[Ed]

Why is the statement "the earth goes around the sun" any less true by definition than 1+1=2?No I don't see a distinction between something happening to be true and something that is true.

[Ed]

LBird wrote:

Ed wrote:

If you disagree that there is a distinction between the two could you please provide a mathematical sum which is biased by ideology. Doesn't have to be hard 1+1 will do. (please don't make it too hard) if you can make an argument that 1+1=2 is an ideologically biased calculation I shall concede the argument …

1+1=10.The bias is in the base, comrade.

How very O'Brien esque.

[Ed]

Where have I said that all theories claiming to be scientific are unbiased? I really don't know what to say to your definition of science. If you count a valid scientific theory as any theory ever, by anyone, not factoring in evidence of any kind, then by that measure the Pope would be one of the leading scientists on the planet! Marx had a good term for theories biased by ideology "vulgar", today we tend to call it pseudo-science. It all strikes me as a little bit 1984, The truth is whatever we tell you it is. If I tell you I'm holding up 3 fingers when I am actually holding up 4 I am scientifically correct because I say so? If you have two conflicting theories both claiming to have evidence there are only two options one is either incorrect or both are. When you examine the evidence of the two theories one is either discredited through that process or both are. The discredited theory then becomes unscientific.With the Higgs Boson particle it wasn't some guy working in Woolworths who woke up one day and said "you know what I've just had a brilliant idea. There is one master force instead of four seperate forces. I'm off to try to prove it"No.Instead they started with a question. Where did that question come from? From observing the evidence that they already had. The question was "why are there four forces and not one master force?". It was not a spontaneous idea, it was the next logical step based on what was already known to be proven fact. Unfortunately you bolded the wrong part of my statement as the important point was "because it was the most likely outcome based on the evidence they already had." Which is what I've just repeated here, please don't make me write it a third time.I think you misunderstood my post, perhaps because of an ideological bias?  But to clarify I am saying there is science and there is psuedo-science masquerading as science. It is psuedo-science which is biased by ideology, factual science is objective, proven, fact. If you disagree that there is a distinction between the two could you please provide a mathematical sum which is biased by ideology. Doesn't have to be hard 1+1 will do. (please don't make it too hard) if you can make an argument that 1+1=2 is an ideologically biased calculation I shall concede the argument and then proceed to eat my own face.

[Ed]

But there are different kinds of assumptions. As I said in a previous post I think theory is a better way to describe an 'assumption'. You can have a theory based on the best evidence available, for instance the Higgs Boson particle which was predicted to exist before thay could actually find it because it was the most likely outcome based on the evidence they already had. On the other hand you can have an unfounded theory, for instance, God or human nature. These theories are unfounded and have no objective evidence backing them up, the scientific view in this instance is to discard them as they have no validity. For me ideology is to discard evidence in favour of an idea which best suits your needs, just like God. So yeah I think socialists should endeavour to discard all ideology and only base their theories on the scientific method.

[Ed]

A lot of possible new subjects stemming from this post.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

 Lottery is valid enough method of decision making for things as important as whether a man or woman should live or die, whether a man or woman should spend their lives locked up behind bars or go free . I think justice  and punishment is something most people are interested in and we entrust the decision to (in Scotland) 15 randomly picked members of the public, not quite picked off the street but close enough. As you say it helps to ensure no rise of a bureaucracy in committees.

Personally I would call that a very small decision if we're talking about a world-wide decision making process. It's a single localized issue perfectly designed for a sortition/demarchic system. However, my only interest in punishment is in how to expose it for the biblical age nonsense it is and to hopefully one day see it's abolition.

alanjjohnstone wrote:

The idea of opinion polls has turned into quite an accurate science in determining attitudes and predicting outcomes and those are based on not quite random selection by lottery but by adding parameters to create a representative sample. I am sure those involved in this profession will devise a whole variety of even more new practical applications for a socialist society that they have not yet begun studying because still having the capitalist society blinkers on.Epidemiologal statistical research and returns is not a head count but a survey (hence the dispute over the UN sanctuion child death rate and the Lancet Iraq war death numbers figures) are used by health workers and host of others.

I'm not convinced about it's effectiveness over larger scales and for decisions which effect more than a localised few. I know little of "epidemiologal statistics" and I'm pretty sure I'd have a hard time pronouncing it. Have they solved the main problem of surveys and polls which is language biasing answers, sometimes unintentionally sometimes intentionally. Perhaps this is not a problem with the method but with the application? Perhaps it shows the current inefficiency of language? Until these problems are shown to be solved I think I have to take the Disraeli line and say "lies, damned lies and statistics".

alanjjohnstone wrote:

So what i am saying is that democracy and decisions in socialism need not be constant meetings and continual voting on every issue

This I agree with wholeheartedly and is the best argument for sortition/demarchy. It would be completely inefficient and wasteful to call referendums of one man one vote over every little thing. Not only that but it could actually make people complacent about voting if they feel they are constantly being asked to vote on questions that they feel are of little importance. (see the turn out for the conference votes )

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Socialists do make assumptions but a phrase out of favour and unpopular these days is that our political ideas is based upon "scientific socialism", we are scientific socialists. We use certain thinking processes …inductive reasoning, matrialistic conception of history…we simply do not come up with our ideas independent or outside society . We assume things but it is from precedence.

Absolutely the case for socialism is scientific. Something I'd like to have said to Sotinov if he checks back in on this thread. Is that socialists have not arrived at this free-access idea or as I prefer communism by chance. It is not an ideal that we have set out to achieve and then looked for evidence to back it up. It is the result of analyzing the problems and benefits of all previous societies. Looking at what has worked for us, humans, and what hasn't. By doing that we have come to our conclusions about society being classless with the produce of our labour being distributed on a needs basis. We shouldn't make predictions but we can make some assumptions or, I think I prefer theories about what happens based on evidence already observed. What we do say is that in order to have a society of free access workers must first realise that such a society is in their best interests. In this realisation the understanding is formed about what kind of behaviour is needed in order to sustain it. It's no good having a revolution without a bit of a plan of what the revolution is for. However, it is also utopian to have a blue print type of plan when we do not yet know the specific circumstances. It seems Sotinov you may have been asking for such a blue print. If we are wrong about human nature, greed and laziness then people will overcome it. If there is one outstanding characteristic of human beings that we see throughout history it is the ability to overcome problems without the complete breakdown of social relations.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

LBird wrote:

 I think further discussion on ‘safety net’ social mechanisms, asked for by Sotionov, is worth doing

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Yeah me too although I've always known it as demarchy, first time I've heard it called sortition.

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I have always had a partiality to democracy by lottery as a means of administration and decision making.

Isn't sortition a dastardly plot by any ruling class to prevent the exploited class from choosing its 'best' candidates for the job? A negation of democracy?

I think it could work very well in a socialist society for making small decisions about things that people are not particularly interested in. The main benefit though is to stop any one group with special interests from monopolizing power.

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alanjjohnstone wrote:

These jobs will not be done by the same people all the time. All able-bodied workers – of both sexes- will take turns at this work on a rotational basis that will be decided by those involved and not by you and i right now. 

To be honest Alan I don't agree with this part. I think it's certainly an option, but a little too prescriptive at this time to give any definite answer on the subject. A better way to put it I think would be people should not be forced to do the same occupation forever.agreed with the rest though

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Sotionov wrote:

Ed wrote:

This is a sweeping generalization. Who's to say what is dirty? Who's to say what is hard?

Watch the show Dirty Jobs. Anyone who thinks that such work could be done solely by volunteers is simply utopian. Anyone who thinks that mining necessary for a society with the present kind of needs could be done by volunteers, is beyond delusional. Sorry, but that's just a fact. If you give people free access to fulfull their needs and leave them to do only what they want, when they want it and how much, that kind of system would collapse within days, his has been shown on the example of communes, and is to even more true of the society at large. The only people who would volunteer to mine, when they can do anything else or nothing at all- would be the ones that have some sort of masochistic disposition, and that part of the population is surely not going to mine enough to sustain an industrial economy. It just brings us back to what i already said- the only way one could imagine that a free access system would be sustainable is to dream about technological utopianism or the utopian concept of a 'new man' comming into being. 0

I have seen that show, it's where I got the sewer cleaning example I used earlier. You posit only two outcomes either technological advancement or coercive forces as the only way that certain jobs will get done. Here's something you don't seem to have considered. That jobs are worse now because they are run in such a way as to maximize profit at the expense of the workers doing those jobs. Improving the conditions under which we produce has been a major factor of class struggle under capitalism. From the eight hour day to health and safety legislation fought for by unions. It seems clear that if workers decided how to produce and under what conditions they produce, they would take every opportunity to minimize risk of injury and maximize enjoyment of production. Making these so called bad jobs….not so bad. (Even though good and bad are still completely subjective terms). There is also a hierarchy under capitalism of what jobs are good and bad, for instance doctor = good, hospital cleaner = bad. Yet one cannot do without the other. A doctor working in a filthy environment would lose patients and put himself at risk. While the hospital cleaner will at some point in their life need a doctor. This idealist notion of good and bad jobs will be done away with. Production can be made safer right now without the need of extraordinary technological advances. An example could be deadlines. The owner must have enough of a product produced in a certain amount of time to make sure he has enough profit left over after paying the workers their wages. So losing days maybe even weeks to ensuring workers safety let alone enjoyment of their jobs is not his priority. It's not even the workers priority under capitalism to stay safe. They need the money and to get the job done as quickly as possible so they can get a few hours with their families in between sleep and getting up for the next shift. That's the way it must be under capitalism, but it's not the way it must be. What if workers main priority in producing was health and safety? What about if a priority was enjoyment while producing. What if hours were cut short so they weren't at work for so long, weren't as tired. Would all of these things lead to safer and more enjoyable workplaces?

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Sotionov wrote:

2. People don't like to do (hard, dirty and dangerous) work, and will avoid it if they can.

This is a sweeping generalization. Who's to say what is dirty? Who's to say what is hard? Number crunching could be hard to one person and manual labour could be hard for another. These are both terms which are left to the interpretation of the individual. And some people even enjoy dangerous work. Why else would people drive fast cars or sky dive etc for leisure time if an element of danger is not enjoyable. You seem to be focused on your personal preferences and projecting them on to others. Which I'm sure you'll agree is not a scientific way to view evidence.

[Ed]

Could you objectively define human nature? Because there are a million and one different definitions. The only one I find to actually be objective is that we are carbon based life forms made up of about 57% water. We usually have two eyes two arms and two legs but not in all cases. We must eat, defecate, sleep and require a safe environment in which to do so. This is the nature of human beings. Just as the nature of a table is to have four legs and be made of wood (although not in all cases). After that human beings will react to the situation they are in. If they are deprived of their basic necessities they will do whatever is necessary to obtain them, whether that be innovation or force. George Orwell spoke well on this subject.

George Orwell wrote:

The proper answer, it seems to me, is that this argument belongs to the Stone Age. It presupposes that material goods will always be desperately scarce…but there is no reason for thinking that the greed for mere wealth is a permanent human characteristic. We are selfish in economic matters because we all live in terror of poverty but when a commodity is not scarce, no one tries to grab more than his fair share of it. No one tries to make a corner in air, for instance. The millionaire as well as the beggar is content with just so much air as he can breathe.

Next I'd like an objective list of necessary jobs which no one wants to do. I doubt anyone could provide one, as good and bad are subjective terms. One person may love sitting in a comfortable office, another might prefer outdoors work, manual labour. Now I know what you're going to say cleaning the sewers or something like that. It's usually pretty high up on most lists. But consider this, does anyone enjoy doing the washing up? I'd guess not many. Personally I abhor it. Yet I know it still has to get done and so I do it. I would expect with the exception of some university students that the entire human race acts similarly. We don't like doing some things but we do them anyway. Same thing in a socialist society, socially necessary labour, it has to get done. Perhaps the people who do take on these imagined unpopular yet vital roles will receive benefits in other ways, perhaps in the form of respect and even adulation for performing tasks that no one else wants to do. The cleaners become the new rock stars. Not saying it will happen but it's not an absurd concept in a society which recognizes and values an individuals input into the collective good. This already occurs with doctors, I can't think of a more disgusting job than looking at people's athletes foot or cutting them open and fiddling with their internal organs. Yet we respect and value those people who do that important work, why should it not apply to other labour? Lastly jobs now which are unpopular, or deemed bad can be made much better, not through getting robots to do them for us, but by the workers themselves having the power to change the conditions under which they work. There is no need for a technological revolution to follow the political and social one. It is the other way around. We have had the technological revolution thanks to capitalism, this technological revolution of the last 200 years has brought us to a time and place where a society based on free access is finally possible. That's not to say there won't be technological advancement. Already under capitalism technology which would be more efficient is being suppressed due to the side effects of damaging the profitability of other industries.

[Ed]

As the paragraph on wiki says it's difficult to compare because it depends what you classify as work. If you include housework and general chores on top of the standard 40 hour week we would still probably work much longer hours. Plus "work" being a much more social affair than it is today it could be argued that large parts of their "work" time could also be counted as time spent socializing. edit: I'm not saying work today is not social but that it is to a lesser degree. Just wanted to clarify.

[Ed]

I've come across it before but no idea where. It's because we have to produce a surplus and they didn't. just to fluff out this very short post here's another take on the researchhttp://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/07/18/new-study-of-foragers-undermines-claim-that-war-has-deep-evolutionary-roots/Which claims that war is a 'cultural' construct rather than a material by-product of competing for resources. Apparently anyone who thinks different is a malthusian . Anyway it doesn't seem to grasp the fact that these tribes had new lands to move into whereas for agricultural societies that was a lot harder if not impossible in most cases.

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twc wrote:

Et tu Brute

My favourite fallacy by farTu quoque /tuːˈkwoʊkwiː/,[1] (Latin for "you, too" or "you, also") or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a logical fallacy that attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting the opponent's failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's point of view based on criticism of the person's inconsistency, and not the position presented,[2] whereas a person's inconsistency should not discredit their position. Thus, it is a form of the ad hominem argument.[3] To clarify, although the person being attacked might indeed be acting inconsistently or hypocritically, this does not invalidate their argument.

[Ed]

twc wrote:

That’s precisely why Alex Woodrow, who accepts private property in Nature’s resources as a right and privilege of locality, can’t see a conflict between his localism and capital. There is little disparity between them. Localism is merely a fantasy form of petty capital. It is naively and unconsciously anti-social.

Comrade, of course I agree with you, but I also find it to be a very common misconception. I just wanted to remind comrades that we are all learning all of the time and can help teach others without resorting to petty point scoring. Which I have seen touches of in the last few posts. Having met Alex I can say that he is a very genuine young man, who in fact knows twice as much as I did at his age. So anyways just a friendly reminder that we can debate in a friendlier way.

[Ed]

celticnachos wrote:

I am defending the USSR's case before Stalin. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were about to create the most democratic regime of all time,

"Our Central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members of the right to vote at the congress of the party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right of voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to assure the homogenous unity of the Communists. So that in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire state machine from top to bottom."ZinovievFirst congress of the 3rd international 1920So 500,000 members in a population of 180,000,000 and not even all of them are allowed to vote. It kind of contradicts Marx's "vast majority of the working class acting in the interests of the vast majority of the working class" (manifesto).

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