Are We Living In Western Civilization?

"Bold and stimulating", I have heard this same introduction to recent history probably 100 times. I mean I hate to tell you but he has taken these ideas for French Post-Modernism, watered them down, given them a conservative spin, but the ideas are not very new at all.

Basically if you believe in freedom, reasoning things out then you subscribe to Western Civ. Otherwise you're part of failed Eastern culture.

The fact that he has chosen to give his presentation with a noose hanging in the foreground is very disturbing.

I think another interesting thing that seems to back up Prof. Davies thesis that we're becoming much less reliant on how our "national" (or some other limiting factor, ie. city, state, region, etc) heritage influences our identities is best found on the internet. I know I frequent several sites that cater to very specific topics, and others that also frequent such sites can be found all throughout the world. I think I have more in common with several of the people that frequent these sites who live in places like Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and to a lesser extent, Asia, than I do with almost all of my neighbors.

A question I would have liked to ask Prof. Davies concerning his very interesting predictions for the future would be forsees any thing that can potentially frustrate such developments. Things like a breakdown in the fiat monetary order brought about by the present tremendous manipulations by the various central banks, increasing fragmentation in the current globalized economy due to political disagreements between nation-states, or some other development. Or maybe Prof. Davies, like I, believes in the magnificent resiliency of the market system and thinks that if such complicating factors were to arise, enough enterprising people would work to develop sufficient work-arounds or new systems altogether -- so long as they are not forbidden by the state to do so.

Also, DanielKuehn and Russ Nelson, time preferences are not short or long but instead they are either high or low. I am very interested in Daniel's assertion that Govt has a lower time preference than individuals. In basically every example I can think of, govt demonstrates a higher time preference than market actors, and this I largely attribute to the short election cycle.

Well there are lots of organizations working around established states and innovating: Al Quedia, FARC, ETA, and the leagues of hackers, crackers, spammers and other criminal organizations who use the Internet as a key instrument in developing "develop sufficient work-arounds or new systems altogether -- so long as they are not forbidden by the state to do so"

Since we seem to always have the "blessings" of innovative terrorists, criminals, human trafficers, pedophile distributioner, and other such groups who "believes in the magnificent resiliency of the market system" on the Internet, I think the paradise of private groups and individuals will survive the evil actions of the state. After all the state is always the enemy and innovative private individuals are always the heroes.

Well that is what I read in the response. Maybe its a bit more subtle than saying what it said.

The American Revolution was a criminal act too.

So is someone contacting your 12 year old daughter on the Internet, talking her in to leaving home and meeting him only to find out he is a 55 year old pedophile who uses her to make home movies.

So is breaking someones hands if they don't pay protection money.

So is selling cigarettes that are marketed with a major brand but are in fact smuggled counterfeits full of poison and an rat shit.

I really think there is a big hole in the trend towards total libertarianism (used in the American meaning and not the British) on this group.

If you are total anarchists you need to look at the failure of the other great anarchist idea: communism. Communism also wanted to ultimately remove the state in a society without power.

The paradox and Communist states had extremely powerful and abusive states which reverted to threats far more than our states is very insightful.

It's always fun when people cite problems of the current state as issues of an alternate state.

Why is there cigarette smuggling?

High taxes. What's to blame? The taxing authority.

So is someone contacting your 12 year old daughter on the Internet, talking her in to leaving home and meeting him only to find out he is a 55 year old pedophile who uses her to make home movies.

What's with her parents? Aren't they paying attention?
What might have alienated her from her parents?
Government schools? Nah, no way.

Well firstly I don't personally like the idea of any cigarette market, and the existence of such a massive market for these things tells me some depressing things about humanity.

As for parents, certainly parents are the first line of defense. But I think that if the police know about a 55 year old guy on the Internet who is trying to have sex with pre-teen girls they should arrest him rather than counting on each and every parent to do it for themselves.

So the answer is to require my daughters to support the upkeep of such creeps in prison via the taxes they will have to pay, not to mention the humongous debt that they will also have to pay.

Makes perfect sense.

This is a joke right?

I commend you for the probing, insightful question. /sarcasm

And Sam, in addition, isn't the harm one does to oneself by smoking self inflicted? Is rat shit carcinogenic, for the life of me I don't know.

I like the one where drug war addicts claim that drugs will be available in schoolyards if prohibition were repealed.

So is breaking someones hands if they don't pay protection money.

Policemen never railroad, bully, beat up, or kill innocent people.

Or do they?

Link

Police do all kinds of unjust things as well, as do courts, elected officials, inherited landed lords, and religious figures.

The key ongoing issue of society is trying to protect the community against the abuses. This a difficult ongoing process that requires eternal vigilance. Its also a process that does not have some nice neat simple answer of either all state or no state.

Its also a process that does not have some nice neat simple answer of either all state or no state.

You'll always win the argument against such a straw man.

The question is not whether there shall be government or none, but whether the cost benefit analysis suggests a state perhaps one tenth its current size and confined to prohibiting interpersonal aggression, a court of last resort, and organizing national defense.

It may be that, in your view, a state so limited is the same as no state at all.

There will never be such a state, so why waste time thinking about the
never to be?

There will always be child murderers, so why waste time trying to stop them?

Cold will always be with us so why build fires?

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but perhaps you agree with me without understanding my point.

Peaceful voluntary interactions are always preferable to violent ones. The absence of a violence-free (state-free, crime-free) society, does not mean that society cannot be made better by vigilantly fighting violence, particularly where it is used as a means of state social policy.

The current state exists I'm the vague middle ground of voluntary and
force. I can elect to leave the system at any time and as long as I do
not act violently toward others I am sure I can live on my log cabin
alone

But these concepts are of little value for a han who remains in a
modern society

Hmm. If you give up your home and your right to live peacefully amongst your family and neighbors, then maybe your masters will leave you alone? I think you're making my point.

And make sure you get that cabin someplace that lacks a property tax.

These concepts are exceedingly important. The more people who are awakened to the ILLEGITIMACY of violent interactions, whether brought on to you by your next door neighbor or by someone claiming to be from the US Dept. of X, the less legitimate these actions will be. Legitimacy is after all, merely a matter of popular conception. State action is usually accepted as legitimate, but it needn't be. And it shouldn't be.

...but it is taken to be legal and legitamite and it will continue to
be so

Wow. You clutch to that all-or-nothing fallacy like its an LVAD. I guess we've come full circle.

What is the fallacy? Fallacies are errors on logical form. My
statement is about historical process.

You started with the either-or fallacy and you ended with it. Since a free society will never exist, one should not press for freedom. Since state action is seen as legitimate, one should not press to reduce legitimacy.

Goal can be possible to fully meet. I will never know perfect love,
beauty,goodness, or peace

A freer society is the goal. The state simply exists. Since I have
never been a good shot and my farming skills suck I dread a post
apocolyptic world of global attack

Having worked on some desperately poor places and travelled widely I
don't relish the idea of every man for himself

I think you call chaos freedom and are blind to the real horror of
lawlessness as a lived experience by the world's poorest. Look to weak
states and you will find empty bellies

Like I said. You clutch your either-or fallacy like an LVAD.

Beijing had a strong state than Hong Kong. Moscow had a stronger state than DC. Hanoi had a stronger state than Singapore. And there are many bellies that were only filled once the state was removed:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=Articl...

Singapore is a near dictatorship where the state rules all aspects of
life. Vietnam does not even have legal capacity to stop pedophiles.
Try to report a crime to Vietnam lol.

DC is an extremely powerful state and Russia has just passed through a
terrible period of lawlessness and civil disorder.

Hong kong has a strong effective goverment that owns almost every
property in the territory

As a Serb who grew ip under communism once told me: "freedom I could
do what ever I wanted back home".

You have such certainty, but the Roman Empire fell to nothing and the British Empire fell to a fraction of its former self.

The current path of the U.S. state is not sustainable.

Not that I feel the need to feed the trolls -- which is obvious coming from a poster labeling himself "sickofhayek" while responding to a blog titled Cafe Hayek -- but you are clearly missing the point.

"After all the state is always the enemy and innovative private individuals are always the heroes."

Right, it's wrong of us to view with reprehension and disdain an institution that relies upon dictates and coercion to execute its policies and interventions in the dealings of private economic actors. If you attempt to go against these dictates, your property and person is threatened and, ultimately, taken from you if you resist to a great enough degree. Contrast that with the private, market economy that relies upon the voluntary interactions between consenting individuals. If you don't want to do something, you're free to refuse. And you still prefer the state and it's force?

You may find someplace and have your state, but leave me and my property out of it.

The typical response is that because he is accepting of what he wants, you should therefore be made to accept what you do not want. Because it refers to the same thing, it is somehow fair. As though there is no difference between force and freedom.

Of course, the similar but nonintrusive position that because you are accepting of being left alone, therefore he should be left alone too, simply cannot be tolerated.

Feeding the trolls, that is a cute one.

As for people who wish to stand with their property against the state, I fear often that property is child pornography, explosives, human beings, children, my credit card details, hacked software, items gained by theft, counterfeits, unsafe and untested items like cigarettes that say they are major brands but full of rat shit, or medicine that is not really medicine.

Trust me I am a consumer of some underground markets selling things like DVDs of movies still in the theater.

Though I am a great fan of the black market and I too romanticize it to some extent, I don't trust the people who operate in and I am glad that I can call 999 and talk to the police if there seems to be something very evil going on.

Right, so, the question is whether we have a long enough time preference to be calling ourselves "civilized". I'd venture to say not. I also blame that on government.

Oooooo! The three states of humanity are: savagery, barbarism and civilisation. So if we're not civilised then . . .

The answer is homo sapiens remains in both barbarism and civilization at the same time.

We are in transition.

Not me. I'm a Viking.

Many parts of the world are still living in primitive conditions. No running water, electricity, education.

Well the video address these questions quote clearly and give vast amounts of evidence. The good professor states clearly that we are less violent, that we live at higher standards, and that we are more compassionate than are earlier ancestors. He explicitly notes falls in violent crime, rising compassion for others, and improved living standards.

So Russ why would we not be "civilized" anymore?

That's interesting - could you explain what you mean? Usually "government" is assumed to have longer time-preferences than individuals. I could see things like elections providing an important counter-argument, but that's usually what you hear.

Watching the video lecture and had to come back and ask.

Does a thing begin when the actions are innovated and put into practice, or do they begin when they are articulated?

I contend the profit motive, and therefore capitalism, began at least a million years or more before Athens, and trade began shortly thereafter.

Back to the video.

So you are a fan of studying pre-Neolithic history? Some people think it only starts in ancient Mesopotamia, but they are so robbing themselves of such intellectual riches! I've decided myself to go back to beginning and am studying the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. Fascinating stuff.

I have always been fascinated with anthropology and while overseas took two semesters of anthropology from the U. of Maryland extension University at Rota, Spain.

That gave me sort of a foundation for tons of reading in addition.

Really my views as expressed above come more from hard street smarts applied to reverse engineering the concepts that are so much a crucial part of our lives today.

So much of pre-neolithic history is indeed applied speculation. In a way we can say it is a manner of reverse engineering. We draw conclusions on many things based on the simple fact that so much of what we see in anthropology is a matter of there being no other reasonable conclusion. Are we always 100% right, no not really, but generally we can definitely be in the infield of the ballpark.

That is why I say that Lucy and her kin demonstrated the profit motive, and my buddies, Og and Mog, invented capitalism and trade.

Have you read the book 1491? It describes the America seen the year before Colombus made his "discovery". It is not focused on Neolithic Agriculture but speaks a lot about it here in the Americas.

The Amazon.com review on "1491" are not so good. Apparently the author is not a real historian and his sources are iffy. What is your opinion on the book?

I would highly recommend "1491". The author makes clear where evidence is strong & where he is speculating based on recent research. I think some of the negative comments come from people protecting some point of view that they feel the book attacks. My feeling about the book was that the author managed to turn much conventional wisdom on its head without showing a bias toward some broad political preconception. He typically either shows some new, slim evidence of something & respectfully & with awe says "What could this mean?" or he presents the commonly accepted narrative of something, notes where it doesn't make sense, and presents a reasonable new narrative based on current archaelogy - and I found much of it convincing.
For starters, he suggests that the idea of a continent full of people living lightly on the land was a misinterpretation of the early historians who were actually seeing a continent which had gone feral after the human populations were decimated by disease. I found his argument here to be very persuasive.

You said that much better than I did, good review. Tks.

The author is not a historian and he makes that clear right up front; but, I didn't see much to quibble with in the book. I read the book and thought it was definitely worthwhile and informative. I recommended it to my son and he thought the same.

When I was in school I always had trouble with the information in my text books and that presented by the teachers that man had only been on this continent from about 22 to 26 thousand years ago.

However there are still many people in the field of anthropology that still retain that conviction in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

I'd say read the book and draw your own conclusions for its worth.

Furthermore I also recommend the book "1421 The Year the Chinese discovered America". Look at the evidence presented and draw your own conclusions. I think the author of this one pushes hard for his conclusions, very much an advocate for the Chinese, but if all the evidence he lays out is real then there is no other conclusions that explain what has been found, i.e. Chinese genes in the indians of the Sacramento river area, in Mexico, South America, and surprising the upper East Coast of North America, and many of the Caribbean Islands. Plants and animals in the Americas that come from China and S.E Asia.

Let me know what you think if you read them. Going back to the previous post, I am always amazed at the technical solutions the pre-neolithic and neolithic peoples came up with to satisfy their needs. Amazing ingenuity, inventiveness, and innovation.

Gotta go celebrate a friend's birthday, enjoy your evening.

Sorry to be off topic, but didn't see any other way for something pretty important, three big letters in the WSJ this morning commenting on Prof Roberts' great piece in there several days ago. Those letter-writers all got it wrong, blaming real economics for the shortcomings of faux economics, tarring both with the same brush, and declaring the real thing a non-science. It is not only a science, but as "hard" as any.