Topic: LFTR and Market Failures - page 4. (Read 8515 times)

Ahh. Thanks, that makes it much easier. Not sure how I missed that post, but, I think, it's excusable, given that I was busy with twins.

Now, If you could explain the system of Political Economy for me, I'd be very appreciative. As I understand it, it involves protectionism for developing industries, and then free competition among the developed ones?

Hundreds of pages, of which, the above paragraph is mostly representative. You tell me I am wrong, and yet, you refuse to elucidate what is the right way. You tell me I am inert, but fail to show how you are active. So, in no uncertain terms, what, pray tell, do you advocate?

(And no, I am not interested in sifting through hundreds of pages of text to decipher your beliefs. "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."  -Albert Einstein)

Your lack of political analysis is staggering.  I can't help but feel obligated to feel sympathetic for your continued attempts at trying though, it is like a lame bird trying to fly.

 

I say that because how, after all this, after I've written literally hundreds of pages on this forum, you could think that I "vote for the lesser of two evils" really is mind-blowing.  It shows me as the original thinker that I am, as you are unable to accurately infer any aspect of my personality from what I've said, and continue to infer things that are should be evident that are contrary to what I say.

What you say is mostly true. But your personal suggestions are not a solution. Drop your ideology for a month, pretend it doesn't exist, and just focus on identifying problems. You see, part of your problem is the idea that your ideology solves all the problems, because you only believe that a tiny subset of all the problems that really exist actually exist. You're not even remotely aware of all the problems out there.

You can't solve a problem if you're unaware of it.

So, your argument is that because there are always people who want to rule over people, we need a government... why, exactly? To give them something to do?

I'm not arguing that there will (or should) not be leaders. But leaders are not rulers. One of the most clear historical examples is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth Read that article carefully, and see if you can find your "ruling class", and what role they take.

You seem, also, to think that because I am an anarchist, I am necessarily politically inert. Oh, I assure you, I am no such thing. Inert implies inaction, or worse, inability to act. On the contrary, I am quite capable of acting, and moreover, do so at every opportunity. The political system, not the rejection of it, is what has rendered pro-statists politically inert. You are given a choice of two candidates, who are so close to being identical that what few differences they have must be blown all out of proportion in order to be even visible, and in choosing between these two sides of the same coin, you are told you are making a difference.

You are not. In casting your vote for the "lesser of two evils", as you see it, you are not decreasing evil, but increasing it less than if you had voted the other way. Worse, you are validating the contest, implicitly agreeing that whatever the result of the contest, be it lesser or greater of the two evils, you accept the result.

So, advocating and acting for change, or just doing more of the same... who is the one who is inert?

I disagree, although it isn't really that explicit so each of us are applying our ability of analysis to philosophical, moral and economic theories and constructs.  Those that agree with you are fully able to as well as those agree with me in our respective observations.  We will see which method is more workable for deriving truth.

But, you say, which is 'more likely' to happen?  Well this is a flawed approach because it isn't a matter of 'likelihood' as much as it is objectively observing history and then being aware that those forces still exist as one of the principle perspectives in which to view the entirety of the subject matter.

I come from the primary perspective that:

*  There has always been a degree of "ruling class" in some respective degree in any culture any time in history
*  This ruling class wants to maintain their power, be it based on religious mythos (theocratic), or economic (oligarchic) or through the State itself (like the British Royal Family or perhaps something resembling the power structure in the late-USSR).
*  Maintenance and expansion of this power involves shaping the society to respect and not challenge their authority, which, since, by definition, it is not based on merit, requires degrading and debasing the population in some manner.

I hold that these things are ubiquitous throughout the historical record and they are.  They are always there in some degree or another.  I hold that this is the primary force to understand and work against if you wish to get anywhere.  Trying to look at it through an anti-State lens is absurd and will get you nowhere (and that was the intention of the Oligarchical interests who created and funded Classical Liberalism and then Libertarianism from the beginning, to turn people like yourself into inert political material).  The Anti-Statists should ask themselves how much they really know about the creation of the modern State.  Go look this up.  Make it a research project to go read some non-Libertarian history on the topic of how the modern State was formed.  Prior to that we had feudalism, not a blissful Utopia.  

Here's where you're wrong. Libertarianism (small "l") and AnCap rely on each person to act in their own interest, where as democracy relies on people to act in the public good. Guess which one is more likely to happen?

The word Liberal, as I use it, means Classical Liberalism in the "Tradition" of British Economists and philosophers.  It is their conception of Man, that I take issue with it, and I take issue with it because it is false, it was politically concocted for political reasons and is toxic to society and all the individuals thusly contained.

But I understand not wanting to use the term, it's been muddled into complete confusion long ago.



If you are talking about "Citizen's United", then no law was passed, this was our radical and fascist Supreme Court inventing that law out of it's ass as a ruling verdict.  But this is really just a symptom of the crisis; a crisis largely stemming from the populations lack of true conceptions regarding itself or its future.  And these things have been 'helped-along' by various ruling elites and special interests.  That's the ultra-short, super condensed version of our problems.


Partially, yes.  That's why I'm trying to do something about it.  I have a host of things that need to be done that, if applied now, could start the fissuring of this corrupt system and see it's dissolution and the emergence of something better over the coming decade, but I have a lack (as in, presently 0) of like-minded 'foot solders' or even 'equals' who would like to help out.  People can't think on timescales such as these and therefore believe themselves to be weak and powerless.

Here's some of the main ones:

*  Move people to political mobilization by dispelling the myth of Libertarianism.  Easier and easier now that more fair-minded people are seeing through the Paul-frauds.
*  Crush the energy oligarchy that co-rules the world with various other oligarchical classes by convincing the far Left or "Green movement" that LFTR and nuclear research is the way to go for an actual functioning energy policy.  This requires grass-roots mobilization as all the major institutions are financed and 'bought off'.  But a lot here can be done and a growing movement has already begun for LFTR.
*  ALL Economics that is taught today is apologetics and service to the monied interests.  This includes: Marxism, Libertarianism, Anarchism (in so much as it is a Economic theory), Zeitgeistism (another fraud), The Washington (NeoLiberal) Consensus, Keynesianism, etc.  Resurrect the American System of Political Economy.  This is a Pro-Labor, Pro-Progress, Pro-Technological development, Pro-Peace "school" of economics that barely exists at present.  Free the people from seeing themselves and their country as a slave to domestic and foreign Finance Capital.

Those are the main three tenants of what I see as the problems and solutions to be.  If we are going to have any future or human destiny it is going to require that all these problems be addressed and there is no other way of addressing them than what I propose in this generalized sense.  The specifics of who to fix these problems with these solutions a vast and ever-going conversation.

It is in both Democracy's and Libertarianism and Anarchy's defferance and allusion to "the people" in the same fashion; that these systems are always talking about some fleeting abstraction rather than any observed aspect of the interrelationships of people.  It is that they trust "the people", as such.  It is that Libertarianism/Anarchism view "the people" in this pristine state of existence if only we could rid ourselves of this parasitical government in the same regard that Democratically minded people also regard "the people".  It is in the things that are common, in this way, among these doctrines; but not in the things that are explicitly said - it is more in the foundational elements that they refuse to directly discuss but are implicit in every argument.  All these doctrines are superstructures of ideology and supposed 'philosophy' built on absolutely no foundation - that is why I refer to them as "cloud kingdoms", "ivory towers", etc.



You forgot the *drum roll* part of your reactive joke.

What part of the government is bloated?  Let's break away from this monolithic vision that you have whenever you see or hear the word "government" and look at specifics in reality.  The Pentagon is bloated, yes.  The military budget is bloated, agreed.  The various, unaccountable areas of government that we are complaining about are bloated, to be sure.  But do you think that 435 members of the House can remotely represent 300 million Americans?  That's roughly 690,000 people per representative.  That's absurd.  Anyone who's ever tried to contact their representatives knows of the seeming futility of the process.  If we maintained representation in the House (which I think should probably be increased) and had this new system, then you'd have roughly 60,000 representatives added (locally, mind you) by which each House Representative would have approximately 138 people electing them.  These people would be policy experts in a real sense, and would be sufficiently sheltered from special interest groups enough to determine the public good (the General Welfare, if you will) and be accountable to their constituents.  

I like this system the more I think about it.



Well I agree that nothing is to stop them (the "EVIL" people,that is) from doing this - except the people of good will and intelligence (and critical combination) that can determine the public good and work toward that instead.

There may be some confusion due to the word "liberal", people should avoid using that word imo.

I'm not sure I really understand your position but I will read that review. I will say it appears you have misunderstood mine. The essence of my point lies in the answer to this: "In the US, what is the legal basis for corporate personhood? Why was this law passed?"

The second basis for my opinion is talking to many people who seem to have completely given themselves over to being spied upon and taken advantage of. In fact some will even vocalize that they take it as a compliment that such powerful organizations would even be interested in them. There is a whole other large percentage of the population who get offended if people "talk politics".

Do these experiences I have related ring true to you?

Could you outline those congruent fallacies? I'd be interested in seeing that list.


So... your answer to a bloated, inefficient government is... another layer of government?


Nothing at all. In fact, I contend that this is exactly what happens, every damn time.

Here's the mythological fallacy that Libs love to repeat over and over.  

Of course, what is to stop the evil people from seizing government, AND THEN growing it in power?  What, evil people can't GROW government?  Only GOOD people can GROW government and then EVIL people, while they can control it, somehow can't GROW it, so must rely on the supposedly naive GOOD people to grow it for them?  So the solution is not to GROW government if you are good, because some day the EVIL people will take control of it, and use it to their own ends?

This is like 3-year-old understanding of civics and history and economics and reality.  This is completely made up, by Liberals!, to convince good people like yourself from NOT participating in government!  

Here, I elaborate this more in this book review, it is imperative that you read this:

Titled "Hayek's - The Road to National Self Destruction", under the pen name "John Anon".

http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Serfdom-Documents-The-Definitive/product-reviews/0226320553/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

Hey, I didn't start the name calling.  You did, not that it matters.

 

And also, we generally get the government we deserve.  Unfortunately there is a cyclical cause and effect function here - so where to begin?  We can either pray that someone great comes into power completely spontaneously, and that somehow that is corresponding with an equally spontaneous election of equally great people elected to congress.  Or we can work in reforming (or ridding ourselves) the prevailing ideologies that exist, to which Congress and the President are largely servants of in regard to the way they interface with the public.

That our present condition is a function of Democracy, as such, I am almost in total agreement with.  I'm formulating structural reforms that could possibly do a lot to address these problems but there is no way those are going to be implemented until they are better developed and, more importantly, the population is moved upward in the realm of discourse to be able to see that there are better possibilities.

Strange thing is, that you preach solutions that have so many of the same fallacies as Democracy, yet somehow, you find Democracy to be repugnant.  Oh well.

I'm imagining something much more republican (small 'r' republican).  Perhaps this is a good a place to discuss this as any.  What we need is not more representation, but better representation - that is, professional representatives.

The loose framework (to which I have yet to really formulate and rigorously consider) is, simply put, that a more responsive layer of representatives is created between the you and your Congresspersons.  This new layer of representatives would each represent something like 5000 constituents.  It would be based solely on population and more granular in regards to area, so gerrymandering would immediately be diminished in scope and power - drastically.  The people would vote for these representatives and these representatives would, in turn vote for the State representatives, Senate and the President.  These new representatives would be payed by the State and it would be their full time job to be immersed in civics and entrusted with answering-to their constituents.  Their constituents would be given specific legal functions to recall them, replace them, etc., but not in some mob rule fashion, probably much more similar to how the present House is represented.

This system would temper and greatly weaken the Democratic tendencies that have largely destroyed our system of governance.  It requires some imagination (a feature sorely lacking with most Libertarians) to consider how it would radically change the system.  When one considers how primitive the arguments and level of public discourse is, combined with the ever growing amount of societal knowledge, combined with the level of distractions and ways that people can 'entertain' themselves leads me to consider a pretty bleak picture if continued on this road without anything changing.  Imagine that - sure, why not - WE, were all elected as regional representatives in this new system.  Then these conversations would maintain not only our free time and what time we can spare, but would actually be our job, our profession in pursuing the truth of these matters.  Such things as books and research materials could be expensed (not that Libertarians would use them).  Can you imagine what type of candidates such a cross-section of people would choose?  I don't think that the solution would be between Obama and McCain or Obama and Romney - I think we can be fairly certain of that.

I have every reason to believe it would also greatly weaken partisan politics.  How would the political party flex it's muscles and have us continuing to vote for the lesser of two evils in this system?  The existing parties are founded on ideologies solely because their victims don't have the time or inclination to investigate these issues sufficiently.  As there would be too many people in this class of representation to lobby or bribe, and that they would be choosing these 'next-level' politicians, I think we can presume that this system would greatly weaken the power of lobbyists on our system.

This is really just a thought I've been storing in the back of my mind, and this is actually the first time I've written anything about it.  I'm wondering if anyone would like to consider this as a possibility and could determine what it's other strengths or weaknesses might be.  Post them here.

Thread successfully hi-jacked.  (But it's my own thread, so there.)

Governments are a tool, they can be used for good or evil and it is only a matter of time before some malicious person/group seizes control of this tool. If people in a democratic society let their government get too powerful, it only makes it that much more difficult to recover from the effects of this. Perhaps granting any specific additional power to the government is worth the risk, perhaps not.  Calling someone naive while not addressing this is fail.

It's amazing, how many words you can type and say absolutely nothing, besides "You're an idiot, go read these books"

Your "solution" seems to be "Get better people in government", to which I laugh. If we could get better people in government, they would be there already. The government we have is the result of democracy. It is the inevitable result of democracy. If you can come up with a system of governance which ensures that only good, intelligent people will be elected to public office, I'd like to hear it. Until you can come up with it, though, I will continue to consider your solution to be utopian, and mine to be more realistic.

If I'm an idiot and a moron that doesn't speak well for the rest of humanity.  I think that would put someone of your caliber in the "tree-lemur" category of intelligence.



 

But enough for insults, it's not like if we wanted to come up with pithy and witty insults for each other you'd have any hope of "winning", being someone of your literary caliber.  Plus arguing on the Internet like this is plain olde' retarded.

But your reaction here reminds me of the type of rubber stamping that many Leftists do to "back up" their arguments.  They scream: "But this is science!".  You protest: "But I'm logical!".

Just because part of your response included that remark doesn't mean the rest of your analysis took it into consideration.  But I've learned to expect very little in the realm of internal logical consistency or coherence with regards to Libertarians like yourself.  The double-think that Libertarianism requires apparently doesn't stop just in the realm of their Libertarianism.  The obvious meaning of my comment was: why did nobody on the planet invent Nuclear Power or LFTR through 'market forces'?  Why did it take the involvement of government to create this research?  Why is most research that actually creates any remarkable breakthroughs government funded?  That's it.  That's the question.  I'm not in disagreement that various interests that sway and influence the government don't influence it against the public good - nothing could be more obvious; but that is a separate topic.


Well your first thesis is false.  Read some history.  Go read as many books on Henry Clay as you can find (although all of them I have found so far are strongly tilted in a pro-oligarchy, anti-Nationalism bias) and then tell me that he was solely in the government for his own gain.  While our present condition is largely degraded due to lobbyists (which again, what you think must be profound insights, by your need to state the obvious things such as these) it can be fixed and brought in better alignment of what the public good is.  In fact, that is the only solution to our crisis - not Utopian garbage that you preach.

And yes, in a way, the larger problems in our government are the unelected officials of these various agencies.  But that is because the very interests to which, here, in this post, seem to rail against: oligarchical factions in the government; desired these posts to be created in such a fashion.  That is why the Congress is largely a powerless body.  Here, go read my review of F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" for what I think about this specific problem (in addition to what I think about Hayek).

It's under the pen name, John Anon.
(http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Serfdom-Documents-The-Definitive/product-reviews/0226320553/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0)



The problem with your analysis here is that you don't look into what he means by "We".  But of course, if you are a reactionary such as yourself, whenever you find the conversation runs into "government" then your knee-jerk ideology takes hold and there is no further analysis required in your mind.

Here's a research project: how much money is made by the government in regard to uranium enrichment for fuel supply contracts?  How much is made by the private sector?  How much financial wealth would be obliterated if LFTR was realized and had as much potential as they think?  All those are the most relevant questions in regard to understanding this subject matter. 


Wow, you are more naive than I previously imagined.  Oh, that's right, according to your orthodoxy: government is pure evil and the "private sector" can do no wrong.




Do you think that they (that is, the power industries) have this absurd conception of "loss" that you have?  What do you think a commodity or futures contract represents in finance?  It is a future representation of wealth; it is traded like an asset, it is treated like an asset.  So if something made the business model of all traditional industries much less important or irrelevant these assets would be greatly devalued.

Imagine if I invented a teleportation transporter.  I could manufacture them and sell them for $1500 a piece and they required almost no power to run.  How fast do you think the value of all the myriad of transportation stocks would plummet?

Heck, there are so many examples of this that the only reason that you refuse to see this is because of your ideology which makes these convoluted leaps of logic necessary.  Just give it up brother, there is no reason to continue to do these mental gymnastics in order to maintain your false worldview.  You post enough on this forum proving that you have enough free time, perhaps you should learn some things about how the world actually works.  I hope you're making progress on those books I linked you in "book club".

Cheers.

"Threatening"? Because that's the hard part.

Can you think of any positive things the EPA has done? Are you aware of any positive things (in your mind) that the EPA has done?

You're an idiot. If you'd even have watched the video you told me to, you'd have known that China is working on LFTR right now, and should have it running by 2015. Additionally, perhaps you skipped the phrase "all the factors that I can see as to why LFTR isn't being built in the private sector in the US right now" while reading my response. Moron.

Hey, congratulations, you've discovered that government is made up of people! Good! Now, you just have to understand that those people's actions are motivated by self-interest, and that re-election is not the only, or sometimes even the primary, goal for them. Even if it is a primary goal, an empty war chest makes for an empty senate seat. Government's actions are largely controlled by lobbyists.

In the case of agencies like the EPA, there isn't even that pretense of public control. The unelected head of the agency makes policy for the unelected agents and bureaucrats. In that case, funding becomes priority, and funding, in government agencies, comes not to those who come to congress and say, "Yup, all is well in my district", but to those who drum up fears and point at things to be afraid of.

The system itself distorts the incentives needed to make good decisions. Is it any wonder that the decisions coming out of that system distort the market?

That video was very interesting. Especially since his reply to Sen. Franken was exactly what I said: "Government invested heavily in "traditional" nuclear power during the war. Shifting gears would be seen as a waste, or simply make them look bad, and is thus avoided."

I believe his exact words were "We have an entire fuel system based around Uranium and it would be a very costly shift to move to Thorium on any sort of short time-scale"