If you are an evolutionist . . .

[Borodog]

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doesn't dawkins have a passage where he talks about being an anarchist until...

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You'll have to quote it; I don't recall it. But he has several passages that show his political thinking is nowhere near as clear as his economic thinking.

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hmm, then i'd have to find it

does it have something to do with riots in canada?

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I think that was him quoting someone else. It's come up before on the board. Chris V I think posted it. It was a straightforward fallacy. The local police goes on strike and there is an increase of crime, hence lack of government = crime. Except that the local police have a monopoly of protection, so when they go on strike there is a complete lack of providers, not a competitive free market of providers.

[luckyme]

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Your post reminds me of Nielsio where he said that atheism, anarchism, WTC conspiracy and global warming conspiracy all fit together. He was equally as wrong as you.

You should take a poll of experts on evolution and see how many are anarchists.

It's kind of silly to compare evolution to the free market. You could equally argue that all of higher biology works via command and control, so any biologist should believe in government. I've yet to see a higher animal that can survive without its brain. Pretty odd that evolution would make something so vulnerable and centralized, where a tiny patch of neurons controls the fate of the whole body through hormones and nerve signals . Perhaps the system works very well?

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With the amazing amount of cooperation, symbiosis, etc, an argument could be made for socialism or communism.
Not a good argument, since there is no reason for a deduction or observation from one process to remain valid even within itself if there is a mere butterfly effect, nevermind trying to think it has messages for us in some other unrelated area. Stimulus to ideas, yes, but no lessons as such.

luckyme

[Borodog]

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Your post reminds me of Nielsio where he said that atheism, anarchism, WTC conspiracy and global warming conspiracy all fit together. He was equally as wrong as you.

You should take a poll of experts on evolution and see how many are anarchists.

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Then ask how many of them have thought deeply about it.

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It's kind of silly to compare evolution to the free market. You could equally argue that all of higher biology works via command and control, so any biologist should believe in government. I've yet to see a higher animal that can survive without its brain. Pretty odd that evolution would make something so vulnerable and centralized, where a tiny patch of neurons controls the fate of the whole body through hormones and nerve signals . Perhaps the system works very well?

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No offense, but I think the subject is just beyond you.

[oe39]

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doesn't dawkins have a passage where he talks about being an anarchist until...

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You'll have to quote it; I don't recall it. But he has several passages that show his political thinking is nowhere near as clear as his economic thinking.

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hmm, then i'd have to find it

does it have something to do with riots in canada?

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I think that was him quoting someone else. It's come up before on the board. Chris V I think posted it. It was a straightforward fallacy. The local police goes on strike and there is an increase of crime, hence lack of government = crime. Except that the local police have a monopoly of protection, so when they go on strike there is a complete lack of providers, not a competitive free market of providers.

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oh well.

i guess i don't really buy your argument anyways. perhaps you could clarify your analogy?

[Phil153]

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It's kind of silly to compare evolution to the free market. You could equally argue that all of higher biology works via command and control, so any biologist should believe in government. I've yet to see a higher animal that can survive without its brain. Pretty odd that evolution would make something so vulnerable and centralized, where a tiny patch of neurons controls the fate of the whole body through hormones and nerve signals . Perhaps the system works very well?

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No offense, but I think the subject is just beyond you.

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That's all you got?

I see the obvious parallels (in fact, I've mentioned them before), but the logic stretch from one to the other is LOL. It's something you do a lot - extrapolating basic concepts that you believe in way behind the point at which they run out of air.

Other people see this too, not just me.

[Borodog]

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With the amazing amount of cooperation, symbiosis, etc, an argument could be made for socialism or communism.

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Ah, but it's there; amongst insect species, like ants. Each happily living and working and dying for the betterment of the collective. Socialism: Great theory, wrong species (this is a joke; human socialism actually does work in very small groups, in tribal or family economies; it just can't work in larger groups).

A more marvelous example is an individual's body. What Phil fails to understand is that top down central planning indeed works beautifully when every member of the collective (all the cells of your body) do in fact inherently selflessly work toward the same goal, and all the information required for the central plan is available to the central planner (the brain). But that is the product of evolution, not the nature of the process itself. The process is completely, totally decentralized. The analogy is between the market process and the evolutionary process, not betwwen the organization of society and the organization of an individual animal. As much as Phil might want it, people will never become some New Socialist Man, tirelessly and happily toiling away for the collective. We aren't ants, nor are we the cells of our bodies, and evolution is not a centrally planned command process.

[Borodog]

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It's kind of silly to compare evolution to the free market. You could equally argue that all of higher biology works via command and control, so any biologist should believe in government. I've yet to see a higher animal that can survive without its brain. Pretty odd that evolution would make something so vulnerable and centralized, where a tiny patch of neurons controls the fate of the whole body through hormones and nerve signals . Perhaps the system works very well?

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No offense, but I think the subject is just beyond you.

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That's all you got?

I see the obvious parallels (in fact, I've mentioned them before), but the logic stretch from one to the other is LOL. It's something you do a lot - extrapolating basic concepts that you believe in way behind the point at which they run out of air.

Other people see this too, not just me.

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See the next post.

[Borodog]

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There are two kinds of thinking: simplistic and subtle. Simplistic thinkers cannot understand how complex and useful social orders arise from any source other than conscious planning by a purposeful mind. Subtle thinkers, in contrast, understand that individual actions often occur within settings that encourage individuals to coordinate their actions with one another independent of any overarching plan. F. A. Hayek called such unplanned but harmonious coordination “spontaneous order.” -- Donald J. Boudreaux

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[Phil153]

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There are two kinds of thinking: simplistic and subtle. Simplistic thinkers cannot understand how complex and useful social orders arise from any source other than conscious planning by a purposeful mind. Subtle thinkers, in contrast, understand that individual actions often occur within settings that encourage individuals to coordinate their actions with one another independent of any overarching plan. F. A. Hayek called such unplanned but harmonious coordination “spontaneous order.” -- Donald J. Boudreaux

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Apart from the stupid binary classification, I agree with this quote.

[Phil153]

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With the amazing amount of cooperation, symbiosis, etc, an argument could be made for socialism or communism.

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Ah, but it's there; amongst insect species, like ants. Each happily living and working and dying for the betterment of the collective. Socialism: Great theory, wrong species (this is a joke; human socialism actually does work in very small groups, in tribal or family economies; it just can't work in larger groups).

A more marvelous example is an individual's body. What Phil fails to understand is that top down central planning indeed works beautifully when every member of the collective (all the cells of your body) do in fact inherently selflessly work toward the same goal, and all the information required for the central plan is available to the central planner (the brain). But that is the product of evolution, not the nature of the process itself. The process is completely, totally decentralized. The analogy is between the market process and the evolutionary process, not betwwen the organization of society and the organization of an individual animal. As much as Phil might want it, people will never become some New Socialist Man, tirelessly and happily toiling away for the collective. We aren't ants, nor are we the cells of our bodies, and evolution is not a centrally planned command process.

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The concepts you're espousing are blindingly obvious, and I don't think anyone here disagrees with the basic ideas. I'm not suggesting that evolution is a centrally planned command process (lol?), I'm offering you reasoning on par with your own, in the hopes you can see the flaws in it. I guess I'm an eternal optimist.

Where we disagree is not about what evolution is, but with the blind application of these simple concepts to human affairs. In your world, with your way of thinking, the fact that governments and powerful religions exist and have always arisen has to be proof of the ability of humans to distort the social system to the detriment of freedom. I'm not sure there's an analogue in biology. Somalia and Iran and China is another of distortion to what we see in the West. In any kind of power vacuum, I think such distortions are inevitable given humanity's current level of enlightenment, which is why I think democracy is the best choice.

BTW, I'd consider myself a libertarian. I believe in the free market and lesser centralization. However, I've also travelled a bit and seen the dark side of a decentralized world.