In a few hours Future Spouse and I will be hopping on a plane for Chicago. All sorts of fun things are planned, but the nominal excuse for the trip is to attend the second annual YearlyKos convention, where perhaps we’ll score some party invitations. On Friday afternoon at 2:30 I’ll be speaking on the science panel, along with fellow bloggers Chris Mooney and Ed Brayton. The moderator will be Tara Smith of Aetiology, and we’ve even corralled Lindsay Beyerstein to be the official photographer; Stephen Darksyde, who put it together, unfortunately won’t be able to make it, but we hope to do him proud. Unconfirmed rumors suggest that the panel will be taped by C-SPAN for later broadcast, so don’t be shocked if you tune in hoping for some hot congressional-subcommittee action and catch science bloggers instead. It’s also supposed to be broadcast in Second Life, although I don’t know that means. Tara will also be moderating a science bloggers caucus on Thursday afternoon. Any CV readers who are at YK should certainly drop by and say hi.
Politics is a funny thing. Like last year, I anticipate being moved by the sincere passion for effecting political change in evidence among the participants, and also being a little creeped out by the attitudes of the less reasonable among them. Among the latter we are currently faced with the spectacle of Mike Stark, who decided it was a good idea to harass Bill O’Reilly at his house, putting up signs and stuffing reports of O’Reilly’s sexual-harassment lawsuit into his neighbors’ mailboxes (via Balloon Juice). This was Stark’s idea of a clever response to O’Reilly’s ludicrous attempts to smear Kos as a “hate site” by trolling thousands of diaries and millions of comments for outrageous remarks. Now, reasonable people can all agree that Bill O’Reilly is an obnoxious twit. But even twits shouldn’t be bothered at their homes, and that’s even true if they themselves have engaged in the tactic. “Two wrongs…” and all that. So it was depressing to read so many of the comments at Kos coming out in defense of Stark (although there were also many that took him to task).
Nevertheless, I have not given up my ambitions to someday be a big-shot A-list left-wing blogger. From my close readings of The Poor Man Institute and other sites, I gather that the accepted strategy is to post YouTube videos of progressive rock bands. All I can say is, if that’s the game you want to play, then don’t mess around.
Don’t. Mess. Around.
I note that there’s a lot of common ground and mutual support, especially these days, between progressive politics and scientific investigation. Much I think comes from reaction to the Republicans/”Christianists” et al having expressed much hostility to science. (That hostility seems to have two major sources: the political need to suppress threats to business profits, such as programs designed to reduce or manage global warming, and religious objection to certain perspectives and revelations. neither the commercial mind nor the traditional religious mind promotes free inquiry and accuracy for its own sake! The first wants to manipulate ideas for gain, the other thinks it already has the Word from God.)
There also seems to be a tendency for “intellectuals” to sympathize with nature and the poor and downtrodden more than do those aligned with making money as such. I wonder why more in academe (outside of economics and philosophy departments) aren’t interested in libertarianism instead, but I suspect that the latter isn’t really as rational as it’s proponents claim. They indulge the utopian ideal of some way of doing things or attitude adjustment just liberating all the right inherent tendencies in things (despite wrongly calling liberals “utopians.”) They also don’t realize that most of their premise is wrong: the economy, property ownership, corporations, money supply etc. aren’t natural backgrounds that “no government interference” could even leave alone in principle. I don’t have time or space to elaborate, but that is “the foundational problem of libertarian theory.”
Wow, that sounds like a lot of fun. I hope to make it there some time, maybe next year after I finish this &(^#$(^ book.
Of course, when they went to the biggest science blogger to host the science part, and he declined, they somehow skipped over the *second* biggest science blogger… not that I’m bitter. And I have a neckbone! But anyway, I’m goign to try to make it next year.
And Lollapalozza is in Chitown this weekend too.
Obviously the center of the universe for a few days.
Elliot
“They also don’t realize that most of their premise is wrong: the economy, property ownership, corporations, money supply etc. aren’t natural backgrounds that “no government interference” could even leave alone in principle. I don’t have time or space to elaborate, but that is “the foundational problem of libertarian theory.”
I don’t think so. Its pretty clear that property ownership, money supply do exist without governments and they are very natural backgrounds. Corporations I am not so sure about. Property ownership is recognized in informal markets where there is no formal legal title and in Somalia where there is no government. In most Third World countries there is very widespread property ownership without any government support. Money is the same. It was invented way before government. It exists in places like prisons (in the form of cigarettes), Second Life, Xbox Live, remote islands ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones) without any government support.
Corporations also existed before governments and outside of government (e.g. Sea Pirates, mafia).
Thanks for posting the ELP clip, it’s a good copy of that. Ah, the early 70’s, when good acid was still around and artsy film directors thought it was a good idea to overlay Marvel comics over a band performing. God what a voice Greg Lake had then, before cigarettes ruined it.
Do you like ELP or did you just use them to start a brutal prog video war?
Unless someone posts an entire performance of Tales From Topographic Oceans or A Passion Play, we must bow to down to our new blog overlord, Sean.
I’m a big ELP fan. But yeah, if someone finds a YouTube video of a complete performance of Tales, I’ll willingly concede defeat.
I know who wrote this post Sean, but somehow your names have disappeared from the individual posts. This needs to be fixed.
Thank you. Jim Graber
assman (you a J-Lo fan? ;-):
It is true that the elements you speak of can be formulated, through binary to broad agreements, outside of traditional/formal governments. My point was that humans started out just rambling around in the commons, in the state of nature. We didn’t have properties and claims to “get off the ground with.” We now recognize claims to resources, to organizational identity, to media of exchange, etc. based on what people did productively yet also stole, that is now glossed over – but the crucial issue is, “we” don’t have to do that for free. IOW, we can expect a quid pro quo about limitations of powers and specified rights or not, for private estate/corporation/capital resource holders, just like we do for our governments. That can include the traditional demands and rules of liberal democracies contra presumed libertarian idealism and minarchism, about wages, safety, taxation of wealth, eminent domain etc. (although I find the Kelo decision abominable, since ED should only be used to establish literal public property and right of way.)
If you are more interested in how debate goes about this issue, I suggest perusing the massive thread I started in the political NGs in 2001. It was called “The foundational problem of libertarian theory.” It got as much froth going as my “New quantum measurement paradox” elsewhere, and went to around 600 posts, IIRC. Note the discussions about the land tax ideas of Henry George. Easy to look up.
They’ve started a thread about the the Science Bloggers Caucus at the Kos website:
One Small Voice, One Mighty Roar
I think I understand what you are saying. But since I think political philosophy, social contract theory, state of nature ideas are all a bunch of useless philosophical story telling I don’t really care about the “foundational problem of libertarian theory”. Actually thats not totally true I do sometimes like a good story.
There’s an obvious typo in that sentence, and it appears twice..
Emerson, Lake and Palmer!! Whooaaoah!. I can remember when Keith ‘Emmo’ Emerson’s mangling of Bernstein’s na-na-na na-na-na nah-nah-nah ‘Amerika’ was hailed as legitimate politcal commentary. The Court of the Crimson King, however, was something else. God spoke and the World listened: Starless and Bible Black. How sweet that 21st century schizoid man should be one of tony blair’s all time prog faves. And Carl Palmer – well he was cool when he played with Atomic Rooster. Those were indeed the days. As for cigarettes, alcohol and the vocal cords: so many affecting performances have been enhanced by all sorts of nasty stuff knocked back, before, during and after the event.
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