The Brachiating Troglodyte

Friday, July 31, 2009

On Love and Fascism, Part 2

I am both impressed by the chops this idea has - and a little edgy and nervous - where were the great thinkers about dystopia and fascism on this? Orwell didn't have a smidge of love in the book, other than by cruel irony, the Ministry. Zamyatin (We) didn't touch on emotion, but rather reason. And Huxley? Don't remember him chatting about it.

And where was Freud, the Grandmaster of Love, when the Nazi's arose? This was all his stuff, they played in HIS stadium. I'll have to look up ol' Siggie, he may have shizzled on this.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

In Case You Don't Get It

The matter of the Arrest of Gates by Crowley dismays me terribly. The privacy issues alone are worth discussion. However, the case shows the absolute inability of the American People at large to detect bullshit whatsoever. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire is indeed fascism run amok.
But the American people first need to attune themselves to Reality and Reason before they can handle such things as discussion of an arrest. The Real World is inglorious, and the call on the case was made by Gates and Crowley, two pissed-off fellows trying to navigate the world as best they could.
The dangers of fascism do not come from the stoop of a Harvard residence. It runs deeper, and is far more our fault than we wish to admit.

Here is the fundmental linguistic form of fascism.

(subject) should be (qualitative) (characteristic.)

Negroes should be more respectful.
Police should be less racist.

Any time that a missive is entered to THEM, and a subjunctive form of the indirect order is used, then fascism has whispered. Officer Crowley might well indeed have lost control of the spiral by offering such advice, if he did so - Prof. Gates, you should be less agitated.
If Gates heard this (which is speculation) then he probably blew up (overreacted?) and the whole thing got on the Red Line to Hell.

A Letter to the Commissioner

Dear Mr. Haas:

I write to thank the City of Cambridge Police Department for its mission and duties. Having lived on Prospect Street in Cambridgeport for some years, I am grateful for your service to the community.

Unlike perhaps nearly every other American, I have no opinion on the matter of the arrest of Gates by Crowley. I was not present, I was not involved - therefore, I don't know anything about it. I do, however, apologize that so many other Americans are opinionated jerks and asses, and are arrogant enough to offer their opinion on what they do not know.

Please continue your good work, knowing that it is not the entire world that has gone insane. The 95% of the world who are jerks, make the rest of us look bad.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

On the Law of Scarcity

Being unfamiliar with the formal principle called the "law of scarcity," I have paused for an inadvertent education on the matter. My initial supposition was that with a fixed limit of product, demand which is at least equal to that product will "order the queue" of demand by means of price. One does not need to posit "unlimited" demand; rather, demand in excess of supply will suffice.

But I also learn that the price can be manipulated by threatening one's rights or property; or the alternative, offering an unearned windfall. People will not demand something as much as when they are persuaded that it is "theirs." Also, people who are persuaded that they have stumbled upon a treasure, will pursue it more ardently than if it were just offered in the marketplace without persuasion.

The "Marketing Minute" blog by a Chip Cummings offers:

Can you create a sense of urgency in your marketplace? Limited access to a conference call; only $1.2 million in this particular loan program available; offers only accepted for 7 days; only 38 people allowed access; 10% discount only for the next 72 hours…..

You get the idea - use Scarcity to get your market to act quickly. This works well with customer retention strategies, initial prospects, and special events. There are a couple of rules:

Be sure to FOLLOW THROUGH on your promise! A limit is a limit. By holding your ground, they will respond accordingly NEXT time.
Set clear guidelines and expectations. Be sure to TELL the prospect EXACTLY what to do!

If heathcare is perceived as a fundamental right, than people will ardently pursue its fulfillment. To some degree, they are correct in doing so, because the ultimate measure of fundamental rights derives from the rational basis of the individual. Unfortunately, the "rational" part has left by the roadside in this approach.

Canute has a bad rap these days. I read in Wikpedia the following:

Henry of Huntingdon, the 12th-century chronicler, tells how Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes; but the tide failed to stop. According to Henry, Cnut leapt backwards and said "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." He then hung his gold crown on a crucifix, and never wore it again.

Unlike modern rulers, he got the point on the first try. He's head-and-shoulders a better empiricist (and thus, economist) thank the DC Boys these days.

economics Canute

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Thou Shalt Know them By Their Drugs

Methland, a book I'm ~~writing~~,(reading, sorry - moron moment) shows the true Drug of the Masses, the hopeless Methamphetamine.

Wish to view the End of Society? Seek their Drugs, and see through them.

Meth joins alcoholism, porn and gambling as a way to soak up excess reality.PS: Thankfully, Blogging While Stupid has no criminal charges associated with it.

A letter to Harry Goslin on Inspiration and its Lack.

In mythological terms, we fucked up.

Unbinding Prometheus for the gift of fire is one thing. Unbinding Narcissus - just because he is so good-looking and fun to hang out with - is a mistake.

I share your sense of frustration. In an era of dreg-scraping for ideas, it's hard to remain inspired. I've taken a bit of a wicked and cynical turn in my writings - generally based upon the head-smacking witlessness which suffices for public discourse.

A preponderance of all species ever in existence are extinct, and long before our species rose, too. And so is the fate of civilization and cultures, which tend to go extinct in an untidy sort of way, but for the same reasons - they could not adapt to Reality. One only needs to not breathe for a day, not eat for a year - and the prosperity afterwards is moot, because you done gone.

America seems earnestly committed to march off the cliff into the sea, I fear. 'Nother one bites the dust. And it's a shame, really - we coulda been a contender.

But we live in a labyrinth of mirrors, and the closer one gets to the center, the less one knows about the world. At the center lies the Minotaur, surrounded by the Beltway. Not wicked, indeed - in fact, quite kind; but unknowing of anything outside the Hall of Power, even where the bathroom is. (And using the bathroom after the Minotaur has to be, well, unpleasant.)

So, if you are also beset by the fog of futility when writing, that's okay - at least for you. It's a sign that your horseshit-detectors are working well, and what's out there shouldn't necessarily draw you out of your cave at the first crack of the stick. Think of the Blair Witch Project.

Psychological depression, of which apathy is a glimmer, is a protective device which now does not help us. I believe that it evolved for human existence during the late winter, a profound loss of interest - don't sleep, don't eat, don't care; at a time when there wasn't much to do, eat or care about. Springtime comes, and the torpor lifts - it always comes.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

In Honor of the Five

In Honor of the Five

Your tales tell you schoolchildren, of the Four Founders who wished to bring their craft and lore together and into order, for the teaching of the young. This came after the Great Breaking, when the Quillen were sundered, and the Quillendal hid from the others, the Quillengoll, who were torturing and burning them.”

“Burning, at the stake. Stop to imagine that. The broiled skin, and melting, fat and stink of hair, while the victim screams. Do you understand the atrocity at Cail Orgun now, perhaps? And the collectors of the bodies, who cut down the shriveled corpses, frozen in screams, carbonized grease over bones – children!"

"And who laughed and capered in the grease-blackened smoke? Theamhann na-Shaitann, the Eater of Souls. When has That ever rested, when suffering is about? Theos kata bolos, Αυτός που ο Θεός έχει πετάξει κάτω, whom God has thrown down. Diabolos."

"But later. Of your school. Four great wizards, four great Houses. Upon the founding of this great school, the Hesperides were asked to send a learned lore-master to teach, to make the Houses Five."

"The House Hesperides did respond. Each of the Houses were confused; some were greatly offended, but others puzzled. House Hesperides would not send a loremaster, for there was little magic which the House admitted to have, worthy of knowledge and teaching. But the House asked the kind permission of the others, to send a single member to work as janitor and watchman ‘in the halls of the blind.’”

Ever since then, though you may not know, a member of the House Hesperides has worked the grounds and fields of your fine school; no day has been without a servant from our land in your great college. Little is said, and few know that it is one of our house. Most of the Quillendall do not understand our commitment, and consider it to be a perpetual insult. It is far from being so.”