Another great review, as usual. And when you say this:
-------------------------------
"The entire moral vocabulary of global governance — sustainability, resilience, inclusion, responsibility — is a statistical process dressed in the language of virtue."
-------------------------------
It gets to the heart of the matter regarding "utilitarianism" -- a notion which has been categorized/classified as an ethic, even though it has no Theory of the Good.
Not knowing where Good comes from, it is not really an ethic, but merely masquerades as one for the purpose of societal control -- as you eloquently laid out.
Real ethics, such as Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, can tell you where Good comes from. Even wrong systems of ethics -- such as Subjectivism -- tell you where Good comes from (Good = following your current desires/feelings). But Utilitarianism, not even being a true system of ethics, is completely silent about where Good comes from.
The macro predicament facing humanity is the scale dependent maximization of negative sum game theoretic outcomes. By definition there are no market nor technical solutions to this predicament.
Extrication out of our predicament requires a fundamental re-working of the relations between individuals, and between individuals and the collective. In simple terms, we need a transcendent synthesis of the one-many dialectic for the dignity of each and the gestalt of the whole.
The control system you analyze is a quintessential reworking of the the relations between individuals, and between individuals and the collective. Reworking such relations does not mean their preservation. Indeed, as you have analyzed, reflexivity between individuals and the control system is all but abolished.
The abolishing of popular reflexivity is revealing; It shows that the dark-triad controllers have a fundamental impetus to maintain existing asymmetries between them and everyone else. Reflexivity between individuals and the collective, between those governed and those governing, and between whole and part is necessary for resolving the one-many dialectic.
Instead of resolving the one-many dialectic for the the dignity of each and the gestalt of the whole, we have a control system for the continuity of power asymmetry of the few and the irreflexive indignity of everyone else.
The diabolical and insidious nature of our thermodynamic and ecological predicament is that it is incompossible for the greatest good to be bestowed on the greatest number, such that the ethics of the lifeboat reign. Popular reflexivity is incompossible with lifeboat ethics, since the inclusion of the multitude in the water means the destruction of the lifeboat.
Our predicament is a nightmare scenario: Extrication from it necessities popular reflexivity yet popular reflexivity is incompossible with systemic boundary conditions.
After looking up the word, Incompossible - definition of ... - The Free Dictionary
Incompossible means incompatible or mutually exclusive in logic. Find out the pronunciation, translation and examples of this word from The Free Dictionary.
If as R.J. Rushdooney asserted that all law is religious in nature, then any changes to the law in adherence would also be a change in ones religion. The CCP like any other religions seeks to crush any dissenting opinions, whether it is CCP,Democrat,Republican, Muslim or other perspectives, the collective always forces individuals and their family's into a Kafkaesque double-bind where the working industrialist finds themselves dreaming that they woke up as a cockroach. At least that is how I felt when I found myself being jailed for performing the duties of being a father against a collective whose virtue signalling went beyond the pale.
Thank you for bringing such clarity to the last 150 years in terms of how control freaks without a spark of poetry in them have created "solutions" to very real problems which depend upon robbing humans of agency (a fact they don't find dissuasive). Free will seems to the enemy of such planners, something to be bound and gagged; and distributed localized moral sense-making something to be made impossible.
I'm forcibly reminded of the characters known as "the auditors" in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.Have you read them? I wonder if Pratchett was in any way explicitly responding to some of the people and institutional developments you describe. For the sake of brevity i will provide an AI generated description of the "the auditors".
"The Auditors are disembodied cosmic functionaries whose purpose is to ensure that the universe runs in a perfectly orderly, law-bound, deviation-free way. They do not live in the universe in any ordinary sense; rather, they stand outside it, watching and checking it.
Analytically, critics often describe them as:
Personifications of pure bureaucratic rationality
Representations of systems thinking stripped of human meaning
Guardians of mechanical regularity against the “mess” of life
They have no individuality, names, emotions, or bodies. Individuality itself is considered a flaw."
As always, many thanks for a very insightful and in depth analysis. For decades now, folks have lamented over the steady decline in religiosity, citing it as a reason for the decline in our civic-mindedness, altruism, and overall happiness. However, it is apparent that the populace is actually more religious now than in the past and they simply don't recognize it. Money has become their new God and the quest for material wealth their new religion. The adherents of this faith are exceedingly zealous in their misery and society openly encourages all to seek the elusive golden fleece that is supposedly attainable by everyone, but only if they fully devote themselves to the church.
This article, for me at least, generates more questions than answers. What should be, if any, the role of money in our society (and I don't mean world society)? How can we employ money as a force for good, as determined by those utilizing the money? Or, is it not feasible to envision money as a positive force? Isn't the root problem deeper, at risk of sounding Marxist, that the fault lies not in the monetary system itself, but in the twisted character of those who weaponize money to serve their own ends at the expense of all others? Isn't the only power that money holds the power that we grant it, similarly to the power wielded by government? If the majority of society decided to no longer recognize the supremacy of money, wouldn't money as a weapon be effectively neutered? Doesn't money hold only the power granted to it by those willing to be purchased? Although this series of articles is fantastic, shouldn't we be looking more deeply, rather than at the mechanics of control?
"And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do...So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth" Genesis 11:6-8 KJV. The Bahai religion seeks to rebuild the Tower of Babel. As Yahweh acted then, so he will act again.
Those who are aware of the scheming of this demonic mindset can begin ''The Conversation Never Had''. We can learn to stand together as ''the living infrastructure'', which holds all productive and creative energies - AI as Actual Intelligence!
We can create our‘‘digital toolsets’’ to unite our ‘‘onion rings’’ locally into genuine social-cultural-economic-political-financial networks. Quite simply, everyone has people and connections that grow with us from childhood, extending out and overlapping endlessly from family and friends, to colleagues, neighbours and on and on.
These ‘rings’ unite us in many ways; embodying the values, interests, needs and activities we share with like-minded people founded on love of life. Through these connections we grow, learn and develop; and the wider we can connect and trust, the greater our opportunities and possibilities.
We can refocus our motivation to reveal untold opportunities that can create and populate a new ‘‘Market-Space’’ of diverse networks evolving locally for common good founded on common sense and real values. We can introduce the obvious fact that ''we-the-people'' have all the skills, time and knowledge; that without us the ''oligarchy'' has nothing to control; that we, ‘‘the living infrastructure’’, produce all assets, goods and services; that for centuries we have fought their ''wars'' and built all tangible ''assets'' for counterfeit money; that fraud vitiates all - check out https://www.inpowermovement.org/ as an example of how to reclaim for harm caused
By learning to use common sense founded on shared values, we can collaborate to harness and augment our power and potential. Thus, our local projects can produce fertile ground for investment in ourselves. Crowd-funding can transform to crowd-owning in our own ‘‘Market-Space’’. Social networks can transform locally to function as a living ‘‘hub-and-spoke’’ infrastructure of creative exchange.
We can employ our own digital platform as co-owners ''contracting'' to match needs with offers of skills, time, knowledge, goods and services. Untold resources unveiling for ourselves, our businesses, our clubs, our organisations, our projects.
Local specialists can spearhead networks of ‘‘Hub Guilds’’ where we can develop our interests and experience hands-on. Real education can fulfill its actual role of ''bringing out from within'' in our local ‘‘centres of excellence’’.
As we pursue our interests and talents in projects as colleagues, we can develop untold assets and well-being; while guaranteeing the quality of goods and services we require. For more info https://peterforrest.substack.com
Escape Key,
Another great review, as usual. And when you say this:
-------------------------------
"The entire moral vocabulary of global governance — sustainability, resilience, inclusion, responsibility — is a statistical process dressed in the language of virtue."
-------------------------------
It gets to the heart of the matter regarding "utilitarianism" -- a notion which has been categorized/classified as an ethic, even though it has no Theory of the Good.
Not knowing where Good comes from, it is not really an ethic, but merely masquerades as one for the purpose of societal control -- as you eloquently laid out.
Real ethics, such as Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, can tell you where Good comes from. Even wrong systems of ethics -- such as Subjectivism -- tell you where Good comes from (Good = following your current desires/feelings). But Utilitarianism, not even being a true system of ethics, is completely silent about where Good comes from.
The macro predicament facing humanity is the scale dependent maximization of negative sum game theoretic outcomes. By definition there are no market nor technical solutions to this predicament.
Extrication out of our predicament requires a fundamental re-working of the relations between individuals, and between individuals and the collective. In simple terms, we need a transcendent synthesis of the one-many dialectic for the dignity of each and the gestalt of the whole.
The control system you analyze is a quintessential reworking of the the relations between individuals, and between individuals and the collective. Reworking such relations does not mean their preservation. Indeed, as you have analyzed, reflexivity between individuals and the control system is all but abolished.
The abolishing of popular reflexivity is revealing; It shows that the dark-triad controllers have a fundamental impetus to maintain existing asymmetries between them and everyone else. Reflexivity between individuals and the collective, between those governed and those governing, and between whole and part is necessary for resolving the one-many dialectic.
Instead of resolving the one-many dialectic for the the dignity of each and the gestalt of the whole, we have a control system for the continuity of power asymmetry of the few and the irreflexive indignity of everyone else.
The diabolical and insidious nature of our thermodynamic and ecological predicament is that it is incompossible for the greatest good to be bestowed on the greatest number, such that the ethics of the lifeboat reign. Popular reflexivity is incompossible with lifeboat ethics, since the inclusion of the multitude in the water means the destruction of the lifeboat.
Our predicament is a nightmare scenario: Extrication from it necessities popular reflexivity yet popular reflexivity is incompossible with systemic boundary conditions.
After looking up the word, Incompossible - definition of ... - The Free Dictionary
Incompossible means incompatible or mutually exclusive in logic. Find out the pronunciation, translation and examples of this word from The Free Dictionary.
If as R.J. Rushdooney asserted that all law is religious in nature, then any changes to the law in adherence would also be a change in ones religion. The CCP like any other religions seeks to crush any dissenting opinions, whether it is CCP,Democrat,Republican, Muslim or other perspectives, the collective always forces individuals and their family's into a Kafkaesque double-bind where the working industrialist finds themselves dreaming that they woke up as a cockroach. At least that is how I felt when I found myself being jailed for performing the duties of being a father against a collective whose virtue signalling went beyond the pale.
Panopticon: a digital prison with no walls, yet, no personal freedom.
That's my takeaway.
Thank you for bringing such clarity to the last 150 years in terms of how control freaks without a spark of poetry in them have created "solutions" to very real problems which depend upon robbing humans of agency (a fact they don't find dissuasive). Free will seems to the enemy of such planners, something to be bound and gagged; and distributed localized moral sense-making something to be made impossible.
I'm forcibly reminded of the characters known as "the auditors" in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.Have you read them? I wonder if Pratchett was in any way explicitly responding to some of the people and institutional developments you describe. For the sake of brevity i will provide an AI generated description of the "the auditors".
"The Auditors are disembodied cosmic functionaries whose purpose is to ensure that the universe runs in a perfectly orderly, law-bound, deviation-free way. They do not live in the universe in any ordinary sense; rather, they stand outside it, watching and checking it.
Analytically, critics often describe them as:
Personifications of pure bureaucratic rationality
Representations of systems thinking stripped of human meaning
Guardians of mechanical regularity against the “mess” of life
They have no individuality, names, emotions, or bodies. Individuality itself is considered a flaw."
.. thinkin’ in .. words is .. the build .. prison ..
As always, many thanks for a very insightful and in depth analysis. For decades now, folks have lamented over the steady decline in religiosity, citing it as a reason for the decline in our civic-mindedness, altruism, and overall happiness. However, it is apparent that the populace is actually more religious now than in the past and they simply don't recognize it. Money has become their new God and the quest for material wealth their new religion. The adherents of this faith are exceedingly zealous in their misery and society openly encourages all to seek the elusive golden fleece that is supposedly attainable by everyone, but only if they fully devote themselves to the church.
This article, for me at least, generates more questions than answers. What should be, if any, the role of money in our society (and I don't mean world society)? How can we employ money as a force for good, as determined by those utilizing the money? Or, is it not feasible to envision money as a positive force? Isn't the root problem deeper, at risk of sounding Marxist, that the fault lies not in the monetary system itself, but in the twisted character of those who weaponize money to serve their own ends at the expense of all others? Isn't the only power that money holds the power that we grant it, similarly to the power wielded by government? If the majority of society decided to no longer recognize the supremacy of money, wouldn't money as a weapon be effectively neutered? Doesn't money hold only the power granted to it by those willing to be purchased? Although this series of articles is fantastic, shouldn't we be looking more deeply, rather than at the mechanics of control?
We can be so much more than what we have become.
Thank you Peter, you ask the right questions. I share you concern about The Pursuit of Happiness: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-65-in?r=hhrlz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Thank you very much for your response and the link. I have pulled it up and look forward to giving it a read. Kind regards.
Bless you Peter - it seems that few appreciate the concept. I always welcome critque and please enjoy the read.
Best wishes
AP
Thanks for the thorough and thoughtful article. Non-voluntary mechanisms will always expand, and ultimately fail:
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelhaag/p/durable-freedom
"And the Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do...So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth" Genesis 11:6-8 KJV. The Bahai religion seeks to rebuild the Tower of Babel. As Yahweh acted then, so he will act again.
"... the ethic answers to whoever translates it into a standard." And that is scary conidering that Epstein and the likes of him are involved in that.
You can really feel the proverbial walls closing in. Fantastic research. I hope and pray though that the human mind and spirit will overcome 🙏
Those who are aware of the scheming of this demonic mindset can begin ''The Conversation Never Had''. We can learn to stand together as ''the living infrastructure'', which holds all productive and creative energies - AI as Actual Intelligence!
We can create our‘‘digital toolsets’’ to unite our ‘‘onion rings’’ locally into genuine social-cultural-economic-political-financial networks. Quite simply, everyone has people and connections that grow with us from childhood, extending out and overlapping endlessly from family and friends, to colleagues, neighbours and on and on.
These ‘rings’ unite us in many ways; embodying the values, interests, needs and activities we share with like-minded people founded on love of life. Through these connections we grow, learn and develop; and the wider we can connect and trust, the greater our opportunities and possibilities.
We can refocus our motivation to reveal untold opportunities that can create and populate a new ‘‘Market-Space’’ of diverse networks evolving locally for common good founded on common sense and real values. We can introduce the obvious fact that ''we-the-people'' have all the skills, time and knowledge; that without us the ''oligarchy'' has nothing to control; that we, ‘‘the living infrastructure’’, produce all assets, goods and services; that for centuries we have fought their ''wars'' and built all tangible ''assets'' for counterfeit money; that fraud vitiates all - check out https://www.inpowermovement.org/ as an example of how to reclaim for harm caused
By learning to use common sense founded on shared values, we can collaborate to harness and augment our power and potential. Thus, our local projects can produce fertile ground for investment in ourselves. Crowd-funding can transform to crowd-owning in our own ‘‘Market-Space’’. Social networks can transform locally to function as a living ‘‘hub-and-spoke’’ infrastructure of creative exchange.
We can employ our own digital platform as co-owners ''contracting'' to match needs with offers of skills, time, knowledge, goods and services. Untold resources unveiling for ourselves, our businesses, our clubs, our organisations, our projects.
Local specialists can spearhead networks of ‘‘Hub Guilds’’ where we can develop our interests and experience hands-on. Real education can fulfill its actual role of ''bringing out from within'' in our local ‘‘centres of excellence’’.
As we pursue our interests and talents in projects as colleagues, we can develop untold assets and well-being; while guaranteeing the quality of goods and services we require. For more info https://peterforrest.substack.com
When will your book come out? 😊
To me the future looks bleak, controlled by faceless bureaucrats, we are just a number in the prison of life.