1. "What is the explanation for the greater technological progress of the less civilized Euros?" --Don Duncan
Trade. The main thing pale-face contributed to the world was the mastery of trade including "money" and double entry bookkeeping which enabled specialization and division of labor, and thus the extremely efficient production of "stuff" as George Carlin was apt to put it.
This didn't come without extreme down-side effects, however.
Also the "scientific method," basically a simple technique for asking questions -- and finding and checking the answers.
2. "Why are native Americans poor, suicide prone, and alcoholic, more than all other ethic groups?" --Don Duncan
I'm not sure "all other ethic groups" applies. As far as "alcoholic" apparently there is a genetic predisposition.
As to the rest, more than likely because their basic culture -- the culture of egalitarian hunter-gatherer freedom -- was forcibly replaced with regimented, fenced-in, pale-face hierarchy. Like this:
"The white world puts all the power at the top, Nerburn. ... When your people first came to our land they were trying to get away from those people at the top. But they still thought the same, and soon there were new people at the top in the new country. It is just the way you were taught to think."
"In your churches there is someone at the top. In your schools, too. In your government. In your business. There is always someone at the top and that person has the right to say whether you are good or bad. They own you.
... "When you came among us, you couldn't understand our way. You wanted to find the person at the top. ... Your world was made of cages and you thought ours was, too. Even though you hated your cages you believed in them. ...
"Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the white man lived in a world of cages, and that if we didn't look out, they would make us live in a world of cages, too." --Lakota elder Dan, Kent Nerburn, Neither Wolf nor Dog, New World Library, 2002, pg.157
3. "Why doesn't a freer, happier life translate into material wealth?" --Don Duncan
Well, to a certain extent, that question is backwards. The more important question is, why doesn't "material wealth" translate into a freer happier life?
At what might be called the "spiritual" level, there's a conflict between material goods and freedom. First, producing "stuff" requires self-discipline and takes hours from free spontaneous behavior. Further, a surplus of material goods requires not only time but also stable locations. Farms and factories for example. And then you have to maintain stuff.
Then there are the "addictive" properties of the newest I-phone, the latest movie, hot showers, etc. which tends to "encourage" folks to spend even more hours of their lives accumulating "stuff." And/or "money" to buy stuff later.
At some point, the production of stuff should be efficient enough to free most people from the necessity of spending much time acquiring even an advanced level of "stuff."
At a talk he called, "I Dreamed I Was A Libertarian In My Maidenform Bra," L. Neil Smith suggested an 8 hour work week -- and that was July 31, 1982, at The Nevada Libertarian Party "CANDIDATE'S CONVENTION" in Las Vegas.
What went wrong? I'm sure you know. On the surface, it was this:
In the 1930s, Lord Keynes predicted that some day everyone would have a four-bedroom house, at which point, the American dream having been fulfilled, people would lose their incentive to work. Keynes believed that peoples' affluence would eventually outstrip their appetites--that their demand for goods and services would reach a plateau, beyond which the amount of money they spent would represent a smaller and smaller percentage of their income. Therefore, he argued, the government would have to adopt fiscal policies designed to keep people from hoarding too much of their income. --Unlimited Wealth by Paul Zane Pilzer, pg. 17
The banksters along with their government-gangster cronies just used that argument as another excuse to loot folks.
That affluence is exactly what's supposed to happen. But as you well know, Don, the "government" -- along with it's brown-nosers, suckups and hangers-on -- particularly the bankers -- have done quite well with adopting "fiscal policies designed to keep people from hoarding too much of their income." Translated, that becoms, "steal peoples' money -- and thus the hours of their lives spent earning money -- using taxation and inflation."
L. Neil was right but over-estimated the necessary work week. The difference between that even shorter work week and your real-world work week is what the government/banking axis costs the average "citizen" who buys into the establishment bullshit. Bastiat nailed it:
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --Frederic Bastiat
There are now two "forces" that I see likely to seriously disrupt the current "order."
1. Income disparity caused by the "Reverse Robin Hood" effect of fiat money and fractional reserve banking, and
2. Increasing automation which will make most jobs obsolete, possibly reaching a tipping point in maybe 10 years according to Pew Research -- and maybe sooner according to gonzo futurist Ray Kurzweil.
And, closely related, will the robot revolution result in R2D2 or Terminator 2?
Your guess is as good as mine as to how this will all turn out.
According to the Liar-In-Chief's latest, his Government will try to hunt down anyone "it" unilaterally decides threatens it anywhere in the world. "It" will call them "terrorists" of course.
Obama warns the world
If 70 year old crippled-up farmer Mohammed in backwoods Pakistan gets a splinter trying to gather fire wood and NSA over-hears him cussing the U.S., possibly because drone strikes mistakenly killed his family who were keeping him alive, he may be a "threat to national security," Or, perhaps, just a threat to "the national interest," neither of which has anything to do with us.
Either way, Mohammed could be targeted by Hellfire Missiles or even fuel-air "Daisy Cutters" if the Einsteins in D.C. or Centcom are having a bad day. Or a U.S. Liar-in-Chief, well, lies about him, his village, or his country. Or his sub-liars do.
Valiant V: Never said that it wasn't "out of control" L, merely that "spontaneous order" is fiction and anybody who has *ever* worked with groups of people knows that from experience.
That [people] are too STUPID to elect leaders remotely worthy of the responsibility given them shows that these people are incapable of running their own lives, much less participating in a "self-directed" society.
Val, you've just aptly indicted the opposite of "spontaneous order," and done it very well. See, what's different in "spontaneous order" society is that only folks who have a direct stake in a particular activity get involved, NOT everyone. Like in a business organization instead of a political party.
That direct stake -- and direct easily revocablevoluntary involvement makes all the difference. If a group wins, only those involved win, ditto if they lose. Either way, if they discover something useful, sooner or later, everyone wins.
And there's no dilettante-attracting tax-money lottery from the tax-pool created as a result of previous winner-take-all "democratic" votes.
We moderns have devolved so far that "we" can't even conceive of how that works.
But here's a clue you've seen before - - -
"People [native Americans] who do not vote for an issue -- whether they abstain or vote against it -- often resent having to abide by it and insist that they should not be affected by the final decision since they did not themselves affirm it. A number of Indian groups -- such as the Hopis here in the Southwest -- are still divided over the issue of their constitution, those who voted against it or who did not participate in the constitutional election, insisting that they should not be bound by the vote of the others." -James E. Officer, Journal of American Indian Education, Volume 3 Number 1, October 1963, INFORMAL POWER STRUCTURES WITHIN, INDIAN COMMUNITIES
Here's how that will work in the not too distant future:
The extremely subtle -- to we moderns at least -- and malevolent aberration to the true voluntary democracy practiced by the Hopi, etc. (and likely soon everyone), is coercive "winner-take-all" democracy, foisted on us by the hierarchical controller mentality.
In coercive "winner-take-all" democracy, you attempt to dragoon everyone who votes -- or even theoretically could vote -- into going along with the majority. Everyone is forced to go along, even those who couldn't vote. You've heard it thousands of times: "The majority rules." Why? Why try to lump ~319 million extemely diverse individuals into one imaginary group -- and then call it USA? Etc.?
The hierarchical establishment uses "the majority" -- more honestly phrased "the majority of those who vote" -- as an excuse to rule you, repress you, and rip everyone off. That simple winner-take-all con enables them to use you as tax and cannon fodder. I bet they even have YOU believing in it - - -
The operational difference between the two "democracies" is that with winner-take-all democracy, the hierarchical rulers, their brown-nosers, suck-ups and hangers-on (bankers for example) play with OPM (Other Peoples' Money), that is taxpayer money, rather than with their own money. This means, among other things, they take much bigger risks -- and regularly put all our eggs in one basket.
Here's what's really going on:
What those calling themselves planners advocate is not the substitution of planned action for letting things go. It is the substitution of the planners own plan for the plans of his fellow-men. The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans. He aims at the one thing only: the exclusive absolute pre-eminence of his own plan." --Ludwig von Mises
And, with the evolution of Extortion Futures (U.S. Treasuries etc.) -- which must be paid-for by future taxpayers -- they are now gambling, not only with your present earnings but with the future earnings of you, your kids, grand kids, and the yet unborn.
"So, does this mean that you like and support ISIS (or ISIL or whatever)?"
Thanks for asking! First, if you read my article, it's fairly clear that ISIS is largely a fantasy creation of the U.S. War Party (Democrats + Republicans) and the MilitaryIndustrialCongressionalComplex that Eisenhower warned against in his farwell address. Clearly it's been hyped beyond all reason. For example, IF ISIS is real and the beheadings weren't completely staged, Saudi Arabia beheaded at least 8 people last month. So shouldn't "we" bomb them? At any rate, ISIS is none of my business -- nor is it Washington D.C.'s business. Remember George Washington's admonition in HIS farewell address to avoid foreign entanglements. The reasons used to be crystal clear. Even as late as 2001, Americans understood:
~"You could kill all the terrorists in Afghanistan, all the terrorists in the world. You could hang Osama bin Laden in sight of the White House. You still wouldn't have solved the problem because you will have created a whole new generation of terrorists." --Col. Richard Dunn writing in the Washington Post, quoted on ABC THIS WEEK, October 21, 2001
ISIS is direct proof that Col. Dunn got it exactly right. Remember the idiots (I'm being kind) in D.C. got "us" involved in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq (twice so far) etc. by mistakes and lies. Which is directly responsible for the current mess. They're busy creating our childrens' children's war. So, "approve" or "disapprove" has nothing to do with it. "It's none of my business" is the operational phrase. Who, knowing the history, would want to get "us" involved again? What do you think? Health, happiness & long life L.
It wasn't till maybe a year later that I finally realized what COULDN'T have happened in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. I'd seen the demolition of the Dunes Hotel in Vegas in person in 1993, and, because of the news coverage and advance PR, knew implosions -- or even just controlled demolitions -- couldn't be done without weeks of engineering and preparation. I also knew steel-framed structures, because of "local structural integrity" -- like those commercials dropping a bowling ball on a mattress without spilling a neighboring glass of water -- simply don't collapse as the buildings did on Sept. 11, 2001. Unless engineered and prepped. Especially Building 7, which wasn't even hit by a plane. And I knew of Building 7 because Bob Pisani covered it all afternoon on CNBC, and kept saying they were considering "bringing it down." And CNBC had cameras on it when they "pulled" it. So I knew, because of the way it collapsed -- and that CNBC knew when it was coming down -- that it was an implosion. Here's what it looked like - - -
OK, an implosion, big deal, those happen all the time -- and I went to sleep about the whole thing. DUH! It didn't occur to me that it simply couldn't have been engineered and rigged to be "pulled" at ~5:30 PM in the ~eight hours since the WTTC towers came down, let alone in that chaotic 9/11 disaster zone. Ergo, it HAD to have been set up ahead of time. Which finally occurred to me about a year later. I sat up in bed, realizing, "Son-of-a-bitch -- someone had to have wired Building 7 ahead of time!" Certain things proceed from that realization - - - Sometimes enlightenment is a slow process.
You don't need a competing theory, guess or myth to disprove or debunk an existing theory, guess or myth. For example, if someone claims "The moon is made of green cheese," all I have to do is point out that, say, the moon isn't green. Or, "There aren't enough cows in the world to make that much cheese," etc. I don't have to give a chemical analysis of actual lunar material -- although that might be nice. Likewise, you don't need a competing theory to disprove or debunk the U.S. Government 9/11 myth. The equivalent to "the moon isn't green" is "World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed at ~free-fall speed into it's own footprint at ~5:30 P.M. on September 11, 2001." Dan Rather, the most well-known TV news anchor at the time, described Building 7's collapse (directly below), like this "For the third time today, it's reminiscent of those pictures we've all seen too much on television before when a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down ..."
And Danny Jowenko, a Dutch expert who's business is doing controlled demolitions, unequivocally agrees with Dan Rather - - -
Also, over 2,000 architects and engineers agree. None of the hundreds of thousands of steel-framed skyscrapers in the world -- either before or after 9/11 -- have ever fallen even remotely like that. Except ones that were engineered and prepped ahead of time. And even most of those don't collapse into their own footprint -- without being even more carefully engineered and prepped. Ahead of time. If the government myth can't explain that -- and it can't -- it goes straight down the crapper. And that's for very good reason: Such steel-framed skyscrapers are designed by architects and engineers, based on the laws of physics, NOT to collapse at all, even under extremely adverse conditions, not to mention straight down into their own footprint. And history demonstrates they don't. Ever. Unless engineered and prepped ahead of time. So give up your silly myth. Clearly the moon isn't made of green cheese. And Building 7 didn't implode without being engineered and prepped ahead of time. Certain things proceed from that observation - - - can you think of any?
The truth often has an uphill battle against the establishment, which constantly fights to keep it's position despite the best interests of "we the people." Preside-nt Eisenhower warned against the MilitaryIndustrialCongressional Complex for example. These folks sometimes resort to false-flag operations. Operation Northwoods was the most well-known template. And then there are the fools, dupes and paid operatives the establishment manages to get to do it's propaganda for it. But an even more relevant example was the Manhattan Project -- involving over 120,000 folks -- which wasn't known to the American public until after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. The folks pulling this off even covered up the first nuke test -- Trinity in Socorro County, New Mexico -- by spreading the myth in the press that the mushroom cloud -- and the big bang folks heard -- was an ammo dump exploding. Worked like a charm. Secrecy in such operations is enabled by the now well-known, "need-to-know" operational protocol. Almost no one knows enough to expose the whole operation. They don't know "The Big Picture." In fact, often participants don't even know enough to be sure they were involved in the first place, even when the story hits the headlines. And certainly not enough to get and hold media attention. Even when the media isn't the 5th Branch of Government. Let's take a current (2014 A.D.) real-life example of how effective the government/media amalgam is at keeping things out of the public eye. There have been all sorts of leaks about the N.S.A. spying operations for decades. Heck, I even did a couple of articles. This one in 2006 for example - - -
But I didn't get famous. Or even noticed apparently. Which, given the heat on Ed Snowden and Julian Assange -- and other less successful whistle blowers like William Binney, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, etc. -- is probably a good thing. Do you even know, without Googling them, who Mr. Binney, Mr. Drake and Mr. Kiriakou are? Snowden only managed to stick on the U.S. media "teflon curtain" because 1. he got enough data to PROVE "The Big Picture" and 2. He eluded Uncle's tentacles by luckily -- and I emphasize "luckily" -- escaping from Hong Kong to the Moscow airport. Where he was in limbo for weeks. And clearly, it wasn't his preferred destination. Further, based on the experience of previous whistle blowers, Snowden's greatest fear was that folks wouldn't pay attention. And it was a nail-biter for quite awhile whether or not they would. You can get a really up-close and personal travelogue of just how Uncle stomps folks who try to tell what "he" considers "his" secrets from this NPR piece which includes William Binney and Thomas Drake in their own words:
Now there are approximately 1.4 million other folks -- including ~483,000 private contractors -- who could have done what Edward Snowden did. That's about 12 times as many as the ~120,000 folks involved in The Manhattan Project -- who could have blown the whistle but didn't. Or maybe like Binney, Drake, etc., just slid right off the Teflon Curtain. So one way or another -- maybe both -- Uncle managed to keep "his" ongoing massive N.S.A. spy-operation, involving over 1.4 million operatives, effectively secret for well over 10 years. Even the folks who dislike the truth about 9/11 don't fantasize anywhere near 120,000 folks involved let alone 1.4 million. Yet, in over a decade, only one of the 1.4 million -- Ed Snowden -- managed to gather enough information to prove The Big Picture -- and barely managed to blow the whistle successfully. And given that Uncle even finessed the Trinity nuke test, "he's" pretty good at keeping secrets. So, for example, the notion that "surely someone would have come forward by this time" in the case of 9/11 just doesn't cut the mustard. THESE OTHER WHISTLE-BLOWERS MAY BE OF INTEREST: Stephen Jones Kevin Ryan Sibel Edmonds Bradley Manning Julian Assange Bill Maher Phil Donahue Dr. Norman Finkelstein
Hi Val! There's a technique that the illegitimate U.S. establishment has used at least twice to completely overturn important guarantees ass-u-me_d to be solidly grounded in common sense and established in law for ANY free society. The first is enshrined in The Constitution, particularly like this:
"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken." --UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, Article I, Section 9.
Keeping in mind that Article I, Section 9 is more primary and hasn't been repealed, how do you reconcile the 16th Amendment with it -- which seems to completely contradict it? Like this:
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." --UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION, Article XVI [16th Amendment] (1913)
The simple answer, painfully extracted via uphill legal battles through a reluctant legal system, is that the Income Tax was a tax on corporate privilege -- essentially hush money paid for limited liability -- measured by corporate "income," and had nothing at all to do with flesh-and-blood humans, who get no such privilege. In fact, my grandfather didn't have to pay but the con-job was at that time that it would be "patriotic" if he did. Also it was promoted as a status symbol to make enough money to even make the cut. My grandfather declined to pay and said, according to my mother, that this approach was all a con-job and eventually they'd trick everyone into paying. And of course, they did. In fact, if you go to court for "Willful Failure to File" so-called "Personal" Income Tax -- and if you get the corporate privilege arguments right (judges managed to suppress that approach for quite awhile until the Cheek decision) -- the IRS attorney will try to produce a previous tax return of yours and tell the jury that by signing and filing "your" 1040 etc. you have legally volunteered and thus are indeed required to pay. Now days (2014 A.D.) of course, the whole illegitimate government apparatus conspires to convince and intimidate everyone into "volunteering" even though you can probably still find the dregs of truth in statements like "ours is a voluntary tax system." So, by the use of B.S., legalese, and brute-force intimidation, they've turned previously free Americans into cowed tax slaves. As Bastiat put it:
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." --Frederic Bastiat
And, Val, our discussion on so-called "Drivers Licenses" reveals another similar con-job. And it's the second point that defines the trend-line which reveals a "legal system that authorizes [plunder] and a moral code that glorifies it". Clearly, restricting travel completely discredits any country that claims freedom. It's simple common sense. And in fact, that obvious common sense was enshrined in early U.S. jurisprudence. Like this:
"Complete freedom of the highways is so old and well established a blessing that we have forgotten the days of the Robber Barons and toll roads, and yet, under an act like this, arbitrarily administered, the highways may be completely monopolized, if, through lack of interest, the people submit, then they may look to see the most sacred of their liberties taken from them one by one, by more or less rapid encroachment." --Justice Tolman, Robertson v Department of Public Works, 180 Wash 133, 147.
And this:
"Personal liberty largely consists of the Right of locomotion - to go where and when one pleases... The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, by horsedrawn carriage, wagon, or automobile, is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. --II Am. Jur. (1st). Constitutional Law, Sect. 329, p. 1135.
and further...
"Personal liberty - consists of the power of locomotion, of changing situations, of removing one's person to whatever place one's inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint unless by due process of law." --1 Blackstone's Commentary 134; Hare, Constitution__.777; Bovier's Law Dictionary, 1914 ed., Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed.
"The use of the highways for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common and fundamental Right of which the public and the individual cannot be rightfully deprived."(emphasis added) --Chicago Motor Coach v Chicago, 169 NE 22; Ligare v Chicago, 28 NE 934; Boon v Clark, 214 SSW 607; 25 Am. Jur. (1st) Highways Sect. 163.
and...
"The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, either by horse drawn carriage or by automobile, is not a mere privilege which a city can prohibit or permit at will, but a common Right which he has under the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."(emphasis added) --Thompson v Smith, 154 SE 579.
There are many other cases. Just ask. Despite this clear common sense principle, legally defined as well, once again, the establishment successfully foisted corporate/business limitations onto us flesh-and-blood humans, who, incidentally, are completely superior to those folks clearly recognized as "public SERVANTS." In the following cases, as with the so-called "Personal" Income Tax, you can see how this commercial-activity bait-and-switch was once again pulled off:
"...For while a Citizen has the Right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that Right does not extend to the use of the highways, either in whole or in part, as a place for private gain. For the latter purpose no person has a vested right to use the highways of the state, but is a privilege or a license which the legislature may grant or withhold at its discretion..." --State v Johnson, 243 P 1073; Hadfield, supra; Cummins v Homes, 155 P 171; Packard v Banton, 44 S Ct 257; and other cases too numerous to mention.
"Heretofore the court has held, and we think correctly, that while a Citizen has the Right to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon, that Right does not extend to the use of the highways, either in whole or in part, as a place of business for private gain." --Barney v Board of Railroad Commissioners, 17 P 2nd 82; Willis v Buck, 263 P 982.
and...
"The right of the citizen to travel upon the highway and to transport his property thereon, in the ordinary course of life and business, differs radically and obviously from that of one who makes the highway his place of business for private gain in the running of a stagecoach or omnibus." --State v City of Spokane, 186 P 864.
There are a bunch more such cases. Just ask. So, when the illegitimate establishment drilled you into believing "driving is a privilege," "driving is a privilege," they neglected to tell you that was only if you were engaged in commercial activity. Clearly then, the first and probably only thing you should say to a uniformed highway brigand who pulls you over with flashing lights is (and record the interaction), "What made you think I was engaged in commercial activity, officer?" <C:\USR\WP_DOCS\TROLLEY\ARTICLES.NEW\JOUSTS>
"Can you *honestly* see the like [of] Bush, Cheney, Obama, Halliburton, Monsanto, et al letting that [revolution] happen here [in the U.S.]?" --Valiant V., FB: July 5, 2014
Bush, Cheney, Obama, Halliburton, Monsanto, et al aren't in control -- unless we believe they are - - -
Hume's paradox as stated by Chomsky: In any society, the population submits to the rulers, even though force is always in the hands of the governed. Chomsky also suggests that, "Ultimately the governors, the rulers, can only rule if they control opinion --no matter how many guns they have. This is true of the most despotic societies and the most free, [Hume] wrote. If the general population won't accept things, the rulers are finished." --PFRM: Hume's paradox The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many (Interviews with Noam Chomsky) Copyright 1994 by David Barsamian
I traveled Europe, etc. with Monica, a Polish girl, before the Berlin Wall came down. I'd read a little pamphlet by Russian dissident Andrei Amalrik, "Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984." He made the argument that it wouldn't. I regularly brought his idea up, just to see what the insiders thought. Monica, who managed to get out of Poland by becoming migrant labor in Sweden, said that was complete B.S. The Russian government had nukes, tanks and a huge army, complete control over the media, and had put down many rebellions. The Soviet Union would last for a thousand years. In fact, I had many Polish friends and they all agreed with Monica. By the time I visited Poland, I had developed the habit of asking what folks thought. To a person, they all agreed too. When The Wall came down in 1989, I got a bit of an undeserved reputation among the folks who rememberd me as a political guru for suggesting what had been to them the unthinkable. So, Valiant, yes I can see that happening here because, remember, it's NOT Bush, Cheney, Obama, Halliburton, Monsanto, et al. It's not who or what you think - - -
Well, Greg - - - Despite your claim, the NYT article you posted has nothing at all to do with war-like human behavior. It concerns new theories about the settlement of the Americas.
Apparently, Greg, you stopped reading at the end of the second paragraph? This one - - -
"Preserved amid the bromeliad-encrusted plateaus that tower over the thorn forests of northeast Brazil, the ancient rock art depicts fierce battles among tribesmen, orgiastic scenes of prehistoric revelry and hunters pursuing their game, spears in hand."
Aside from the sensationalist phrase "rock art depicts fierce battles among tribesmen," crafted by the writer as part of his "hook," there isn't a single mention of any sort of battle or hostility at all in the entire rest of the article. Or in the included video.
Like the Fallacy of the Chief, that short phrase is just old mythology snatched by a NYT writer to grab your attention.
The lack of any serious grounding for that phrase is entirely consistent with the misinformation inflicted on us by pale-face historians to excuse our ancestors' murderous expropriation of real estate. It's an extension of what I sometimes call the "Indiana Jones School of Archaeology."
The truth is, despite Hollywood, "Primitive" folks were in general much more "civilized" than we are. Here's a clue via text book reviewer James W. Loewen- - -
New England's first Indian war, the Pequot War of 1636-37, provides a case study of the intensified warfare Europeans brought to America. Allied with the Narragansetts, traditional enemies of the Pequots, the colonists attacked at dawn. ... The slaughter shocked the Narragansetts, who had wanted merely to subjugate the Pequots, not exterminate them. The Narragansetts reproached the English for their style of warfare, crying, "It is naught, it is naught, because it is too furious, and slays too many men." In turn, Capt. John Underhill scoffed, saying that the Narragansett style of fighting was "more for pastime, than to conquer and subdue enemies." Underhill's analysis of the role of warfare in Narragansett society was correct, and might accurately be applied to other tribes as well. Through the centuries, whites frequently accused their Native allies of not fighting hard enough. --James W. Loewen, LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME, (New York, NY: Touchstone 1996), p. 118
Unfortunately modern mass cultures have been hijacked by hierarchists. That becomes obvious in odd places. For example, "modern" humans have essentially the same genetically specified emotional makeup as our "primitive" ancestors -- which explains why all that military training is necessary. It's to overcome the genetic reluctance most of us share with most other "animals" against killing our own kind. Like this: AND the MilitaryIndustrialCongressional Complex didn't warn us of the psychological risks. Like this for example: It used to be called "shell shock" etc. in the old days. Now it's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and a high percentage of folks who get involved in war suffer from what is now recognized as this often incurable malady.
From the Narragansetts reaction to British warfare tactics, it's clear our tribal ancestors were much more reasonable about "war."
Also, more up-to-date archaeology is much less enthusiastic in it's interpretation of artwork. Like this:
"In the 30 years that separated Mellaart's Catalhoyuk [a 10,000 year-old ruin in Turkey] from Hodder's, archeology changed radically. By his last season even Mellaart was out of date: scientific archeology had arrived, and with it a preference for the quantifiable over the symbolic, for testable hypotheses over stories. Then in the 1980s, some archeologists began to question their whole enterprise, to dismiss as naive the view that you could ever know what really happened in the past, and as Eurocentric the interpretations that people like Mellaart had applied to ancient cultures. ...
"The Mellaarts thought those things might tell them what really happened at Catalhoyuk--which is not at all the postmodern spirit. 'Postmodernism is difficult to define,' says Hodder. 'But one definition people use is the "end of grand narrative"--the end of the idea that there is one answer to the world. Postmodernism is much less optimistic, less certain. It focuses much more on 'multivocality': there are many different voices in the world and different perspectives, not just the Western one." --Robert Kunzig, A Tale of Two Archeologists, DISCOVER, MAY 1999, pg. 88
It seems that Feynmanism is spreading rapidly to folks other than just legendary Physicists - - - AND even you're not the way they told you you are.
OK, FWIW, here's my take on Bitcoin as you asked, Kevin. May be an hour late, but I hope not a pound short - - -
While
Bitcoin and its many other relatives (see below) are each individually
limited by math -- as far as we know -- the aggregate supply of
cryptocoins may be virtually unlimited. The prognosis isn't good: The
aggregate is what counts and since it is, for all intents and purposes,
unlimited, as the aggregate supply approaches infinity, the value
approaches zero. Otherwise experienced as "inflation." Massive
inflation.
There are at least three useful historical
precedents I'm aware of: The use of private bills of credit and/or
exchange notes beginning with the Tang Dynasty in China -- and the use
of "assignats" and then "mandats" too in the aftermath of the French
Revolution during the last decade of the 18th Century. The third is a
surprise.
In the follow-on to the Tang Dynasty, the paper notes
in China became so common that, by the law of supply and demand, in
aggregate, most lost most or all value.
While misunderstood by
most people, such a disruption in the medium of exchange is more
devastating to more people than any natural disaster could ever be.
With the possible exception of the next eruption of the Yellowstone
caldera or another Yucatan meteorite strike. As a result, the Chinese eliminated paper money entirely in 1455.
In
the French experience, the legislature, despite experience with John
Law's "Mississippi Bubble," 70 years before, put paper "assignats" into
circulation, supposedly based on and limited by land. The politicians
couldn't control themselves of course, and kept issuing more and more
assignats, which caused inflation. They then got the idea of getting
the "excess" assignats out of circulation by issuing a substitute,
called "mandats" and getting people to trade in their "assignats" for
them. This was called an "interconvertibility scheme," and,
predictably, both stayed in circulation despite the plan. The
increased aggregate supply meant that the inflation continued.
The
surprise example was the 13 British North American colonies before the
First American Revolution. The colonial governments got in the habit of
issuing "Bills of Credit" -- essentially paper I.O.U.s -- which then
circulated within the colony and it became customary to use them as
money. The Colonial Governments, not understanding the danger -- or not
worrying about it -- got in the habit of issuing these to cover
expenses. Predictably this led to, you guessed it, "inflation."
This
result was so disruptive to all the colonies that all 13, individually,
came to realize how undesirable it was and, even before the Revolution,
stopped the practice.
In fact, this history was so memorable
that preventions found their way into the U.S. Constitution in Clause 1.
Particularly, "No State shall ...emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing
but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;"
Thus
"interconvertibility schemes" in all forms are, I think (but I've been
wrong before), the ultimate Achilles heel of cryptocoins in general.
They may be different in name, but they can all be used as very similar
media of exchange -- which, by the Law of Supply and Demand, will likely
EVENTUALLY make them pretty much worthless.
Another
short-coming of Bitcoin in particular is that the total anonymity built
into the algoritm wasn't implemented for Bitcoin. This means they can
be traced and so aren't as anonymous as folks were led to believe. Or
even as anonymous as paper cash. That's why the FEDs were able to bust
Silk Road. In fact, the FEDs can trace every individual Bitcoin if they
want to go to the trouble.
It looks like there may be other
holes in the Bitcoin protocal in general as well. Mt. Gox, billed as
the biggest Bitcoin exchange, just filed for bankruptcy protection in
Japan: (February 28, 2014) It apparently lost all of it's patrons'
Bitcoins to hackers.
SO, if you decide to get involved in the
cryptocoin trade, Kevin, I'd suggest one of the coins that DID implement
total anonymity -- if it works. That at least gives it a little
product differentiation. Probably, given the rapid evolution of things,
very little.
You might try Maxcoin, named after Max
Keiser of RT's Keiser Report and pushed by Bitcoin guru Charles
Hoskinson. Who knows whether it will make the cut, but you'd be in on
the ground floor - - -
Above advice worth what you paid for it.
Health, happiness & long life, Rick
P.S.
Bitcoin -- and the other cryptocurrencies built on the bitcoin
block-chain -- are just the tip of a pretty big iceberg that can be used
for all sorts of things. It's a real phenom. Will it last in any
form? Who the un-fuck knows. But it will be interesting to watch. It
challenges the very basis of the government bankster axis.
P.P.S. The next step in the Bitcoin evolution is billed as Ethereum - General - Bitcoin Foundation List of alt coins followed on reddit as of February, 2014. http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/ other altcoins:
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