Produce, mooch, or loot.
These are the basic ways humans survive. We either produce our own necessities of life, by working for them, or we leech off of someone else's labors, or we take them from others by force. When we are young, we are dependent on our parents to provide for us. We are moochers off of their labors. But they do this willingly, & usually make it clear we have some accountability to them.
'While you are living in my house, you will do as i say!'
This is a commonly heard sentiment in most family units. So while the progeny of humans are technically 'moochers', they tend to be a dependent of choice. You made the decision to reproduce & you take on the responsibility to raise the child.
But this is not about voluntary dependents. It is about society. A healthy society must have a large number of industrious, hard working producers to provide the network of necessities: sustenance & protection. When a society breaks down, & too many moochers or looters run rampant, the producers cannot work hard enough to provide for them, or they become tired of being exploited & rebel against the system (or lack thereof) that has arisen.
1. If you are a responsible producer, you will have a constant battle to fend off moochers & looters. Hopefully, you will live in a time & place where you can protect yourself & your labors with sound collective agencies, provided for that purpose by all the producers. But, if moochers & looters gain control of the protection agencies, they will use them against you, & you will be exploited until you & the other producers revolt & cast out the moochers & looters. This is a constant pattern throughout human history, & will no doubt continue in the future.
2. If you are a moocher, you run the risk of wearing out those you mooch from. It is not a dependable method of survival, as you rely on the generosity of the producers you mooch from, or the benevolence of the looters to share with you from their plunder.
3. If you are a looter, you rely on having superior power or deception to intimidate & fleece the working producers. But if they pool their resources & defeat you, you might be killed in the struggle. It is also an unreliable way to survive.
Producing, with the force of law to protect your labors, has traditionally been the best & most reliable method of human survival. When a culture has a strong base of producers, they tend to be stronger, wealthier, & better suited to survive. Moochers & looters tend to be short lived, as the working producers tire of the excess, useless baggage, & reorganize the system to better serve them.
The challenge is for the producers to craft a system of protection, but not let it be controlled by moochers & looters, as they will use the system to plunder the producers. Typically, the producers just stage a revolution from time to time, and the leaders of the revolutions promise to provide peace & justice for the working producers to live & raise their families. They promise to make minimal demands on the property of the producers. But they always degenerate back into a mooching, looting system where law becomes an instrument of plunder, not justice.
The only solution is for the producers to keep a tight rein on the system, provide checks & balances, & a rotating workforce of public servants, so none of them become entrenched & entitled in an elite power structure. This was the attempt of the american experiment, & it worked for a while, until those who became entrenched in power used said power to plunder the producers, as they have been doing increasingly for the last few decades.
So an ideal system for a productive, healthy society is this:
1. Minimal demands for an agency of justice. Minimal taxes so the producers keep more of their labors.
2. Swift, efficient justice to deter looters, foreign or domestic.
3. Maximum freedom for the producers to enjoy the fruits of their labors, which provide the most opportunity, prosperity, & abundance for all.
4. Checks & balances in the justice system, so that moochers or looters do not gain control.
5. Rotating citizen representatives, managing the system so moochers or looters do not gain control.
6. Strict laws to punish corruption in the collective agencies.
These things will cost the producers the least, while maximizing what they have earned & worked for. This is a recipe for a healthy, prosperous culture. But whenever moochers & looters gain control of the collective institutions, they use govt power to plunder the producers, & build a system of dependency & injustice, until it collapses under its own corruption.
Philosophical Musings
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Mysteries of the Universe: Nobody owes you nothing
You were born. Maybe you're grown up, or at least on your way. Perhaps you're confused about why you are here, or what reason there is for your existence. Or maybe you think you know. Either way, here you are. By some accident of nature, the combination of dna, timing, & the twinkle in your parent's eyes, you were conceived, born, & are here for a brief time on earth. You didn't ask to be born, & no one told you what you are supposed to do with your life. You did not come with instructions, & there is no link to the manufacturer's website to reference a FAQ.
For most of your early life, your parents or some surrogate cared for you & saw to your growth, protection, & nurturing. But they are really no different than you. They also were born, grew up, & tried to figure out what to do with themselves. For most of the history of humanity, & for most humans that have ever lived, simple survival has occupied most of our waking time & effort. Our basic needs are few, but they demand our attention:
For most of your early life, your parents or some surrogate cared for you & saw to your growth, protection, & nurturing. But they are really no different than you. They also were born, grew up, & tried to figure out what to do with themselves. For most of the history of humanity, & for most humans that have ever lived, simple survival has occupied most of our waking time & effort. Our basic needs are few, but they demand our attention:
a. Sustenance. We need air, food, & water to live.
b. Protection. Some kind of covering for our personal bodies, a den or structure to live in, & a habitat to protect us from wild beasts, the elements, & other humans.
c. Sleep. One of the most important reasons for a home & a secure habitat is for a place to sleep safely.
That's it. That is all we NEED for survival. Now, there are other things that occupy much of our time & attention, but they are instinctual drives, & are not essential to our survival.
a. We also have a drive to reproduce, & to pair up with a mate to further our species.
b. We also have a need to play, or to busy ourselves with entertaining distractions. But neither of those are critical for survival.
Your parents took responsibility for your survival during your development years. They fed you, clothed you, housed you, & protected you from predators of all types. Perhaps they still help you with some of the basics, or continue to prepare you to live in this life, as their parents did before them. This has been the pattern for all of human history.
We are born wet, naked, and hungry. Then things get worse.
Survival isn't easy. Not only does it require a lot of our time & attention, there are also other elements working against us:
a. Mother nature. Weather, trees, rocks, rivers, & just about everything we see on earth can kill us. Storms bring lightning, floods, powerful winds, freezing cold, & other natural disasters that constantly threaten our lives. Sometimes things we eat or the water we drink is deadly.
b. Wild beasts. Not so much in our current culture, but we are still in danger from sharks, bears, big cats, wolves, & other animals who want to eat us. Not all of these dangers are big carnivores. We are constantly battling disease & bacteria simply to live.
c. Other humans. This has been the greatest danger that individual humans have faced. Other people wish to harm us, or take our sustenance or means of survival. Or, they may wish to enslave us to work for their personal survival.
So here we are, trying to simply live, & have to struggle against these other factors trying to kill or oppress us. Over the millennia, we have developed strategies to overcome these obstacles.
a. We build protective structures to house ourselves in. This gives us a secure place to find protection from weather, rain, snow, & attacks from wild beasts. We store our food & clothing, & provide comfortable, safe places to sleep.
b. We form collective agencies to protect us from aggressive humans. We pool our resources to provide a protective force to deter those who want to rob, enslave, or kill us. We call this 'government'.
c. We work & develop strategies to produce more & better food, protection, & methods of health care. We use the elements & natural laws to develop technology to aid us in our survival.
For thousands of years, we have adapted to our environment, & have used everything to aid us in our survival. None of these things were given to us at birth, but many of the strategies were handed down through the generations. By constantly learning & advancing in our knowledge base, we have come to this most advanced stage of human society. We are interdependent on each other, & have built upon the lessons of the past. We have concocted a complex system of exchange, by which we provide goods or services for a currency, & use that to buy our survival needs. This system has provided abundance & prosperity for a lot of people in this era. Many do not seem to struggle for the basics of survival, like humans did in past times. Food is varied, cheap, & abundant. Houses are plentiful & filed with amazing luxuries like central heat, piped water, & waste disposal. The ease by which the essentials of survival are provided make some people think it is a natural right. They think that the basics of survival.. food & protection.. are naturally provided at birth, & are owed to everyone, simply because they were born. They think they don't have to (or shouldn't have to) concern themselves with their personal survival needs. They think they should be able to give themselves to other instinctual drives, like reproduction & play. But this is an illusion. Our collective knowledge might provide the STRATEGIES for making survival easier, but they are not something given at birth. SOMEONE has to work to provide the basic needs.
The illusion of our current time (and of times past) is that GOVERNMENT can provide these things. Everybody else can work for our individual needs. And as long as there are enough industrious, hard working people who are driven to work, a few can ride along as moochers, dependent on the producing workers to provide their needs. But if & when the moochers outnumber the working producers, the system collapses, unable to sustain itself. This is the great fiction.. the great deception.. that somehow we can live off the labors of others. A healthy, prosperous society has in industrious, hard working citizenry, & extols the virtues of production. A corrupt society in decline tries to leech off of the producers.
"Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." ~Frederic Bastiat
But the reality.. the immutable law of the universe.. is that 'nobody owes you nothing'. You & you alone are responsible for your own survival. You might link up with others, to better accomplish that goal, but it is still YOUR responsibility to survive.. no one else has that burden. Your parents might give you a start, but they cannot be burdened with caring for you for all your life. So during this short time on earth, you alone are responsible for your life, & those you take on as dependents. Others may help you, as we pool our resources & labors to improve life for everyone, but nobody owes you anything.
I have called this simple truth a 'mystery of the universe', because it seems to be very profound & mysterious. In fact, a great many people seem to believe the exact opposite.. that their basic survival needs are owed to them. They think that their existence entitles them to full support, even going so far as to support any children they might have & their their old age. They even feel that their leisure time & entertainment should be provided & subsidized by the producing people around them.
It is pathetic enough that a few insane people live in this fantasy world, where they believe all their survival needs should be guaranteed to them for life, but there are allegedly intelligent social leaders who further this deception.. promising free food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, & even entertainment. In some convoluted reasoning, the labors & increases of others are looked at as some kind of collective ownership. They produce NOTHING themselves, yet they feel entitled to what someone else has worked for. Then these entitled thieves have the audacity to lecture us.. the actual producers of everything they consume.. that we owe them.. WE are responsible to not only tend to their basic needs, but we should set them on the lap of luxury, & pay them to deceive us.
This is the basic foundation of progressive thought. It is why that anything they come up with is flawed. The core premise of leftist, progressive ideals are corrupt, depending on theft & dependency to build a society on.
Intelligent people with basic common sense SHOULD be able to see the flaws, & realize that this central tenet of socialist ideology can only lead to collapse, as dependents outnumber the producers. But the appeal for easy living, free stuff, & a guarantee for living is very strong, & is at the root of all scams: Something for nothing. So they indoctrinate our youth, spoon feeding this madness into each generation, until the whole culture is steeped in delusion. They act as though govt has infinite warehouses full of food, houses, clothes, & healthcare, & all we need is the keys to open them up & hand them out. They do not realize that everything that a dependent consumes.. every bite, every drink of water, every item of clothing, the heat for the house, the waste disposal when they flush.. EVERYTHING they use for their own survival, including protection from thugs or invading hordes, is TAKEN from someone else.
The progressive leeches who preach this folly are EXACTLY the same as those they pretend to help. They produce nothing themselves, but only TAKE what others have worked for. And of course, they do not help society at all, but lead us down the road to destruction. No society can survive without industrious, productive citizens working to provide basic survival needs. No society can survive with madness & folly as their basic philosophical ideology. The universe is hard, & life is difficult. Ignoring reality for some illusive dream world helps no one.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Natural selection: Reducing variability, not increasing it
The primary condition for speciation is reproductive isolation. That is the main 'definition' of a species, that they do not reproduce with other different species. The horse has a genetic link to other horse descendants. These all indicate a narrowing of the genetic material.. a 'devolution' if you will. A donkey came from the same parent species as the horse & zebra, but they are not able to reproduce viable offspring.. they CAN reproduce, but the progeny is sterile.. like the mule. But instead of this indicating an EXPANSION of trait availability, the facts are the exact opposite. It was a narrowing of the gene pool that isolated the horse, donkey, & zebra. All of those animals descended from the same parent species.. we can trace that. But instead of opening up new traits of variability, they lost them. The zebra traits don't come up in donkeys anymore. And new 'species' are not being produced. What we see with the horse genetic line is a branching into a dead end. The variability is lost, as the progeny do not have the variety to pick from in their parent's dna.
You can explain the tree branches somewhat with evolution. But you still don't have the mechanism that enables the leaps between the family/genus/species. As science, the 'amoeba to man' theory is full of holes, yet it is taught as though it is proven fact. The observable, repeatable FACTS are that breeding & natural selection NARROW the genetic availability, until the species reaches equilibrium & loses variability. That is why a brown rabbit is seldom (never?) born in the snowshoe rabbit species anymore. It is why chihuahuas do not produce an occasional wolf. That variability is lost, & the breed is limited to the narrow band of variability. The very science of breeding is contrary to the premise of evolution: that new genetic material is constantly being produced & increasing the complexity & variability within a species. We observe the exact opposite. We repeat the exact opposite.
Even if some 'new' trait is discovered while breeding, now we know it was there.. hiding in the massive dna strands. It might take thousands or millions of generations for it to pop up, but when it does, this did not mean a new trait made itself, just that the hidden gene took a while to hit the jackpot. It is like pulling on a slot machine in vegas.. if you pull it enough times, eventually the sequence will come up that hits the combination you want. That is all breeding & natural selection is, except they get to narrow the variability & reduce the 'losing' combinations. Slot machines don't let you do that.
Why do species go extinct? Because they lose the variability needed to adapt to the changing environment. They don't create genes to survive if conditions change. If there is some variability already in them that increases their survival rate, then that trait will become more prominent. But if they don't have that trait, they die off. That is observable reality, not that species create new genetic information to adapt.
Modern genetics is one of the biggest enemies of the old 'theory' of evolution. Eventually, the facts will overwhelm the beliefs, & the scientific establishment will come up with a new pop theory of origins. But they still are working this one for now. It is everywhere.. tv, national parks, museums, schools.. anywhere science is mentioned, evolution is tacked on, to prop it up as a belief. But real science does not support the theory. All of reality screams, 'NO!'. But since when have humans cared about reality? :)
You can explain the tree branches somewhat with evolution. But you still don't have the mechanism that enables the leaps between the family/genus/species. As science, the 'amoeba to man' theory is full of holes, yet it is taught as though it is proven fact. The observable, repeatable FACTS are that breeding & natural selection NARROW the genetic availability, until the species reaches equilibrium & loses variability. That is why a brown rabbit is seldom (never?) born in the snowshoe rabbit species anymore. It is why chihuahuas do not produce an occasional wolf. That variability is lost, & the breed is limited to the narrow band of variability. The very science of breeding is contrary to the premise of evolution: that new genetic material is constantly being produced & increasing the complexity & variability within a species. We observe the exact opposite. We repeat the exact opposite.
Even if some 'new' trait is discovered while breeding, now we know it was there.. hiding in the massive dna strands. It might take thousands or millions of generations for it to pop up, but when it does, this did not mean a new trait made itself, just that the hidden gene took a while to hit the jackpot. It is like pulling on a slot machine in vegas.. if you pull it enough times, eventually the sequence will come up that hits the combination you want. That is all breeding & natural selection is, except they get to narrow the variability & reduce the 'losing' combinations. Slot machines don't let you do that.
Why do species go extinct? Because they lose the variability needed to adapt to the changing environment. They don't create genes to survive if conditions change. If there is some variability already in them that increases their survival rate, then that trait will become more prominent. But if they don't have that trait, they die off. That is observable reality, not that species create new genetic information to adapt.
Modern genetics is one of the biggest enemies of the old 'theory' of evolution. Eventually, the facts will overwhelm the beliefs, & the scientific establishment will come up with a new pop theory of origins. But they still are working this one for now. It is everywhere.. tv, national parks, museums, schools.. anywhere science is mentioned, evolution is tacked on, to prop it up as a belief. But real science does not support the theory. All of reality screams, 'NO!'. But since when have humans cared about reality? :)
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