Month: April 2013

All philosophy is class philosophy.  Libertarianism is a class philosophy.  All philosophies give precedence to one class or another. Just as socialism suggests that all are better off if we give primacy to the objective of equality, and political power to the lower classes; just as postmodernism suggests that we will all be better off…

The mass necessary to fuel the transport a nuclear weapon across light years of space is so large that there would have to be some reason to do such a thing in the first place.  I mean, if you can move something that far, you don’t need to use a nuclear weapon, just move a…

[W]hite males (the european, or perhaps germanic, race) seek status under the ancient indo-european proscription for heroism via competition. The west is unique for having produced this philosophy of aristocratic egalitarianism – inclusion in equalitarian leadership, and therefore obtaining the reward of property rights, by demonstrated heroism. And the high trust society of the west…

[A]ll philosophy is class philosophy. Libertarianism is a class philosophy. All philosophies give precedence to one class or another. Just as socialism suggests that all are better off if we give primacy to the objective of equality, and political power to the lower classes; just as postmodernism suggests that we will all be better off…

Interesting Answers.  Most of them unsupported or substantially wrong. Conservative is a reaction to the status quo.  The status quo in america is classical liberalism. Classical liberalism is the founding mythology of our country. This mythology contains the classical liberal, european aristocratic egalitarian view of man that we associate with the Protestant Ethic. The protestant…

For whom are they hard to work with? We follow the Protestant Work Ethic. Tell the truth, the whole truth, up front, make a promise and stick to it regardless of change. https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-American-US-ways-that-cause-people-from-other-cultures-to-find-them-hard-to-work-with

In reality, no.  (We have been doing it for ten years.)  (a) skills are perishable(b) experience is not indicative of performance – perhaps error reduction, but not competitive performance.(c) rate of career advancement, educational institution (a filter), IQ and physical appearance are the best individual measures. We have used stack ranking and peer review and…

REALITY:People organize.  They organize to their advantage. Especially where that advantage is mating preference, easier communication and collaboration, .  When people organize, they organize by race, class, culture, gender, religion and political association.  They organize by neighborhood, by type of work, and by professional association. In the USA, class and race have the most influential…

I don’t think the concept of ‘problem’ makes a great deal of sense in this context – or at least I’m not sure what you are referring to.  Our world changes.  Agrarianism, organized religion, government, literacy, industrialization, and even electric light, have had a dramatic impact on people’s lives.  We are always in a state…

The Prince is the first example of the scientific study of politics.  While science starts with Aristotle, practical political science starts with Machiavelli.  To the point where, were it not for the illiterate we would probably call political scientists ‘Machiavellians’ – and some historians and philosophers have done so (Burnham for example.) Machiavelli wrote when…

The libertarian position is often misinterpreted.  We do not suggest that cartels will not form. Rather, that cartels are not sustainable.   Our position is that they aren’t sustainable, nor are monopolies, without government support.  If they are sustainable, then they’re probably market-efficient, and therefore not a cartel in practice -although its pretty difficult to imagine…

Plato, like Confucius (???), could not solve the problem of politics and resorted to trying to manufacture virtue in a factory, in order to justify totalitarianism. Western Civilization has suffered from him ever since. And if it were not for Aristotle correcting him, we might not have been able to recover from it. https://www.quora.com/Plato-What-are-the-key-takeaways-from-The-Republic

THIS IS THE CORRECT ANSWER Others have described the phenomenon imprecisely. I will have to try do better until someone does better than I: 1) Sociology relies on surveys which are almost always false, because of natural properties  innate in human psychology and cognitive processes.   Sociology relies upon experiments, the conditions of which have greater…

Some of us have been working on this problem for a very long time. Ever since we realized that democracy (universal enfranchisement without demonstrated merit) was simply the slow road to totalitarianism. The arguments vary from increasing totalitarianism (most likely) to American dissolution (most beneficial) to direct monetary democracy( you vote your money to what…

INCREDIBLY FUNNY BUT TERRIBLY BAD ANSWERS : HERE IS THE CORRECT ONE. Here is the correct, and entirely impolitic one. It also accounts for poverty and IQ statistics. Diversity increases extremes.—PART 1 – CAUSATION—ECONOMICS OF RACE AND REPRODUCTION QUESTION: “Why is single motherhood so common in the south?” Well, of course I don’t like to…

Conservative means ‘in relation to the status quo, resist non-organic changes by force of law’.  In the USA it means conservative toward european aristocratic egalitarianism, and the nuclear family as an economic unit. Conservatives were against slavery (Democrats were for it), and against communism (Democrats were for it, and adopted the platform). I”m not sure…

A homogeneity of interests would lead us to become evolutionarily vulnerable   The question implies it’s a good. When in fact, the question is rather, “humanity as a whole should not have a goal, only an agreed upon means of achieving dispararte goals. To do otherwise is the presumption of knowledge. Our only shared goal is…

Spend money shopping.Eat at exceptionally good restaurants that are equal to NY or SF.Drive to hiking. Walk to hiking. Ride bicycles. Drive to Skiing.Raise kids.That’s it. No joke.That’s it. https://www.quora.com/What-are-fun-things-to-do-in-Bellevue-WA

You will be surprised by this, but, roughly speaking, a quarter of the population expresses surveyed preferences that are libertarian, a quarter conservative, a quarter liberal, and a quarter anti-libertarian. Power could be maintained in the USA with fiscally conservative, and slowly enacted socially liberal policies (which is what happens anyway, after a lot of…

YES.  See “Coming Apart”, and the surveys on trust, and the measurements of civic participation of all forms.  As diversity increases, government increases, and civility, and civil participation decrease.  It has to.  Signals require that does. https://www.quora.com/Has-there-been-a-decline-in-civility-in-America

I’ve hosted something or other at most of the restaurants with space. Starting from downtown and working outward:  If you have a very large group, Maggianos has the best facilities and parking, service and food. I don’t think anyone else is nearly as good for scale. For the next step down in size, but up…

Bellevue is one of the top three or four cities to live in, in America if you’re in the upper middle class.  Which is a decidedly unambiguous ‘if’. The first thing to get out of the way is the weather.  First, if you watch movies filmed in Seattle or Vancouver Canada, notice how little yellow…

The problem is, I’m not sure what you are really asking here. If you mean, that the success of europe was due to the independence of small city-states that were privately owned enterprises (oligarchies), with heavy integration between the governemtn and privileged (monopolist) industries, and that european success can be attributed in part to this…

I am not sure that such a thing can exist. For a market to exist it must function. If it doesn’t function it’s not a market but the lack of one. So it’s not logical.  As Bertil Hatt asks, you can mean a market that exhibits certain categories of failure, or a market that is…

The question is somewhat misleading. A private law society requires a homogeneity of interests, and therefore is a small society.  An argument in favor of a private law society is an argument in favor of many small societies (private cities). Since society’s ills are largely the product of the opposing vales of credit at scale,…