So, I live in a region which is laughably called the "temperate zone". The name must have been invented in Southern England. Anyways, what this means is that we get all sorts of horrible for our weather (or we like to think so... or it comforts our frailty to 'brag as though that were so) whereas people in more "extreme" places only get one or two sorts of horrible --- desert heats, or monsoon half the year, or glaciers... A friend has reminded me that this means we don't get those noxious toxic tropical insects: it's too complicated for them. I might counter that Monarch Butterflies spend more than half their lives as tropical insects, but they're so pretty it doesn't matter.
Anyways, all that is preface or context for
$$\begin{array}{rl}
\mathrm{XXI} &\mbox{Rain, in proportion}\\
\mathrm{XXII} & \mbox{Wind, with or without bicycle}\\
\mathrm{XXIII} & \mbox{Electricity}\\
\mathrm{XXIV} & \mbox{Devices that exploit [23] to effect [22]}\\
\mathrm{XXV} & \mbox{Night quiet}
\end{array}
$$
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
With all due deference
Dear Prof. Zmirak,
I have not a whole lot to say, against Austrian Economics generally, or Roepke's writings specifically, or any of that; but I will raise my concern now about the well-foundedness of the "price system", what I'd prefer to call the Monetary Standard: as with all things democratic, it's only as smart as the average vote, and people both rich and poor can be terribly stupid. Not only is "the last whiskey you're willing to pay for" often much too late to stop buying whiskey. Furthermore, as with all things democratic, nobody really knows enough to make infomed judgments about what the next or last whiskey or mobile phone service plan or college application or mortgage really costs him, before he's had it and waked up again the next morning, or until all the peripheral missed opportunities and consequences have echoed around him again. So how can he tell if 5€ really is not too much?
As examples of things which would cost far too much even if you were paid to take them with you, which yet seem to move lots of money around, here is a very short list:
Anyways, there we are. As Churchill said of democracy, it might well be the worst system imaginable, except for all the rest.
A Subsidiarist
I have not a whole lot to say, against Austrian Economics generally, or Roepke's writings specifically, or any of that; but I will raise my concern now about the well-foundedness of the "price system", what I'd prefer to call the Monetary Standard: as with all things democratic, it's only as smart as the average vote, and people both rich and poor can be terribly stupid. Not only is "the last whiskey you're willing to pay for" often much too late to stop buying whiskey. Furthermore, as with all things democratic, nobody really knows enough to make infomed judgments about what the next or last whiskey or mobile phone service plan or college application or mortgage really costs him, before he's had it and waked up again the next morning, or until all the peripheral missed opportunities and consequences have echoed around him again. So how can he tell if 5€ really is not too much?
As examples of things which would cost far too much even if you were paid to take them with you, which yet seem to move lots of money around, here is a very short list:
recreational opiates
pornography
idle speech
Anyways, there we are. As Churchill said of democracy, it might well be the worst system imaginable, except for all the rest.
A Subsidiarist
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Totally Weird
echo >& /dev/null <<eof
Poking, in a self-indulgent way, through recent blog visitor statistics, it seems that during the recent scribal torpor ("hiatus" sounds like something a TV network or production studio would plan--- planning is beyond me, on this blog) perhaps half of my visitors come from websites that sell useless and/or imaginary things. OK, so maybe I'm a bit rough with my sarcasm; sarcasm is easy, on the internet, after all! Nonetheless, I've a sneaking suspicion that someone is investing modest ammounts of website design and traffic redirection to collect the attention of lonely amateur blogifiers skimming through their traffic statistics... a new a subtle form of spam designed to prey upon the incautious and/or self-alienated-and-inclined-to-intelectual pride? Or is it just that the internet is alive and stupid? I don't know. It makes me wonder how many cloudy terminals out there have fake PhDs awarded by fake schools? And how many of those bought their dissertation essays from web-enabled "editing" firms using phfished-out credit card numbers?
If the internet could speak, would it have troche fixation?
anyways, sleep well.
eof
Poking, in a self-indulgent way, through recent blog visitor statistics, it seems that during the recent scribal torpor ("hiatus" sounds like something a TV network or production studio would plan--- planning is beyond me, on this blog) perhaps half of my visitors come from websites that sell useless and/or imaginary things. OK, so maybe I'm a bit rough with my sarcasm; sarcasm is easy, on the internet, after all! Nonetheless, I've a sneaking suspicion that someone is investing modest ammounts of website design and traffic redirection to collect the attention of lonely amateur blogifiers skimming through their traffic statistics... a new a subtle form of spam designed to prey upon the incautious and/or self-alienated-and-inclined-to-intelectual pride? Or is it just that the internet is alive and stupid? I don't know. It makes me wonder how many cloudy terminals out there have fake PhDs awarded by fake schools? And how many of those bought their dissertation essays from web-enabled "editing" firms using phfished-out credit card numbers?
If the internet could speak, would it have troche fixation?
anyways, sleep well.
eof
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