Conversation between Mod1 and LBird

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

If anyone can translate the political meaning of robbo's post, I'd be obliged to the translator.

 It means quite simply that you believe in the Leninist model of decision-making  though you pretend not to understand what I said

[Anonymous]

Unicentric = Having a single centre.Polycentric = Having many centres.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Bergman, p.2, wrote:

"All traditional logic," wrote the philosopher Betrand Russell, "habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestrial life, but only to an imagined celestial existence."

[my bold]Merrie Bergman (2008) An Introduction to Many-Valued and Fuzzy Logic Cambridge University Press

mod1 wrote:

Alas your closed mind wont accept or acknowledge this logic.

You're right, I don't accept 'this logic' of yours, which is an ideological logic, a political logic, which you (perhaps unknowingly) pretend comes from the Planet Logic, a supposedly 'Objective' source, which we humans can't argue with.That's what an open-minded worker argues to a closed-minded moderator.All 'logic' is a social and ideological product, which we can change. Just like maths and physics.

an introduction to fuzzy logic on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r804UF8Ia4cI have not read the book you mention but it is of interest to me and this conversation.  I think the video primer I linked to is a good summary of my understanding of the fuzzy logic princples.  can you confirm for me the book is consistent with this video and the video is a fair and worthy summary of the science?

[Anonymous]

robbo203 wrote:

  

LBird wrote:

robbo's chosen political method to denigrate 'democracy' is to equate it with 'centralisation'. Thus:

robbo203 wrote:

Clearly L Bird supports this totalitarian and ultra-centralised mode of decision-making.

[my bold]robbo pretends that 'democracy' leads to 'centralisation', by which he means 'totalitarian' (a concept employed by post-war Cold War warriors, but we'll let that pass). 

   This is so way off the mark it is almost laughable.  It demonstrates that LBird seems wilfully intent on not understanding the argument which has been presented to him.  I am not trying to denigrate democracy by “equating with it with centralisation”.  What a silly claim. Actually the word I used was “ultra-centralised”. Does LBird know what this means? It means EXTREME centralisation. What I am actually saying is that democracy will be killed off by extreme centralisation. Yet this is precisely what  LBird advocates – extreme centralisation of decision-making – and that is why I oppose what Lbird stands for.  Because it will lead to a fundamentally anti-democratic outcome.   LBird is not a democrat but a naive Leninist who cloaks his Leninism in a mantle of democratic rhetoric.  He merely pays lip service to democratic values.  However, even if his absurd idea of a totalitarian society-wide system of decision-making operating out of a single global centre were remotely feasible, it could only really operate on the basis of a tiny technocratic elite arrogating to itself the power to make all decisions on society’s behalf.  There are billions of decisions to be made and there is no possibility of such decisions being made on any other basis given LBird’s Leninist model of decision-making. 

LBird wrote:

Any Democratic Communist would of course reply that 'democracy' does imply 'centralisation'. There has to be a central location, at which is based a central organisation that obeys the orders of the voters. The losing voters then obey the orders of the 'central' majority.We can see this in practice in the parish, village, town, city, regional and national elections of even bourgeois democracy.The 'parish' democracy is centralised upon the 'parish hall', at which a central bureaucracy counts the votes and announces the results of the democratic vote, taken by all the parish residents. Of course, the central parish bureaucracy is also elected using democratic methods. And so on, for all levels, from parish to national. The new feature of democratic World Socialism will be a central 'World Hall'.

  This demonstrates once again how utterly confused LBird is on the matter.  Of course local democracy requires a local centre and regional democracy requires a regional centre and so forth.  Im not disputing that at all but this has got nothing to do with what I am taking about The point that I was trying to impress upon LBird is that since local democracy requires a local centre and since there are numerous local centres corresponding to numerous local communities what this means in effect is that you inevitably have a POLYCENTRIC system of democratic decisionmaking in socialism.  However this is not what LBird wants.  He has made it absolutely clear that he is calling instead for a UNICENTRIC models of decision-making – that is one in which in which ALL decisions relating to production and everything else throughout the entire world are ONLY to made from a single global centre – what he calls his central 'World Hall' – and that somehow ALL these decisions are to be made by the entire global population.  In other others, no other decisions can be permitted other than those that come out of his central World Hall.   If LBird protests that I am somehow misrepresenting him I would remind him of his own wprds. It was he who declared forthrightly that there are “no limits to democracy”.  Well in a polycentric model of decision-making there clearly are such limits.  If a local community makes a decision concerning a local matter than self-evidently this precludes another local community, or a regional community or the global community getting involved in making this local decision.  We respect the right of that community to make decisions that affect itself.  That is a limitation. LBird rejects any such limitations.  Consequently he is saying that the global community as a whole must decide on every conceivable decision impacting on everyone throughout the world. Of course that is not even worth thinking about  as serious proposal but the logic of what LBird is talking about is certainly worth thinking – and worrying –  about since it in effect argues for the concentration of all power in the hands of tiny elite and the complete destruction of any kind of democracy whatsoever

 There is another option.  What if the you had an individual centric decision making process in the WWW.  everone gets their own personal sphere of influence that intersects with others for decision making.  Basically what we have in face to face in person exchanges and decision making in a small community seems the idea, but scaled up.  There's several forms of government and busines and economic power and decision making solutions that to some degree distribute decision making power in a dynamic ever changing fashion.or so it seems to me.  and more relevant to the discussion at hand, perhaps something like this is what is intended by the great hall of unicentric decision making.  Just consider the great decision making body to be made up of everybody to various degrees on various decisions and it exists in information space on the web for convenient worldwide access or in other forms offline with slower speed. Or so it seems to me.  but then I don't debate authorities, I debate ideas as I understand them so maybe I'm missing your point or rhetoric style.  Good day to you, and thanks for the intellectually worthy read of the thread so far.  Lots of great thinking to read from you SPGB group.  I forgot how much I missed intellectuals and deep thinkers since I've been spending more time fighting low intellegence GMO and Monsanto trolls on social media lately. 

[LBird]

Matt wrote:

Unicentric = Having a single centre.Polycentric = Having many centres.

Perhaps you're missing the point, Matt. I'm sure we all know the difference between 'uni' and 'poly' as words. It's the political meaning that you seem to have missed.'Uni' = 'democracy', whereas 'Poly' = 'individual'.robbo is a 'poly' individualist, whereas Democratic Communists are 'uni' democrats.This is a question of 'power' – 'power' is either a collective phenomenon ('uni', centralised upon a social decision-making process, in which individuals participate and then obey) or 'power' is an individual phenomenon ('poly', decentralised amongst individuals, who can ignore other individuals).Socialism requires collective decision-making, not 7 billion decisions which ignore each other.I'm a democrat, whereas robbo is an individualist – that's why we disagree. This is a debate about where 'power' will lie within Socialism/Communism – distributed amongst 7 billion biological and sovereign individuals, or with a collective World Socialism where democracy is sovereign.

[LBird]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

I have not read the book you mention but it is of interest to me and this conversation.  I think the video primer I linked to is a good summary of my understanding of the fuzzy logic princples. 

The key political point being made here, Steve, is that 'logic' is a social product, and various 'logics' have been produced, including 'classical/traditional' and 'n-valued'.mod1 is using the usual conservative political trick to pretend that 'logic' is actually 'Logic', so that mod1's political logic is pretended to be 'Objective' and 'The Truth' and 'Eternal', and so can't be argued with.Within socialism, it would require a democratic vote by the producers to determine which 'logic' is employed in any intended social process of theory and practice, which produces social knowledge.So, 'logic' is not an ahistoric, asocial, 'truthful' process, which any individual or elite can simply use outside of the democratic control of the producers, but is an integral part of a political process.Any attempt to appeal to 'Logic' is a conservative political act, intended to hide its own ideological beliefs, and to denigrate the political stance towards which it is aimed.That is, one ideology's 'logic' is another's 'illogic', and vice versa. We must consciously choose our 'logic', and be aware of the political implications of our particular choice of a 'logic'.

[LBird]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

an introduction to fuzzy logic on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r804UF8Ia4cI have not read the book you mention but it is of interest to me and this conversation.  I think the video primer I linked to is a good summary of my understanding of the fuzzy logic princples.  can you confirm for me the book is consistent with this video and the video is a fair and worthy summary of the science?

I've had a quick look at this video, and it's a useful introduction to the subject of 'degrees of truth', 'truth' as a sliding scale, 'truth', as not a boolean 'true or false'. 'Truth' is a judgement by people.Only a vote by humans can determine 'truth-for-them'. There is no 'Truth' simply waiting to be 'discovered' by a 'disinterested academic elite'.'Truth' is a product of 'power'.

[LBird]

Steve-SanFrancisco-UserExperienceResearchSpecialist wrote:

 There is another option.  What if the you had an individual centric decision making process in the WWW.  everone gets their own personal sphere of influence that intersects with others for decision making.  Basically what we have in face to face in person exchanges and decision making in a small community seems the idea, but scaled up.  There's several forms of government and busines and economic power and decision making solutions that to some degree distribute decision making power in a dynamic ever changing fashion.or so it seems to me.  and more relevant to the discussion at hand, perhaps something like this is what is intended by the great hall of unicentric decision making.  Just consider the great decision making body to be made up of everybody to various degrees on various decisions and it exists in information space on the web for convenient worldwide access or in other forms offline with slower speed. Or so it seems to me.  but then I don't debate authorities, I debate ideas as I understand them so maybe I'm missing your point or rhetoric style.  Good day to you, and thanks for the intellectually worthy read of the thread so far.  Lots of great thinking to read from you SPGB group.  I forgot how much I missed intellectuals and deep thinkers since I've been spending more time fighting low intellegence GMO and Monsanto trolls on social media lately. 

Yeah, in your example, the WWW is the 'uni'.Thanks for your tribute to the SPGB site.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Matt wrote:

Unicentric = Having a single centre.Polycentric = Having many centres.

Perhaps you're missing the point, Matt. I'm sure we all know the difference between 'uni' and 'poly' as words. It's the political meaning that you seem to have missed.'Uni' = 'democracy', whereas 'Poly' = 'individual'.robbo is a 'poly' individualist, whereas Democratic Communists are 'uni' democrats.This is a question of 'power' – 'power' is either a collective phenomenon ('uni', centralised upon a social decision-making process, in which individuals participate and then obey) or 'power' is an individual phenomenon ('poly', decentralised amongst individuals, who can ignore other individuals).Socialism requires collective decision-making, not 7 billion decisions which ignore each other.I'm a democrat, whereas robbo is an individualist – that's why we disagree. This is a debate about where 'power' will lie within Socialism/Communism – distributed amongst 7 billion biological and sovereign individuals, or with a collective World Socialism where democracy is sovereign.

.   Again, this demonstrates LBird simply does not understand the argument at all.  It’s like banging your head against the wall trying to get it through to him and in my opinion he is just being deliberately obtuse to prevent having to acknowledge the thoroughly anti- democratic implications of his Leninist worldview.  This is why he constantly misrepresents what I am saying.  He has to hide behind a screen of falsehoods to protect himself So for instance he portrays me as an “individualist” who rejects collective decision-making. That’s absolute rubbish.  Of course I accept that socialism requires collective decision-making – when have I have said anything to the contrary?   The question is what is the “collective” that makes these decisions. Is it one single collective embracing the whole of humanity or are there multiple collectives operating at different scales of socio-spatial organisation – local regional and even global too LBird is an advocate of a unicentric model of decision-making since he has made it quite plain that he will not allow local decision-making or regional decision-making under his system. There will only be one organ of decision-making under his system – and only one – his central 'World Hall' as he  calls it.  There will be no such thing as a local council, for example, in LBird Brave New World.  Local councils will be abolished. All decisions relating to people living in a particular locality must be routed through his remote central World Hall and put to the vote of the entire global population – 7 billions of us.  The idea is a just too silly for words I, on the other hand, am very firmly an advocate a polycentric model of collective decision-making – that is democracy operating at different levels of socio-spatial organisations. This is actually the only realistic option.  I also argue that, alongside these collective decisions to be made by countless numbers of collective organs, there is also another class of decisions that will be made by individuals themselves that do not involve and have no need to involve collective decision-making.  Now this is very clearly the Marxist position and I am more than happy to endorse it.   Marx was a fierce advocate for individual choice and individual freedom.  He argued strongly that “the free development of eachis the condition for the free development of all”endorse.  He well understood, unlike LBird who doesn’t really know what communism is about, that in order for the communist principle to apply – from each according to abilities to each according to need – people have to be free to decide how they themselves want to contribute to society.  In the German Ideology, for example, he spoke of the individual in communism being able to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, do critical criticism in the evening, just as he has in mind.”  We may question Marx’s choice of activities but the underlying principle he was trying to illuminate was clearly enough.  Individuals should be able to choose what work they do.  Work should not be forced. Forced work is estranged work.  Forced work is a characteristic of class-based societies. So there would be two basic types of decisions in communism/socialism – individual decisions and collective decisions and the latter will take many forms relating to a polycentric model of decision-making. LBird rejects all of this.  He rejects on the one hand the Marxist view that there will be a class of decisions that individuals will take without the need for collective decision-making.  And he rejects the polycentric model of decision-making in favour of an utterly preposterous unicentric model of the world in which only one single decision-making organ can exist.  This is fully in line with his Leninist conviction that the"The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory" (State and Revolution).  Since it is quite impossible that 7 billion could vote on billions upon billions of collective decisions that will need to be made in communist society what that means is that in order to salvage this unicentric model of decision-making, those decisions will have to be undertaken on the spot by a minuscule de facto elite. There is no other option available to LBird and even this is not really an option at all.  This is why I argue the ultimate logic of LBirds Leninist way of looking at the world is thoroughly anti-democratic and elitist to its very core   

[Young Master Smeet]

Ah, at last Lbird has revealed their ideology.I myself am a democratic communist, who wants "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Lbird is not a democratic communist, they are a borganist.

[Anonymous]

No you are missing the point by misrepresenting Robbo's view.You say

Quote:

This is a question of 'power' – 'power' is either a collective phenomenon ('uni', centralised upon a social decision-making process, in which individuals participate and then obey).

It does not follow that the above is a more democratic or efficient model. rather it is  a top down static and authoritarian model you propose more akin to rigid inflexible models which lead to state control over the demos.nor is the conclusion you draw here correct, namely

Quote:

or 'power' is an individual phenomenon ('poly', decentralised amongst individuals, who can ignore other individuals)

.it does not folow that individuals ignore the rest in a poycentric model. Rather, iIt is a much more democratic model which allows for the fluid interaction and recognition of there beng several or many inputs necessary to arrive at conclusive results, in a modern technological and informational savvy, post-capitalist era with multiple interactive factors to interplay within decisions as to the better optional gains for the whole. It allows more for "From each according to their ability" to prevail with a multiplicity of interactions feeding into decision making and the best optional outcomes.Your rigid model is much more likely to create crises of over and undersupply with the loss of corrective autonomous self regulative adjustment. It has the smack of the Gulags to me.. We have been there before.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe the moderator has posted this. Is this not disruption of the forum? To reintroduce from suspension a known forum disrupter. To be cheered back by a pro capitalist pig?I don't know how many times I have said this but LBird sets up strawmen and we spend our time responding to them. When are we going to cease the futile endeavour of defending a position we do not hold? 

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

When are we going to cease the futile endeavour of defending a position we do not hold?

I couldn't agree more, Vin.Why do the posters here continue to pretend to defend a 'democratic socialism' that they do not hold?They are really defending individualism, Religious Materialism, elite science, and their god Matter.Never a word about the democratic production of our world, and the election of our truth.

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

 I couldn't agree more, Vin.Why do the posters here continue to pretend to defend a 'democratic socialism' that they do not hold?They are really defending individualism, Religious Materialism, elite science, and their god Matter.Never a word about the democratic production of our world, and the election of our truth.

I was talking about your strawmen and you know it.  I have told you this before, you are a troll, but a very good one, here to waste our time and provoke emotional response from users. And you do it very well. Had you sussed 2 years ago   

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

I couldn't agree more, Vin.Why do the posters here continue to pretend to defend a 'democratic socialism' that they do not hold?They are really defending individualism, Religious Materialism, elite science, and their god Matter.Never a word about the democratic production of our world, and the election of our truth.

I was talking about your strawmen and you know it.  I have told you this before, you are a troll, but a very good one, here to waste our time and provoke emotional response from users. And you do it very well. Had you sussed 2 years ago 

It's been open to you, and the others, at any point, to defend workers' democracy, in any or all of the areas that we've spoken about.Neither you, nor the others, ever mention democratic socialism – you defend individuals, Engels' Materialism (nothing to do with Marx's views), the 'science' of the bourgeoisie, and 'matter'.Then robbo creates an argument that I've never made, and the others use that as a basis of their arguments, rather than address what I actually write – read what I've written on this thread, and read what's been argued against.And, usually, after I keep defending workers' democracy, the moderator accuses me of repeating my own arguments, and bans me (but not those who refuse to read what I write, and compel me to keep correcting them – like you, Vin).

[Author]

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