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A New Socrates

Started by Absurd Atheist, November 04, 2016, 12:54:59 AM

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Baruch

Quote from: Absurd Atheist on November 12, 2016, 07:59:05 PM
Marx dreamed of utopia but horrendously missed the mark, but he certainly did change the world. Imagine if a figure could harness said power for a positive end? Also, I don't know how Socrates like methods would apply to a written political philosophy. I feel like that would almost contradict everything he purportedly stood for.

Socrates was in your face, not in your scroll.  Plato was his greatest pupil, and his greatest sell-out.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Absurd Atheist

Quote from: Baruch on November 13, 2016, 10:17:28 AM
Socrates was in your face, not in your scroll.  Plato was his greatest pupil, and his greatest sell-out.

Exactly, I can only imagine what would happen if Marx got in the face of the political and public sphere. The question however, is whether the idea of a Socratic figure has evolved over time.
"To have faith is to lose your mind and to win God."
-The Sickness unto Death - 1849

Baruch

Quote from: Absurd Atheist on November 13, 2016, 01:15:51 PM
Exactly, I can only imagine what would happen if Marx got in the face of the political and public sphere. The question however, is whether the idea of a Socratic figure has evolved over time.

Plato has used Socrates for his own purpose ... and so has everyone else.

The Hemlock Cup by Bettany Hughes is the real McCoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_xuzTG6l_s
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Absurd Atheist

So perhaps Socrates as we know him would've never existed if there wasn't someone taking advantage. So what is the value of selfish individuals?
"To have faith is to lose your mind and to win God."
-The Sickness unto Death - 1849

Baruch

#49
Quote from: Absurd Atheist on November 13, 2016, 03:45:11 PM
So perhaps Socrates as we know him would've never existed if there wasn't someone taking advantage. So what is the value of selfish individuals?

Adam Smith says, selfish individuals, acting in competition not group think or conspiracy ... gives the best results.  Ideas, people and organizations are allowed to fail under competition.  That way you don't have a Plato up on top in the ivory tower, deciding who should win and who should lose (see failure of Japanese 5th generation computing) ... it is based on facts on the ground (Silicon Valley before political corruption kicked in).  Like a McDonalds franchise ... you either have a good restaurant, that gets enough traffic or you do not.  That is pro bono.  The opposite is to force people buy McDonalds products, or at least to distort the free market by encouraging people to buy McDonalds products due to falsification or subsidy ... in that case, even if you run a bad restaurant, you don't get Darwin-ed, but you survive while thinking you are a genius.  In a win at all costs society, the temptation to corrupt (subsidies, fraud, coercion) is great.  Also larger organizations (Fortune 500) are more likely to be political and bureaucratic like the government.  Generally, unsubsidized and unregulated small business, if competitive, is the ideal (Chamber of Commerce before it was corrupted by politics).  Modern society however tends toward totalitarianism ... giant governments and giant business combines ... often acting in collusion, consciously or unconsciously, against the common good (as Adam Smith also noticed).

But humanity is a social animal, no man is an island, not even the English ;-)  So balance is smart.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on November 13, 2016, 04:14:26 PM
Adam Smith says, selfish individuals, acting in competition not group think or conspiracy ... gives the best results.  Ideas, people and organizations are allowed to fail under competition.  That way you don't have a Plato up on top in the ivory tower, deciding who should win and who should lose (see failure of Japanese 5th generation computing) ... it is based on facts on the ground (Silicon Valley before political corruption kicked in).  Like a McDonalds franchise ... you either have a good restaurant, that gets enough traffic or you do not.  That is pro bono.  The opposite is to force people buy McDonalds products, or at least to distort the free market by encouraging people to buy McDonalds products due to falsification or subsidy ... in that case, even if you run a bad restaurant, you don't get Darwin-ed, but you survive while thinking you are a genius.  In a win at all costs society, the temptation to corrupt (subsidies, fraud, coercion) is great.  Also larger organizations (Fortune 500) are more likely to be political and bureaucratic like the government.  Generally, unsubsidized and unregulated small business, if competitive, is the ideal (Chamber of Commerce before it was corrupted by politics).  Modern society however tends toward totalitarianism ... giant governments and giant business combines ... often acting in collusion, consciously or unconsciously, against the common good (as Adam Smith also noticed).

But humanity is a social animal, no man is an island, not even the English ;-)  So balance is smart.

Adam Smith gives us Trump.  Unfettered desires and successes do not make things "right" either.  Rationality lies between Smith and Marx.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

If one knows personal details about Smith and Marx ... they are seen to be gods with clay feet.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Eugeny Anatolievich

Marx included some of Adam Smith's ideas in his economical theory, but he didn't believe in 'invisible hand of market'.
I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.

Baruch

Quote from: Eugeny Anatolievich on November 20, 2016, 04:18:08 PM
Marx included some of Adam Smith's ideas in his economical theory, but he didn't believe in 'invisible hand of market'.

Only an idiot would believe in "hidden hand" unless you mean the Serbian Secret Police (Black Hand).  Actually, it was a very early idea of epi-phenomenalism aka self organization of complex systems.  Except it is outside the scientific method like multi-universes. It is scientism, not science.

Adam Smith was wrong on a number of things, as was Hegel.  Marx borrowed from both, as well as utopian ideas.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Absurd Atheist

Quote from: Cavebear on November 17, 2016, 06:24:54 AM
Adam Smith gives us Trump.  Unfettered desires and successes do not make things "right" either.  Rationality lies between Smith and Marx.

Technically speaking big government and PC culture gave us Trump. Was he allowed to operate as a businessman? Yes. Did he have a shot at the Presidency until recently? No.

Also Marx was crazy.
"To have faith is to lose your mind and to win God."
-The Sickness unto Death - 1849

Absurd Atheist

Quote from: Baruch on November 13, 2016, 04:14:26 PM
Adam Smith says, selfish individuals, acting in competition not group think or conspiracy ... gives the best results.  Ideas, people and organizations are allowed to fail under competition.  That way you don't have a Plato up on top in the ivory tower, deciding who should win and who should lose (see failure of Japanese 5th generation computing) ... it is based on facts on the ground (Silicon Valley before political corruption kicked in).  Like a McDonalds franchise ... you either have a good restaurant, that gets enough traffic or you do not.  That is pro bono.  The opposite is to force people buy McDonalds products, or at least to distort the free market by encouraging people to buy McDonalds products due to falsification or subsidy ... in that case, even if you run a bad restaurant, you don't get Darwin-ed, but you survive while thinking you are a genius.  In a win at all costs society, the temptation to corrupt (subsidies, fraud, coercion) is great.  Also larger organizations (Fortune 500) are more likely to be political and bureaucratic like the government.  Generally, unsubsidized and unregulated small business, if competitive, is the ideal (Chamber of Commerce before it was corrupted by politics).  Modern society however tends toward totalitarianism ... giant governments and giant business combines ... often acting in collusion, consciously or unconsciously, against the common good (as Adam Smith also noticed).

But humanity is a social animal, no man is an island, not even the English ;-)  So balance is smart.

Selfishness and competition is certainly a good thing, yet it always leads to winners and losers, and sometimes the winners don't know when to stop rubbing it in. Darwinian liberal poverty and the One-Dimensional Man are also minor side-effects but that's another story.
"To have faith is to lose your mind and to win God."
-The Sickness unto Death - 1849

Baruch

For any government, legitimacy comes at the of the barrel of a gun.  Don't question their legitimacy, unless you can die with the consequences.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

There IS a hidden hand in economics.  Markets DO respond to groups of unorganized customers.  But when there are collusions and oligarchies, the hidden hand does not work very well. 

It is not the govt regulations (designed to prevent consumer abuse) that are at fault.  It is the loopholes built in to the tax system by powerful lobbies that cause most of the problems.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Get the government out of economics, unless you are French.  Only the French can make the bureaucracies run on time (a very slow schedule that).

The hidden hand are the oligarchies.  Unless you have faith ;-(
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Baruch on November 17, 2016, 07:14:58 AM
If one knows personal details about Smith and Marx ... they are seen to be gods with clay feet.
Are there any gods without clay feet?
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman