. They pay 50 pounds per week to the NHS. This is not optional.
Now, that, is not fair. It's the middle classes who receive most of the benefits of socialized systems. Yes, equality can really be more unfair than inequality. You cannot know how much the working class in Britain hates the people on benefits. It's visceral. That's because their incentives are the exact opposite of each other, which has caused an enormous schism in society.
For me, private health care costs are a fraction of what it cost me in the public sphere. Protip: I also don't wait in lines.
Now, what if I were to get a serious problem like cancer that would be very expensive to take care of? Well, insurance companies exist for that reason. In practice, you could die waiting in the queue on the public system. In fact, it happens regularly, I know people who almost died because they didn't switch soon enough from supposedly free healthcare to private. In the end their hand was forced to choose private because otherwise they would have died waiting. It's no joke this business, it's all very ugly.
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Sorry if it wasn't clear.
Evolution Theory is a much more broad concept than just biology. If you examine economics, you see there are many many crossovers between economics and biology. Too many for it to be a coincidence. Natural Selection, Adaption to the Environment, the size of corporations over time, the flow of sectors and industries within the economy. It all resembles an evolutionary eco-system because it is one.
Basically, evolution theory is the essence of why markets work in the way they do. I'm sure I don't need to prove that, there's just too many examples to count them all. The evidence is really overwhelming.
Now, many atheists in America are socialists. This is because they are independent types rejecting the mainstream. Socialists believe in a top down approach to the system, where centralized control over the economy is necessary for it to be 'rational'.
The thing is, is that this is identical to the belief that Christians have about God. In fact, it's the same idea. The idea that you require top down control for the System to make any sense. They have simply superimposed the government over the same ideological structure that previously existed in religion for God.
It is almost Freudian, where the Beard in the Sky (your first memories of your father) becomes God, except that your memories of religion are subliminally informing your view of the State.
It cannot be a coincidence, that the most destructive forces in the past several centuries have been religious wars and communism. Communism is simply the worship of a new, more scientific sounding God, the State.
I realize this may sound strange at first ;-)
But it makes sense, humans are associative creatures, we come up with ideas by merging or splitting or distorting other ideas we already have.
I agree with all of this.
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I'd value anyone's direction or insights into this. Not everyone may understand where I'm coming from. To some it may sound stupid or pedantic. And perhaps I'm being too fearful, puritanical, or suffering the scars of a protestant psychosis.
At any rate, I have a mistrust of the kind of "karma" associated with ordering from some vendors here. My feeling is a great deal of good and personal evolution can come about through the appropriate use of some of the things one may obtain on SR. However, not every vendor is pure at heart. How can one rectify with oneself when doing business with somebody who on the one hand offers a tool for enlightenment and with the other hand a substance which leads to separation and darkness?
Perhaps I've missed it, but I don't think I've seen a conversation on the forum about these moral/ethical conundrums.
One can't achieve the feeling of goodness unless one also acts with goodness. What comes around goes around. We all know this. A lot of the substances sold here though, through their production and distribution, have caused a lot of suffering to many different people. I don't want to take on that bad karma. It seems to spoil the experience to some degree. However, if that feeling really is just my own creation and not a natural reaction, how do I transcend it?
At any rate, these are some reflections I've had after being up all night after having tried something new. I recognize that sometimes it can plainly be seen which vendors have good intentions and pure products. However, sometimes these things are not completely clear and I wish it were more so.
Theres no such thing as karma. The only way karma can be enforced is if I kill you, and I'm caught by the police. There is no such thing as *real* karma.
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Unfortunately many Atheists are left wing, and because of this they don't fully grasp how Evolution works.
This is coming from a very right-wing atheist, but what. The. Hell.
Please explain to me how a person's political orientation, expressed in such broad terms as "left wing", can preclude their understanding of a purely scientific concept. I can't make heads or tails of what you're saying here. =/
Sorry if it wasn't clear.
Evolution Theory is a much more broad concept than just biology. If you examine economics, you see there are many many crossovers between economics and biology. Too many for it to be a coincidence. Natural Selection, Adaption to the Environment, the size of corporations over time, the flow of sectors and industries within the economy. It all resembles an evolutionary eco-system because it is one.
Basically, evolution theory is the essence of why markets work in the way they do. I'm sure I don't need to prove that, there's just too many examples to count them all. The evidence is really overwhelming.
Now, many atheists in America are socialists. This is because they are independent types rejecting the mainstream. Socialists believe in a top down approach to the system, where centralized control over the economy is necessary for it to be 'rational'.
The thing is, is that this is identical to the belief that Christians have about God. In fact, it's the same idea. The idea that you require top down control for the System to make any sense. They have simply superimposed the government over the same ideological structure that previously existed in religion for God.
It is almost Freudian, where the Beard in the Sky (your first memories of your father) becomes God, except that your memories of religion are subliminally informing your view of the State.
It cannot be a coincidence, that the most destructive forces in the past several centuries have been religious wars and communism. Communism is simply the worship of a new, more scientific sounding God, the State.
I realize this may sound strange at first ;-)
But it makes sense, humans are associative creatures, we come up with ideas by merging or splitting or distorting other ideas we already have.
Ah, much clearer. Thanks. :) It's an interesting idea you're expounding, and worth deeper research in my opinion. It reminds me of Alan Sokal's opinion on how the academic left tends to view science in general. Have you by any chance read his books Intellectual Impostures (co-authored with Jean Bricmont, titled "Fashionable Nonsense" in the USA edition) or Beyond the Hoax? Methinks you'd like them.
I think yours is a bit of a broad generalization (and I was particularly troubled by the phrase "Too many [crossovers] for it to be a coincidence", which describes a pernicious type of faulty reasoning that leads many people to hold irrational beliefs on religion and pseudoscience based on imagined patterns), but I do agree with your conclusions for the most part. The parallels between the ideologies of political extremism (not just communism, but fascism as well) and religion are plain as daylight - it's not a fluke that Historians will frequently use words like "cult", "worship" and even "deification" when describing how the images of people like Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Oliveira Salazar and Josef Stalin were treated by their followers - an equally obvious sign is the Luciferization of "enemies of the State" like Leon Trotski (Personally, I think that Trotski and the Serpent of Eden were the good guys in their respective stories, but mine is a minority view).
That said, I think it's more accurate to say that they stem from the same cause as religion than that they stem from religion itself. The willingness to be a part of something larger than life, to give in to an entity greater than yourself who understands you and is looking out for you - that's the deep motivation that leads a person to put someone else - real or imagined - on a pedestal and attribute to them special knowledge, wisdom and powers. This, I think, is an inherent human tendency which precedes and causes religion. Maoism was a religion like any other, except for a single difference: it made no claims about the afterlife.
The parallels between evolution by natural selection and selection in a market economy are indeed quite obvious. However, I don't think you're right in equating them and claiming that "Evolution Theory is a much more broad concept than just biology". No, it isn't. Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in its original form - and the more current models based on it but updated to keep up with newer findings like the DNA molecule - is simply a theory of life and heredity. Can the same principles be applied to other areas? Yes. But small markets have also been successfully described, to an extent, by equations taken from fluid mechanics. That doesn't entitle anyone to claim that "Brownian motion theory is a much more broad concept than just physics". Complex systems will usually (not always) behave in forms analogous (but rarely identical) to the simpler systems on which they are based - and market agents, as it happens, are either humans or groups of humans, so it's unsurprising that social Darwinism works very well as a descriptive system. But that's a separate theory based on Darwinian evolution and Malthusian market theory - not an intrinsic part of DE itself.
Generalizations and simplifications are extremely useful, but one must be careful not to take them too far. Markets are complex organisms, and our understanding of them is extremely limited. Even weather predictions are consistently more accurate than market predictions. Therefore, any categorical statement made about how they actually work, based on our current information and understanding, is much more likely to be wrong than right, and should be taken with several grains of salt. Even if it seems to make perfect sense and is logically self-consistent, that's no guarantee that it's an accurate description of reality.
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I want a more socialist society because I'd like a safety net. Or rather, I'd like others to have safety nets. It doesn't make sense that a person can be totally fucked because of a broken ankle in the US, while in most other developed nations they wouldn't be.
You can have safety nets aplenty without handing your tax dollars to the government. The idea that the government is there to look out for you in every circumstance is completely fallacious. Take the NHS in the UK. The average cleaner makes between 6 and 10 pounds per hour. They pay 50 pounds per week to the NHS. This is not optional.
Now, that, is not fair. It's the middle classes who receive most of the benefits of socialized systems. Yes, equality can really be more unfair than inequality. You cannot know how much the working class in Britain hates the people on benefits. It's visceral. That's because their incentives are the exact opposite of each other, which has caused an enormous schism in society.
For me, private health care costs are a fraction of what it cost me in the public sphere. Protip: I also don't wait in lines.
Now, what if I were to get a serious problem like cancer that would be very expensive to take care of? Well, insurance companies exist for that reason. In practice, you could die waiting in the queue on the public system. In fact, it happens regularly, I know people who almost died because they didn't switch soon enough from supposedly free healthcare to private. In the end their hand was forced to choose private because otherwise they would have died waiting. It's no joke this business, it's all very ugly.
I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to health care, I just don't like that we give old people free money, poor people free food and then refuse to help the sick. Help everyone who needs it or no one.
I'll just stop right here and admit I know very little on the subject.
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I want a more socialist society because I'd like a safety net. Or rather, I'd like others to have safety nets. It doesn't make sense that a person can be totally fucked because of a broken ankle in the US, while in most other developed nations they wouldn't be.
You can have safety nets aplenty without handing your tax dollars to the government. The idea that the government is there to look out for you in every circumstance is completely fallacious. Take the NHS in the UK. The average cleaner makes between 6 and 10 pounds per hour. They pay 50 pounds per week to the NHS. This is not optional.
Now, that, is not fair. It's the middle classes who receive most of the benefits of socialized systems. Yes, equality can really be more unfair than inequality. You cannot know how much the working class in Britain hates the people on benefits. It's visceral. That's because their incentives are the exact opposite of each other, which has caused an enormous schism in society.
For me, private health care costs are a fraction of what it cost me in the public sphere. Protip: I also don't wait in lines.
Now, what if I were to get a serious problem like cancer that would be very expensive to take care of? Well, insurance companies exist for that reason. In practice, you could die waiting in the queue on the public system. In fact, it happens regularly, I know people who almost died because they didn't switch soon enough from supposedly free healthcare to private. In the end their hand was forced to choose private because otherwise they would have died waiting. It's no joke this business, it's all very ugly.
I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to health care, I just don't like that we give old people free money, poor people free food and then refuse to help the sick. Help everyone who needs it or no one.
I'll just stop right here and admit I know very little on the subject.
And I agree with you completely, it's just that I think there's solutions that have been shown to work much better in every way possible than using the government as an intermediary.
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Ah, much clearer. Thanks. :) It's an interesting idea you're expounding, and worth deeper research in my opinion. It reminds me of Alan Sokal's opinion on how the academic left tends to view science in general. Have you by any chance read his books Intellectual Impostures (co-authored with Jean Bricmont, titled "Fashionable Nonsense" in the USA edition) or Beyond the Hoax? Methinks you'd like them.
I think yours is a bit of a broad generalization (and I was particularly troubled by the phrase "Too many [crossovers] for it to be a coincidence", which describes a pernicious type of faulty reasoning that leads many people to hold irrational beliefs on religion and pseudoscience based on imagined patterns), but I do agree with your conclusions for the most part. The parallels between the ideologies of political extremism (not just communism, but fascism as well) and religion are plain as daylight - it's not a fluke that Historians will frequently use words like "cult", "worship" and even "deification" when describing how the images of people like Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Oliveira Salazar and Josef Stalin were treated by their followers - an equally obvious sign is the Luciferization of "enemies of the State" like Leon Trotski (Personally, I think that Trotski and the Serpent of Eden were the good guys in their respective stories, but mine is a minority view).
That said, I think it's more accurate to say that they stem from the same cause as religion than that they stem from religion itself. The willingness to be a part of something larger than life, to give in to an entity greater than yourself who understands you and is looking out for you - that's the deep motivation that leads a person to put someone else - real or imagined - on a pedestal and attribute to them special knowledge, wisdom and powers. This, I think, is an inherent human tendency which precedes and causes religion. Maoism was a religion like any other, except for a single difference: it made no claims about the afterlife.
The parallels between evolution by natural selection and selection in a market economy are indeed quite obvious. However, I don't think you're right in equating them and claiming that "Evolution Theory is a much more broad concept than just biology". No, it isn't. Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in its original form - and the more current models based on it but updated to keep up with newer findings like the DNA molecule - is simply a theory of life and heredity. Can the same principles be applied to other areas? Yes. But small markets have also been successfully described, to an extent, by equations taken from fluid mechanics. That doesn't entitle anyone to claim that "Brownian motion theory is a much more broad concept than just physics". Complex systems will usually (not always) behave in forms analogous (but rarely identical) to the simpler systems on which they are based - and market agents, as it happens, are either humans or groups of humans, so it's unsurprising that social Darwinism works very well as a descriptive system. But that's a separate theory based on Darwinian evolution and Malthusian market theory - not an intrinsic part of DE itself.
Generalizations and simplifications are extremely useful, but one must be careful not to take them too far. Markets are complex organisms, and our understanding of them is extremely limited. Even weather predictions are consistently more accurate than market predictions. Therefore, any categorical statement made about how they actually work, based on our current information and understanding, is much more likely to be wrong than right, and should be taken with several grains of salt. Even if it seems to make perfect sense and is logically self-consistent, that's no guarantee that it's an accurate description of reality.
No, I haven't yet read Sokal's work, but I intend to at some point, his ideas interest me. It's on the to-do list. ;)
Yes, it is correct to be wary of over generalization (or reductionism from the opposite direction). I can appreciate that completely, it is rare that I do not err in one direction or the other, it's human nature to go to extremes. Still, generalization and reductionism are critical techniques of cognition for anybody to master, no matter who/what they are.
I find your 3rd paragraph especially interesting, because it concurs with my view of the world precisely. While I do not think highly of religion as an intellectual force for the better in today's world, Dawkins is completely wrong to think religion is the cause of the world's problems, it goes much much deeper than that. Religion, was necessary for us to get to the next level, even if it served as an impediment to science much later. Nonetheless, our finest scientists in history were religious, the trend to secularism is a recent one and I am an atheist, so you can take it I'm not biased in favor of Christianity!
Dawkin's work is wonderful, shot through with insights of startling genius (memes! He indirectly invented lolcats!), but his passion gets the better of him sometimes in seeing the bigger picture. In particular he is highly politically and economically naive. Still a great scientist nonetheless, which is why I recommend people read his earlier works such as The Selfish Gene before seeing him entirely in the light of his current battles with religion.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is a biological theory. However there is such a thing as Universal Darwinism. If we were talking in the lingo fantasy books, I might call this the Dark Magic! Because it is highly unsettling to nearly everybody. Essentially it's artificial breeding or weeding out of human beings. One of the consequences of Universal Darwinism was Eugenics, the project of the Nazis to murder hundreds of thousands of their own civilians (not jews, just people who didn't quite fit into society, never seems to quite get the same press).
Nonetheless, Eugenics has saved the lives of millions. Vaccines. Contraceptives. These are Eugenics in practice everyday. Still has a bad reputation, so many people prefer not to call it by its real name.
My point is that Universal Darwinism doesn't require biological evolution. Memes are not biological. Economics is not biological, unless you mean in the same sense that all biology is technically chemistry, which in turn is technically physics.
You just require a replicator, natural selection, time and an environment to have evolution. You say that is not biological evolution. You're right, but in a way that does not really matter if it enables us to have a fuller understanding of something else. Doesn't have to be a direct analogy if we can reliably predict the consequences of the system. Of course, the devil is in the details, there are always caveats.
I would say that saying Brownian Motion is more general than physics is absurd. But there is something about Brownian Motion that explains something else. It means to me that there is a more general theory that fully explains both Brownian Motion and Randomness in Markets, as of yet undiscovered. Because to be able to make accurate predication by knowing something else is a bit of a coincidence!
"Even if it seems to make perfect sense and is logically self-consistent, that's no guarantee that it's an accurate description of reality."
Hear hear! Couldn't say it better.
Side Note: that market predictions are even less accurate than the weather is a very interesting subject I have studied for a long time, sometimes called the efficient market hypothesis, random walk theory or Louis Bachlier's Theory of Speculation (something I imagine you've already heard of since you mention Brownian Motion and markets). It'd be interesting to discuss it sometime, since it will directly affect our activities on the Silk Road in the future, but that's a topic for another day since it would derail an already derailed thread!
It's a pity we can't meet face to face to talk about these things, but that's the bargain we make with anonymity.