Quote; “I cintent myself merely to ask how you – who so ferociously oppose(s) globalization and low cost foreign suppliers – justify yourself
in exporting, to America, your advice (free!) and your website (also
free!) from your home in Australia?

Let’s take the key terms of the above statement “exporting” and “free”…
Are “exports” MOST FREQUENTLY “free”. Of course, on Mars…

Remarkably, this sad misunderstanding of the key terms of an argument has been compounded in recent “A challenge to a protectionist” posting
that can be found by entering “A challenge to a protectionist Gendala”
into Google.

Here’s the response -

——————————————————————–

Greetings Don – I can see you’ve been up to no good again…

Quote; “If I buy a ham from my neighbor I import that ham into my household”

OK, tell someone “I want half a pound of ham so I can import it into
my household” – an average person could well wonder what kind of
funny cigarettes you’ve been smoking lately…
How come? Well, let me tell you a little “bad news, good news” story…

BAD NEWS….Language that makes us human is so malleable that at
any stage of our development a “special interest” group can endow its
most socially important words with “special interest” meanings that
advance that group’s own agenda – rather then that of its society
as a whole.

GOOD NEWS… Irrspective of that fundamental drawback, our distant
ancestors would also have found that relying on the MOST FREQUENT
meaning of words promotes the effectiveness of their communication,
enhances their social cohesion and increases the chances of their
group’s success in an endless battle for survival amongst rival
linguistic groups.
We, the current survivors, are thus doing no more then perpetuating
the semantic imperatives of our most successful predecessors.

Don, it is obvious that your example of using word “import” is not –
for once I’ll try to be polite, consistent with the MOST FREQUENT
meaning of that word.
Take an analogy… Suppose someone moves from East 22nd Street
a few miles across to Sycamore Street… Can this be the called an
act of “emigrating”?
It sure can, but not in a manner consistent with the MOST FREQUENT
meaning of word “emigrate”.

That said, I must confess I have found your example far more revealing then you’d ever intend it to be -

Couldn’t it be argued that once a person uses word “import” in defiance
of its MOST FREQUENT meaning, that person’s intellectual grasp of the
MOST FREQUENT social consequences of “imports” should, as a matter
of course, be then viewed with serious reservations, if not utter disdain?

Further, what credence should I attach to your pronouncements on economy, or indeed challenges that I prove some A or disprove some
B, when the words expressing it all have been cobbled together by a
mental process that irresponsibly departs from their MOST FREQUENT meanings and usage?

Sincerely,
Mark Gendala
http://www.ssotu.com
“Re-industrialization of America” (R-O-A)

I recently informed a reader curious about my views on climate change debate that a brief reference in “Structure of Reality” did already cover that subject some years ago.
However, since that reference apparently wasn’t clear enough, here is
its extended and hopefully, more cogent version -

Let’s assume that the theoretical possibilities underpinning the climate
change debate can never be known as either “true” or “false”…
If so, can they still provide the basis for arriving at a course of action that is indisputably in the best interest of humanity?

Consider the three main possibilities -

POSSIBILITY A
Periodic changes in Earth’s climate had been taking place throughout the
eons and if such a change is indeed under way, then anything we do is irrelevant when compared to the gargantuan scale of the event itself.

POSSIBILITY B
Climate change is real, is predominantly the result of human activity – in
particular the last two centuries of Industrial Revolution, but the process
is by now so far advanced that no action on our part can stop, let alone reverse or remedy its effects.

POSSIBILITY C
Climate change is real, is predominantly the result of human activity but
the process can in fact be stopped and its effects reversed, maybe even remedied, by the maximum reduction of emissions we can achieve without becoming dysfunctional.

Why is it indisputably in humanity’s best interest to act as if C were true
rather then only “possible”? Elementary – we’re placing an additional chip on Nature’s roulette table.

Who knows, perhaps fifty years hence Nature will show us that C was a losing number – the ball lands on either A or B, and all our heroic efforts aimed at reducing emissions had been for nought.
Then again – provided that C is there to accommodate it, that ball may well land upon it

Kirsten from Finland -I hope my earlier reference is now a bit clearer.

Good Luck

Mark Gendala
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.ssotu.com
“Structure of Reality”

(quote)

“Give me a million dollar bonus and protection from labor camps’ imports and I’ll give you a million hours of genuine industrial jobs!” seems to be the going rate amongst the current masters of a brand new Universe…”

Mark Gendala
Author of “R-O-A”
http://www.ssotu.com
Melbourne, Australia

Hi Donnie-boy,

The next time you deliver a large pepperoni and Coke (hold the onions) to the White House, please enlighten President Obama on the error of his recent decision to protect American tyre-industry jobs with a tarriff…

Sincerely,
Mark Gendala
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.ssotu.com

Economics professors – as of tomorrow lectures will be delivered into your universities via videoconferencing screens from Asia for only 10% of your salaries… Please contact Pizza Hut about retraining.

Sincerely,
Mark Gendala
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.ssotu.com
Author of “Re-industrialization of America” (R-O-A)