Taxis and Cosmos

The ancient Greeks, who thought about and discussed everything, had two words we don't: cosmos and taxis (we do have "cosmos," but not in the Greek sense).

Cosmos was a spontaneous self-organizing feedback (these days, cybernetic) system. It is the natural world, including the universe. It may or may not have an end purpose; some claim it does, and some that it does not.

"Taxis" was a system organized by man. It, too is a cybernetic feedback system, but one imposed by man. Taxis always has an end purpose, a human one.

In reality almost everything is a "cosmos." The free market, for example. It is an unbelievably complex, self-organizing system that is not designed by man. Just have some simple, basic laws and up pops the cosmos of the free market, which is based on economic and political liberty.

Richard Maybury wrote that political and economic liberty is based on "Do all you have agree to do" (tort law) and "Do not encroach on other people or their property" (criminal law). The basis of all these was religion, specifically in the West, Christianity. (You'd have a pretty good society based on the Ten Commandments - which is really the Ten Words or Ten Utterances - and even a moron can understand them.)

This just amazes me. A minimal state, with some basic laws, and up pops liberty and wealth! Automatically! This is why some refer to "natural law," i.e. the laws of the universe - the "cosmos."

The purpose of "reason" is to discover the law of the cosmos. For those who believe everything should be a taxis, the purpose of reason is to create and impose, rarely understanding the Law of Unintended Consequences and insteal expecting the end result to be what they anticipated.

Unfortunately we have people (and have had them for a long time) who think society is a taxis - designed by man. They're the kind who think that "We oughta pass a law" really works without those unintended consequences. That's because they don't understand everything is a cybernetic feedback system (I tell people linear cause-and-effect only works for pool balls, which includes shooting probes to Jupiter).

Let's take, as an example, governments in Europe letting in Muslims. That's a taxis, a system designed by man (the open borders types are, as always, clueless, thinking borders are "unnatural" rather than evolved as part of the cosmos). Some think, oh, Muslims will overwhelm Europe and take it over (they'd turn it into a poverty-stricken Trashcanastan, anyway).

(As an aside, whenever you see a border that is a straigtht line, it was generally imposed by man through violence - none of which changes the fact they aren't going to go away.)

The idea that Muslims are going to overwhelm Europe without that cybernetic feedback system coming into play is that simplistic linear cause-and-effect pool ball thinking. Again, in realty, everything is a cybernetic feedback system, which is why Eastern Europe has closed it borders in response to these Third World invaders, and in Northern Europe illegal aliens are being burned out of their residences. Sooner or later, they'll be lined up against a wall and shot or swim back to their hellholes, because no one makes war like Europeans.

I predicted this, since I understand the difference between cosmos and taxis.

"U.S. is unstoppable as the world’s economic lion, geopolitical expert says"

I've pointed out before that science and technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and that the U.S. leads the world in them. Our problem is our screwed-up government. It needs to be about one-fifth of the size it is now. I'd settle for that.

However, the rest of the world is in lots worse shape.

This article is from the Dallas Morning News and is written by Cheryl Hall.

And when the 41-year-old geopolitical analyst from Austin studies the U.S. map, he sees the world’s economic powerhouse for the next several decades, perhaps much longer.

Why?

The U.S. has the world’s most extensive navigable river system, most productive agricultural land, an “ocean moat” that provides defensible trade access to the world and economic allies on its borders, says the author of The Accidental Superpower, published last year.

Factor in the size of the U.S. Navy, and you’ll realize America is the only country with total global military reach and the capacity to shut down essential shipping channels if threatened.

“You can look at a map of any country, its topography, look at the climate, study a bit about the culture, history and the military system, and understand what they’re worried about,” Zeihan says in a recent interview.

He uses this unusual set of forecasting tools to help the business world figure out how to home in on opportunities and avoid global disasters. And there’s no place like home, he says.

Other pistons in the U.S. engine:

Demography. Other countries face much sharper economic decline as their populations age by an average of 25 percent faster than ours. “We are the only developed country that has a population cohort of Gen Y [currently ages 11 to 33] who will provide economic growth for the next 30 years,” he says. “Since 1974, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Germans, the Chinese stopped having kids. There’s been this 30-year baby bust in the rest of the world. So all the growth is going to be here.”

Shale oil. By the end of next year, North America will be at net-zero oil imports. The break-even cost of production will be about $35 a barrel.

“You’re looking at the United States being cost competitive with every energy producer in the world outside of the Persian Gulf at the same time as it hits energy independence,” Zeihan says.

Isolation

All of this is coming together as the United States shifts into an isolationist mode that will probably leave out China, Japan, South Korea and Europe (with the exception of the U.K.) as favored trading partners.

The U.S. no longer needs a trading alliance it established after World War II to contain the Soviet Union, and there’s growing resentment that some of our allies are feasting on our goodwill.

“Russia really gets screwed in this future,” he says, because it was never a comrade in trade.

“To be perfectly blunt, Americans are tired of the rest of the world,” Zeihan says. “The question is whether this retrenchment lasts for five years or 60. The conscious decision of countries like Germany and China to maximize exports and take advantage of the environment that the U.S. created isn’t winning free trade many fans here.”

It’s a concern that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump can share, even if they disagree on remedies.

“Seven percent of our GDP is from exports, and most of that is from NAFTA,” Zeihan says. “The rest is from a short list of countries that we’re probably going to keep in the allied network. Instead of 150-plus countries, the network is going to be more like a couple dozen. If you’re in that group, party on. If you’re not, it’s going to be horrible.”

Zeihan worked for Stratfor Global Intelligence, a well-regarded geopolitical company in Austin, for 12 years before going out on his own with his company, Zeihan on Geopolitics LLC, three years ago. He was in town late last month to give the keynote speech at the Commerce Street Conference at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Wait, what?

Zeihan is articulate, edgy, highly informed and oddly entertaining about topics that are anything but amusing. At times, I’d think, “Whoa! Is he serious?” — such as when he predicted that China, Japan and Russia might cease to exist in their current forms — before I’d conclude that he might be onto something.

For example:

“The Russian population collapse is one of the most severe in the world. Five years from now, the Russians will not have sufficient demographic capacity to man the Red Army. It’ll be less than half the size that it is today. So if the Russians are going to use military strategy to assure brighter days, Putin knows they have to do it now. And so he is by expanding west.”

Or how about:

“There is a lot of noise breaking out of the international system about Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Russia, the Ukraine and China. There’s this perception that things are falling apart. And they are. It’s not myth. Things really are falling apart. But international instability doesn’t hurt the United States anymore. In fact, if you want to be really cold about it, it actually helps.”

Then there was:

“Anyone who’s dumb enough to poke us, they’re screwed. The United States still has the military capacity to interfere with international trade anytime it wants to. The U.S. Navy is 10 times as powerful as all of the world’s other navies put together. Any country that decides to mess with the United States for any reason faces an entity that has the ability to shut down the world and not care what happens the next day.”

Provocative sells. Zeihan has become a speaking-circuit star, typically charging $15,000 for a keynote speech. Lately, he’s been booked for several each week.

He adapts his conclusions to the industry he’s talking to, but his central takeaway is the same:

“The bottom line is the United States is going to be just fine.”

But will the stock market crash?

“Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

So What Exactly is "Social Justice"?

Friedrich Hayek spent some ten years trying to figure out what exactly "social justice" meant. He conclued it was an empty phrase and didn't mean anything.

"Social justice" used to be called, more correctly, "distributive justice" and it meant then, as it means now, that certain protected groups are supposed to get a bigger share of the good things in life.

But, of course, these "goods" have to produced first before they can be distributed. Those "protected groups," not suprisingly, don't want to produce, just consume. Since "social justice" is leftist, and leftism is based on hate and envy and the desire to destroy, this isn't surprising. "You owe me!"

This "you owe me" attitude is based on the delusion these groups have been oppressed for hundreds if not thousands of years, so they're owned for past "injustices."

None of these Social Justice Warriors have the slightest understanding of how economics works. Apparently they think it's magic.

Because they're motivated by hate and envy, they want to drag down and even destroy the productive and creative. So if they're the ones who maintain the economy, and are destroyed, then where is the wealth to come from that these Social Justice Warriors want distributed to themselves?

Obviously they don't know. Or again, wealth is just magically there!

Not only do Social Justice Warriors not understand economics, and think the goods in life should be distributed to them without producing anything, they think they should rule and their ideas imposed by the force of law.

This attitude of theirs is why Thomas Sowell referred to these people as "the Anointed." Because they think they were intellectually and morally superior to the benighted masses.

These Social Justice Warriors don't want to compete and certainly not in the realm of ideas. When it comes to ideas, they want to shut down completely those with different ideas, not only because leftists think they're wrong, they think they'e evil

Such people want to shut down the free exchange of information. They want to shut down the free market. In other words, they want to eradicate liberty.

Since leftism is based on envy, everyone is supposed to be equal, which is impossible, since to be equal everyone has to be identical and interchangeable. Except, of course, for the Anointed, who are supposed to get a lot more, for free, than the unwashed, benighted masses.

I've pointed out before leftists want to turn us into the Borg - equal, indentical, interchangeable. Except for the Borg Queen, who had all the power (and she sought a Borg King).

So exactly what would happen if Social Justice Warriors (i.e. leftists) had all the power? Look at all the former socialist countries - poverty-stricken, oppressed, tyannized.

Of course, leftists don't believe this. They never do. In their minds society will be a Utopia - a political utopia, which has never existed and never will.

They're self-deluded. When you're self-deluded you're lying to yourself - which is what they have to do before they lie to others. Not that they know they are lying to themselves or others.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn made the comment - which I have quoted before - that rightists have to "knock the heads" of leftists - because otherwise leftists will murder and destroy.

Democracy is an Antique Form of Government

"Democracy" has been around for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks wrote extensively about it and how it always collapsed.

Democracy is therefore an antique form of government. There's nothing "modern" about it.

Europe had pretty much 100 years of peace between 1815 and 1915. The form of government? Mature constiutional monarchies - not one of which went down fighting against its "citizens" attempting to overthrow them.

And what did we get from this? Perhaps 200 million dead in the 20th Century. The age of socialism and athiesm - which is just an extreme form of democracy.

I am amazed at the attempt to defend democracies. Winston Churchill once said something to the effect democracy was terrible but better than all the rest. This is the opinion of a fascist and a terrible man who did terrible things, including being partly responsible for WWII - which he heartily encouraged.

Just look around. Feminism? Not just an effect of democracy, but both socialist and fascist (fascism is leftist, not right-wing, just the way Nazism is leftist- after all, "Nazi" means "national socialist").

Do people really think they have a voice in the government when they vote? In my entire life not one candidate I supported has ever been elected.

I don't think we've had a decent President since the '50s - Eisehower, perhaps. I liked Reagan but even he was a screw up - he appointed the catastropic Alan Greenspan to the Federal Reserve. Along with other awful things, such as amnesty for anti-American Third Worlders.

Politicians don't get elected for being competent. They get elected by knowing how to get elected.

Does anyone think that Barak 0bama, who's never had a job in his life and while he may not be a Muslim is certainly no Christian, is qualified to be President? He is what democracy has given us - a buffoon.

The Founding Fathers, who were educated men, despised demoracy. They knew it almost always turned into tyranny. That's why they set this country up as a republic.

Again, it's not hard to predict the future, in a general way. And the further you look into the past, the further you see into the future.

Since the U.S. is in many ways now socialist, of course that form of government will collapse. I just hope it's not replaced with tyranny.

"Education Disaster : Government Schools Are a Catastrophe"

This is from Patriot Rising.

The 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress report, also known as The Nation’s Report Card, shows that U.S. educational achievement, to put it nicely, leaves much to be desired.

When it comes to reading and math skills, just 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of U.S. eighth-grade students tested proficient or above — that is, performed at grade level or above. Recent test scores show poor achievement levels in other academic areas. Only 18 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in U.S. history. It’s 27 percent in geography and 23 percent in civics.

The story is not much better when it comes to high schoolers. According to 2010 and 2013 NAEP test scores, only 38 percent of 12th-graders were proficient in reading. It was 26 percent in math, 12 percent in history, 20 percent in geography and 24 percent in civics (http://www.nationsreportcard.gov).

Many of these poorly performing youngsters gain college admission. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education reports, “Every year in the United States, nearly 60 percent of first-year college students discover that, despite being fully eligible to attend college, they are not ready for postsecondary studies.” That means colleges spend billions of dollars on remedial education. Many of the students who enroll in those classes never graduate from college. The fact that many students are not college-ready takes on even greater significance when we consider that many college courses have been dumbed down.

Richard Vedder, emeritus professor of economics at Ohio University, argues that there has been a shocking decline in college academic standards. Grade inflation is rampant. A seminal study, “Academically Adrift,” by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, argues that very little improvement in critical reasoning skills occurs in college. Adult literacy is falling among college graduates. Large proportions of college graduates do not know simple facts, such as the half-century in which the Civil War occurred.

Vedder says that at the college level, ideological conformity is increasingly valued over free expression and empirical inquiry.

While educational achievement among whites is nothing to write home about, that for blacks is no less than a disaster. Only 13 percent of black eighth-graders score proficient or above in math, and only 16 percent do in reading. In 2013, only 7 percent of black 12th-graders scored proficient in math, and only 16 percent did in reading. The full magnitude of the black education tragedy is seen by the statistics on the other end of the achievement continuum. “Below basic” is the score given when a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. In 2013, 62 percent of black 12th-graders scored below basic in math, and 44 percent scored below basic in reading.

Dr. Thomas Sowell has written volumes on black education. The magnitude of today’s black education tragedy is entirely new. He demonstrates this in “Education: Assumptions Versus History,” a 1985 collection of papers. Paul Laurence Dunbar High School is a black public school in Washington, D.C. As early as 1899, its students scored higher on citywide tests than any of the city’s white schools. From its founding in 1870 to 1955, most of its graduates went off to college. Dunbar’s distinguished alumni included U.S. Sen. Ed Brooke, physician Charles Drew and, during World War II, nearly a score of majors, nine colonels and lieutenant colonels, and a brigadier general.

Baltimore’s Frederick Douglass High School also produced distinguished alumni, such as Thurgood Marshall and Cab Calloway, as well as several judges, congressmen and civil rights leaders. Douglass High was second in the nation in black Ph.D.s among its alumni.

The stories of the excellent predominantly black schools of yesteryear found in Sowell’s study refute the notion of “experts” that more money is needed to improve black education. Today’s Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frederick Douglass high schools have resources that would have been unimaginable to their predecessors. Those resources have meant absolutely nothing in terms of academic achievement.

Meaning, Importance, Community

Everyone seeks meaning, importance and community in their lives (Freud, who was mostly a nut, said everyone needs "love and work" to be happy).

Most people, the more normal ones, seek these things though love of spouse, family and children. Though religion, though work.

The far less normal ones - the leftists - since they have lost their faith in religion and in fact consider it a fraud, seek their meaning, importance and community though the (never-to-exist) utopia of politics. It has never worked and never will.

If you look at the history of the bizarre things leftists have done, start with the horrors of the French Revolution, which was fanatically anti-religion and thought utopia would come though murder and destruction.

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn goes so far as to claim the Marquis de Sade was the founder of leftism (which makes leftism a French import). De Sade, not surprisingly, was a fanatical atheist who considered people no better than insects, and was one of the main instigators of the French Revolution, which was an inferno of guillotines, torture, mutilation and necrophilia.

In the 20th Century leftists in the '20s and '30s and '60s and '70s went barking after Russia, Cuba, North Vietnam, Nicaragua...claiming each was utopia and far superior to the West. Utopia through politics and the creation of the New Man!

The West (at least the United States) was founded on political and economic liberty. You cannot get meaning, importance and community through those things. Even the Founding Fathers, to a man, were religious, although almost all of them were Deists.

Yet the first things leftists do is try to destroy religion and replace it with the belief in leftism. After all, in their minds, people are plastic and can be molded into anything.

Carl Jung once wrote that most of his patients had lost their faith. Bizarrely leftists such as Richard Dawkins and the late Carl Sagan thought people could find their meaning, importance and community through the belief in the religion of evolution (Dawkins once wrote that astrologers should be prosecuted).

Leftists hate the United States and seek their utopia in other countries. Since there are no longer any foreign countries for them to idealize, they have turned their hate and envy onto the U.S. and seek to change it - in reality, for the worse. Hence the hatred and envy we see on college campuses, including the University of Missouri (which I have visited many times when I lived in that area).

It doesn't surprise me at all that when Jesus went though his Temptations the Devil offered him political power over the kingdoms of the world - and he said no thanks! How many people pay attention to that wisdom anymore?

Paul Hollander, some years ago, wrote a book called Political Pilgrims in which he detailed the insanity of leftists as they ran from country to country, seeking utopia and the meaning, importance and community they thought each one offered.

It's one of the those books, like Kuehnelt-Leddin's Leftism Revisited, that everyone should own. I've owned my copy for a few decades.

I don't hate leftists. Mostly I feel sorry for them. How can you not feel sorry for such unhappy and self-deluded people, motivated by such envy and hate and the desire to destroy? Yet at the same time I'd deport them if I had the power (Kuehnelt-Leddihn said sooner or later the Right has to "knock the heads" of Leftists).

Leftism has even infected "libertarianism." Why else would so many support open borders? Do they expect utopia from importing envious and hate-filled Third Worlders? What sort of self-delusion is that?

It's a given that feminism is leftist, which means it's based on hate and envy and the desire to destroy. The Manosphere, obviously, is a reaction to this lefist, feminist assault on decency.

Unfortunately the Manosphere has gone off the rails with its misdefinitions of "Alpha" and "Beta" and "hypergamy" and its belief in "the Red Pill." Although its function is necessary, its beliefs are overwhelmingly adolescent.

The Manosphere is in many ways leftist, with its attempt to overthrow old established norms and definitions and replace it with new ones (just remember "neomasculinity" was the creation of a semi-white Third Worlder liar and fraud).

As it stands now, will the Manosphere bring meaning, importance and community? It seeks it, but does it truly offer it?

In some ways it's not hard to predict the future in a general way. All you have to do is look to the past, and the further you look into the past, the further you can see into the future.

The U.S. right now is badly infected with leftism. This means it's on its way down. Now as to how far down it will go...that is the question.

Someday, this leftism will get so bad there will be a reaction, and a bad one. Then, as always, we will get back up, dust ourselves off, and rebuild. And find our meaning, importance and community again.

Feminism Leads to Spinsterdom

"The cycle of societies past their prime degenerating into leftist decadence and general weakness and experiencing a population decline will inevitably give way to new rightist ideologies of strength emerging from the ashes. One standpoint is associated with the decline, the other with ascension." - Peter Wiggin

To the Dark Side feminism leads! Screw all of us over it will! (And when the Dark Side takes over, some people just give up and play video games in their basement all day long because they have no hope of jobs and women - what Freud described as essential: Love and Work.)

I see a fair number of spinsters these days: never married, no children, no home (apartment instead), a cat or two. They're hostile and blame all their problems on men. Usually they're on a combination of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant "medication."

Spinsters have always existed but there are many more today. How did this happen?

A few reasons, I believe.

One: women have gained, though the force of law, what might be considered men's "formal" power. Economic and political power. At the same time men, again through the force of law, are losing these things. So, as women ("educated" women, I'll add) move up, men move down.

At the same time, women still want their "informal" power: you ask me out, you pay my way, you ask me to marry you. Also, informally, women want a man who is at least as good-looking and makes as much money they do. Usually, more money.

So, as men are moving down, women are moving up, but still looking to "marry up." Fewer and fewer men meet these criteria. Hence, hostile spinsters wondering where "all the good men have gone." (My stock answer is: "Right where you left them; back in your 20's.")

Incidentally, the delusion of women "trying to have it all" is one of the biggest red flags that exists signaling the decline of society. These women want all the advantages of being a man and a woman and none of the responsibilities.

Additionally, since men are moving down, and losing their "formal" power, there is no reason to get married. It's got to the point there is no benefit for men to get married. This is one of the reasons close to 50% of all people are unmarried.

There is especially no reason for any guy who is good-looking and who makes a lot of money to get married. He can, for all practical purposes, have a harem. I first noticed that when I was 19, when I realized at that age, if polygamy was legal, I could have had half a dozen wives.

Now the problem with harems is that while a few guys will get most of women (at least the attractive ones) the vast majority of men will end up with no one except the unattractive and crazy women no one wants.

Polygamy (one man, many women) has been consistently ruled illegal in the U.S., and good thing, too. There was a case a few years ago of a polygamous Mormon community in the U.S. When the boys turned 16 they were simply cast adrift in the world since they would be competition for the young women, who were generally married to older men.

There have been some truly creepy polygamous societies in the world. In the polygamous Islamic world the unmarried men go crazy, commit a great deal of crime, and get their heads cut off. Here, in the U.S. they go to prison.

China is a more interesting case. In the past, one very wealthy man (as an aside, looks have nothing to do with this) might have a thousand wives.

It is only in the West that the concepts of monogamy and romantic love exist. I don't find that surprising. I do not believe love exists in a polygamous society. How can a man love half a dozen or a thousand women? How can any woman love a man when she is just one of many wives?

Jung had some wisdom here when he wrote you can have love or power, but not both. You can have love or the intoxication of power. There can be the intoxication of power when you have a harem of a dozen or a hundred or a thousand women, but I do not believe love factors into this at all.

But let's get back to China.

Now here's where things get very interesting in the place. How did these men get all this wealth? One reason is that the wife had to offer a dowry, gotten from their families. Dowries have usually been considered a leg up to get the the family started. If a man has to support a thousand women, he must be very wealthy indeed. (Also, if a man has a thousand wives, some of them - possibly most of them - will end up, for all practical purposes, as semi-spinsters. No man could pay anything but the most minimal attention to all of them except his favorites.)

Dowries (or groom prices) exist when there is a shortage of men. Bride prices exist where there is a shortage of brides. Technically these days in the U.S. women should be paying groom prices for men, but of course even the suggestion would outrage them them and make them froth at the mouth.

In China, since it cost a lot of money to marry a daughter, there was a lot of female infanticide. There still is.

Poor families couldn't pay dowries but could be paid a bride-price if their daughter was attractive enough and became a concubine. Not a wife, but a concubine.

The whole thing gets very complicated, but can be read in detail here

How does this apply here? Again, since women think there is a shortage of men, they should pay a groom-price. They will not do this. Since they think there is a shortage of acceptable men, many will end up as spinsters. Those who do not, since they cannot marry up, will end up a being a member of a "soft" harem.

Since the law now benefits women at the expense of men, many families will invest more resources in daughters than men. Women will move up economically through the force of law (usually with worthless degrees in Human Resources, Management, etc.) while men will move down unless they can get degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). Few men can do that.

Since marriage no longer benefits men, there will be less of it. There will be more single mothers. There is nothing good about children without fathers; the problems they have are well-documented.

The economy will get worse and worse as more boys "fail to launch" because of missing fathers (men create society and science and technology). There will be more crime and more people on welfare. There will be more single mothers (supported by taxpayers) with screwed-up kids.

All of these bad things have come about through the government interfering in society and benefiting "educated" women at the expense of all men. Those men who are wealthy and good-looking will do okay, although many will ruin their lives later on (the more stupid in the Manosphere refer to these guys as "Alphas"; in reality the old term applies: cads).

Overall, I can't see any good coming out of all this. Ultimately it won't benefit anyone. Of course, none of this will stand. It'll collapse, as it always does, and then we'll pick up the pieces, as we always do, dust ourselves off, and keep going.