A resonance frequency approach to stopping the motor of the world
In a prior thread, we considered the possibility of committing sabotage to stop the motor of the world. To stimulate the discussion, I took the role of "devil's advocate" and suggested that Galt might have engaged in sabotage. There was almost universal agreement that Galt would have lost his moral authority to lead the Gulch if he had committed sabotage, rather than only convincing titans to go Galt.
A recent thread entitled "Obama is John Galt" started by jimjamesjames was largely shot down as well, and for good reason.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/30...
However, that thread made me reconsider strategy for stopping the motor of the world.
The looters and moochers in real life have taken Cloward and Piven's strategy of overwhelming "the system" with more and more moochers. This is an act of sabotage. This is a moral line that we have decided not to cross. This puts us at a strategic disadvantage.
Add to that disadvantage the fact that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are convincing others (like Larry Ellison of Cisco Systems) to give to charity. I urge you to look at how many billionaires have taken The Giving Pledge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_...
Someone here in the Gulch recently suggested that this giving pledge might actually be their way of going Galt. I forget which Gulcher suggested this (Zenphamy? sjatkins?) and apologize to that person.
We all know what Ayn Rand thinks about altruism. I have said previously that the charitable contributions of these billionaires may lengthen the time for the collapse of the looter/moocher era sufficiently that there may not be a time when producers like us would be able to go back into the world. Their charitable contributions delay the inevitable pain for the moochers.
Now switch gears and start thinking about physics and differential equations.
Think back to when you took physics and learned about constructive and destructive interference. If there is a disturbance that causes an object to oscillate at its resonance frequency (or an integer multiplier of it), then the object will break MUCH faster.
For an introductory treatment of resonance frequencies, go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance
For an example, see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXS...
If we are to stop the motor of the world, an alternate solution would be to do something that reinforces the interference that the looters or those encouraging people to take the Giving Pledge are applying.
Does it make sense to convince MANY producers to go Galt, or will we be more effective by harnessing the momentum of The Giving Pledge to accomplish the goal of depriving the looter/moocher world of producers?
If one takes producers out of the system, how does this change the 2nd order differential equation(s) that would describe the producer-looter-moocher problem?
Please comment on
a) how one would implement such a strategy; and b) whether this would count as sabotage.
A recent thread entitled "Obama is John Galt" started by jimjamesjames was largely shot down as well, and for good reason.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/30...
However, that thread made me reconsider strategy for stopping the motor of the world.
The looters and moochers in real life have taken Cloward and Piven's strategy of overwhelming "the system" with more and more moochers. This is an act of sabotage. This is a moral line that we have decided not to cross. This puts us at a strategic disadvantage.
Add to that disadvantage the fact that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are convincing others (like Larry Ellison of Cisco Systems) to give to charity. I urge you to look at how many billionaires have taken The Giving Pledge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_...
Someone here in the Gulch recently suggested that this giving pledge might actually be their way of going Galt. I forget which Gulcher suggested this (Zenphamy? sjatkins?) and apologize to that person.
We all know what Ayn Rand thinks about altruism. I have said previously that the charitable contributions of these billionaires may lengthen the time for the collapse of the looter/moocher era sufficiently that there may not be a time when producers like us would be able to go back into the world. Their charitable contributions delay the inevitable pain for the moochers.
Now switch gears and start thinking about physics and differential equations.
Think back to when you took physics and learned about constructive and destructive interference. If there is a disturbance that causes an object to oscillate at its resonance frequency (or an integer multiplier of it), then the object will break MUCH faster.
For an introductory treatment of resonance frequencies, go to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance
For an example, see the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXS...
If we are to stop the motor of the world, an alternate solution would be to do something that reinforces the interference that the looters or those encouraging people to take the Giving Pledge are applying.
Does it make sense to convince MANY producers to go Galt, or will we be more effective by harnessing the momentum of The Giving Pledge to accomplish the goal of depriving the looter/moocher world of producers?
If one takes producers out of the system, how does this change the 2nd order differential equation(s) that would describe the producer-looter-moocher problem?
Please comment on
a) how one would implement such a strategy; and b) whether this would count as sabotage.
There is no positive ethical advantage to our ruling on whether someone has the right to do as he wishes with his money. Whether it increases the dissonance or delays the crash does not matter: his bucks, his right.
Jan
The 'strikers' in Atlas Shrugged recognized that Dagny and Rearden were worthy of helping, but chose not to because it would drag out the effect of the strike and hurt themselves. That they "could not afford". That was a proper moral choice based on objective considerations. It did not involve political rights, was not an irrelevant subjectivist choice, and did not directly concern "moochers" as the potential beneficiaries.
Hank Rearden's giving money to his brother's progressive "social conscience" Friends of Global Progress was a consequence of Rearden's inability to see the nature of the evil in those he was supporting. His brother not only didn't want it known that Rearden was the source of the money, he had the effrontery to tell that to Rearden himself. Friends of Global Progress turned out later to be crusading for the Equalization of Opportunity Bill. This was an example of the immorality of charity to the wrong kind of recipients -- despite the fact that Rearden had the political right to do it. _Exercising_ the right to do something morally wrong is not condoned by Ayn Rand's ethics. She was not a libertarian subjectivist.
http://www.aynrandanswers.com/2012/09/di...
Giving support to the wrong causes _is_ a danger to all of us, which was illustrated in Atlas Shrugged in many ways, including Hank Rearden's donation to his brother's progressive Friends of Global Progress.
Ayn Rand did not endorse any giving for any subjectivist purpose as long as it "feels good". She only recognized the political _right_ to do so, even when you don't know any better -- or even if you do and have destructive motives. That is not morally condoning all acts of giving as long as they are not forced. She way not a subjectivist or a hedonist opposed only to forced altruism like the a-philosophical libertarians.
If someone has run three times in his life, I do not call him a 'runner'; if he runs every other day, then I call him a 'runner'. I use the term 'moocher' in the same way - it means (to me) 'someone who characteristically mooches'.
Jan
Secondarily, if we are to go on strike and others are making life too comfortable for moochers, then there may never be a world to come back to.
I do not like freeloaders any more than you do, personally. But people who give their own money to these parasites merit no condemnation for me. They should not have to NOT give money to charity in order to respect my world view. To say that they have to refrain from this activity puts us in the same class as those people who try to control how we spend our own income.
Jan
I expect this to start changing rapidly over the next few years as collectivist states descend further into bankruptcy and civilizational breakdown while immigration options to more sane countries increase (eg. Panama and Chile now have nearly open-door immigration policies for many people) and alternative currency systems become more popular and provide a method to do business privately free from statist financial surveillance and currency manipulation.
Brazil is somewhat paradoxical. Although socialist, I think that Brazil will improve a lot in a generation. They have a new scientific mobility program with lots of highly motivated, largely entrepeneurial students. When this group of 20 year olds gets into their 40s, Brazil may become as entrepeneurial as America was in the late 1800s.
Other than those countries, your evaluation of South America's socialism is largely correct.
My opinion, now, is that the crew were correct. The explanation may have right but the system could have been approaching the peak resonance frequency and the water sloshing could have got worse and drenched and damaged other areas (then stopped when the pool had emptied itself).
So, jbrenner may be correct, a little touch may be enough to set the economy into swinging into disaster. In that case whoever provides such assistance will be blamed. Or, the little touch may move the economy towards more stability. Even if that is good, the wrong people will get the credit. In general, systems with the potential to oscillate are very sensitive to provocation near the resonance frequency.
Summary- if you do not know the effects of what you are going to do, best keep your hands off. Good intentions are no substitute for knowledge.
In reality, there is too much complexity in the interaction between people and the economy to boil it down to a simple calculation of a resonant natural frequency.
I daresay that attempting to modify the resonant frequency of the magnetic reversal of the sun would fail in your lifetime, if only because you would not live long enough to take enough data points to confirm the change. The same would hold true for making a change in human behavior that is most likely fruitful over generations, and not in shorter term.
In other words, you can (maybe?) make a change that will make the world a better place for your grandkids, but making a change today isn't measurable today.
The main point of this thread was to ethically postulate a way to collapse the looter/moocher world in a short enough time such that there would be a world worth coming back to. While a wonderful story, at least in this era, it would not be possible to remove enough producers in the way that Galt et al. did to collapse the system soon enough to make it worth coming back to the world.
Your point, livefree-NH, is to go further and say that, even by modifying the resonant frequency for human behavior, one would not collapse the looter/moocher world fast enough to make it worth returning to. I cannot disagree. In fact, my comment suggesting that John and Dagny coming back to the world may not have been the correct ending to AS was not well received (and I didn't expect it to be). The reason I said that is because we are in agreement.
Regarding your questions, I would ask the same ones as well, rhetorically, and would add that since we have a longer lifespan than our forebearers, it would seem that there is even more reason why we should try to do something which would bear fruit in our own lifetimes.
Remember information is originated and received only by thermodynamic systems. If the systems focus on efficiency then you will find the least energy needed to maintain the system. Its called capitalism.
.
But, to also be engaged in something productive, interesting, and rewarding is paramount. Haha! I'm obviously describing my current ventures.
This is OK. If someone wants to voluntarily give up the rights to their production to a commune in return for security, then that is their business - and lots of people will be in this group. The point of restructuring society will be to Include capitalism, not to Exclude other social formats.
Jan
The "housing bubble" nearly took down our economy. Since we have world markets and other countries invest in our markets, it did worldwide damage. And it can easily happen again.
The three angles that can cause an even bigger oscillarion are: energy, currency, and war. A sharp enough blow from any of the three could cause fatal resonance.
Working physics in.
Gallopin Gertie link as you illustration
Tying this back to the oher threads
Bravo
A while back Straightlinelogic posted his own article http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/1e... about bankrupting the system/causing economic collapse that would seem to fit in very well with your resonance frequency approach. I never took physics so you have exceeded my ability to link them together any better than that.
I missed the suggestion you referred to about the giving pledge being someone's way of going galt. If you or someone else could post a link to that I would be grateful. I have often thought that, myself. Bill Gates and Microsoft had no presence in Washington prior to being dragged into court for anti-trust "violations" and began lobbying after that for their own protection. But in the midst of the bogus lawsuits, who was at their side? Nobody. Where were the people standing up for the company that put a computer on Everybodies desk? When the prevailing attitude was that computers were basically for the higher educated, and/or the wealthy. I think Gates shrugged, not from the government, but from the people who benefitted the most from his efforts but allowed that to happen to him and his company. Consider, also, that he is welathier now, after the "giving pledge" than before he took it.
On your post about Galt committing sabotage, while I did not agree with your suggestion that he did, I based my disagreement on my view that he did not need to. I would question his loss of the moral high ground by raising this question, which I have asked before; At what point does the governments (and the people who they represent) initiation of the use of force require the retailiatory use of force? The answer to that would answer your final question. (b)
To your question (a); my impression is that you are looking for ways to speed up the process of collapse. In the book, I was under the impression that the number of producers that disappeared was, maybe, a couple hundred. I would suspect that in todays world it would take thousands, possibly many thousands to speed up the process significantly. As has been stated around here before, there is enough wealth currently to drag out the collapse for generations. The problem with the Giving Pledge idea is that these people have already produced so much that the effect of their removal is negligible.
Maybe I just can't see it because I'm not sure I'm ready to speed up the process to bring on the collapse. I still think that education can turn this thing around. HOWEVER,... the thought hit me the other day, "if Jeb Bush is the republican nominee, I just might have to vote for Hillary." If Jeb Bush is the best option the republicans can offer, it's time to put this dog down.
As for speeding up the collapse process, I do agree that it would take at least thousands of producers (probably tens of thousands) to be taken out of production. The bottom line is that if producers are to strike and want to come back, the collapse has to be fast enough that such producers are not all past age 75 when the time to return occurs. Otherwise, striking is not in one's best interest.
Also regarding speeding up the process of collapse, one learns in crack mechanics that all stress focuses on the longest crack in an object. Think about someone trying to walk with a so-called "stress fracture" in his/her foot or ankle. Until that crack heals, every step is pain-ridden. However, in economics, the same rule does not apply. If we choose to speed up the collapse of the world, we would have to see to it that the same weak area is stressed repeatedly. This also presumes that there is no "fatigue limit" in economic terms. In materials science, when a material has a fatigue limit, above a certain crack length, increasing the crack length does not lower the maximum stress that the object can tolerate. Unfortunately I suspect that there is such a fatigue limit if someone were to try intentionally to collapse an economy.
As for your Jeb vs. Hillary debate, I was two months too young to vote for Reagan. There hasn't been an R or a D since that I have had any interest in voting FOR in a general presidential election. It's well past time to put this dog down.
As for whether Gates et al. have gone Galt, I have found suggestions over the past nine days from David Kelley and from coaldigger regarding this possibility quite fascinating:
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/2f...
Within that David Kelley wrote, "What if Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and a few others had disappeared 12 years ago (despite the fact that most of them are liberals :))?"
In Khalling's post, http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/30...
Posted by coaldigger 5 days, 2 hours ago
"I believe these guys have truly gone Galt. If they kept their money invested in their enterprises with their minds, they would have produced more and more, while we did less and less. As the leeches became hostile to the hands that were feeding the trough, they said "fine. Take it. It is gold to us but it will be poison to you." They have withdrawn leaving a fool's legacy and can bask in the adulation of the pigs that they are leading to slaughter. The disgust that they feel for us must be amazing!"
If someone expects to make a difference on a societal level by going on strike, he had best determine if anyone will notice.
Bucky called it Trim-Tabbing.
In theory, as WE described it, the rudder of a Large Ship is fairly impossible to move with any practical mechanics or hydraulics, so in order to move the rudder and 'turn the ship' (metaphor/analogy warning!) you need to do something you CAN do that will move the rudder.
And that's what a trim tab does. You'll see the same thing on the wings and tails of Large Aircraft.
If you want the ship (water-type) to turn Right, you need to shove the rudder to the Right (starboard) side. But that's hard to do, so they add a small trim tab to the rudder.
And the Trim Tab is moved to the PORT side of the ship. What happens? It acts like a hydrofoil that bends the water flow around the rudder in such a way as to create a low-pressure area on the starboard side of the Trim Tab.
So, the trim tab, pulled to Port, Moves The Rudder to Starboard, and the ship is pushed towards a new Starboard direction.
Same with many airplane rudders, elevators and ailerons. Take a close look at how they move on your next flight.
SOOOOOOOOOOO, WTF am I trying to say?
I forget.... no, now I remember... If we have the goal of moving the Ship Of State in some New Direction, pushing on the Big Rudder might be really difficult to affect!
But some gentle nudges in the right places might just get people thinking about the Ship's Direction and if they start to believe that One Good Turn is a Good Idea, a bunch of them just Might get in motion in the direction we'd like 'em to go.
Whatever.... I'm just an old engineer.... what could _I_ possibly know? :)))))))))))
" The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 191
Now, there are some interesting ways to view doing exactly this..
Were we to suddenly start supporting
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/perso...
of course with intentionally faulty ( but loud ) arguments. There are really only a few meaningful outcomes..
People would suddenly see just how bad the idea is and want nothing to do with it.
Or worse, they prove they are in fact sheep and follow along.
In both cases you would be sabotaging the system. In either case the amazingly bad idea loses..
Ok, there is a third outcome where the true believers attack your poor support, but then they are expending energy on that instead of trying to push such a bad idea.
Interesting. I actually have been working my way through calculus text at lunchtime at the office, feeling a need to brush up enough to teach my kids (and, perhaps, other kids).
Somebody thought Obama was Galt? Haha...there's some sabatoge! I just brought up the "you didn't build that" mess with a couple friends yesterday and they never heard of it.
The Prez is in no way Galt.
Truth telling is a great way to throw sand in the gears. Ethanol (another name for moonshine) is a great example. To run the sitll that makes the ethanol takes about one gallon of fossil fuel for every gallon of ethanol produced. to keep the price down ethanol is subsidized by the tax payer another way of saying you pay for it without getting any. similar to the GMC bailout and how many taxpayers are still owed a Chevy. Ethanol is known to ruin engines even the Calilfornia EPA published a warning. The requirement for ten percent of fuel production must be ethanol was a boon to the fuel and agribusiness industries.who garnered most of the income including the federal subsidies. The workers of the grain belt got lots of jobs and also higher prices at the grocery stores.
A little sand is still a lot of grains of sand the work is done slowly but eventually it destroys. BOHICA and don't forget to check the lube for sand.
Or - already has? But that also goes forward as inexorably as does the time that is afforded to our lives.
I understand what jbrenner is putting forth as resonant frequency. To illustrate, I had a physics professor describe, as an analogy, what happens sometimes when you may be approaching say 55 mph and suddenly your vehicle is vibrating all to hell, and then when you may increase or decease your speed , it goes away. That is a product of harmonizing resonant frequencies inherent in an object.
I dealt with this phenomenon more specifically when it came to designing blast patterns in mining. The millisecond timing between each explosive loaded blasthole going off is absolutely critical in determining the vibration frequency that is imparted into the adjacent unexploded ground that is intended to serve as a stable highwall. That highwall is made of rock that has an inherent strength property. If you have enough blastholes in your explosive pattern that are going off at the same time or are in an impact wave propagation that has coincident timing - that rock strength is severely damaged. It's ability to stand as a slope is severely compromised.
jbrenner's point here is that societal/human behavior systems may have similar properties to material properties. As usual, humans have excelled at understanding material real world properties to the benefit of mankind and failed miserably at the same with reality based interactions of humankind. With the exception, I would posit, of Ayn Rand and other rational based thinkers (and founders if I may).
To extend the concept of resonance frequency as a mechanism to stop the current macro insanity and cognitive dissonance that is gripping our current world situation is a very important idea. A huge amount of exploration in pursuit of this is entirely worthwhile.
But, I would also agree with some in this post, that the actual motor that needs to be stopped is that of the one deliberately generating this rampant cognitive dissonance. Hence we get into how to circumvent the mainstream media with something else and then you get into the familiar argument of how that option is so far ratcheted down now with net neutrality that we are approaching 1930's Germany.
But, hey; this concept of resonance has huge merit and power to it. This will be occupying my mind for quite a bit here.
Thank you jlbrenner!
There are a couple of problems that I see here: One is 'how high is Up' and the other is 'black swan robotics' (not our very own blackswan, you note).
In the former case we have a variable 'time until dissonance' that is predicated on the affluence and infrastructure of the individual country (how high an Up point we start at). And - as this thread makes clear - the voluntary donation of funds to non-productive members of society figures into how long this affluence lasts.
The second, which may actually be a derivative of the first, is that when we come up against the threshold of general roboticization of our society, the model changes. From that point on we all, even the poorest, can become aristocrats ethically supported by our non-sentient robotic slaves. The question of 'productivity' in such circumstances is one we have visited before, on other threads.
So IF we shrug and IF it does not matter because either (a) our country starts at such an affluent point that socialism + charity is taking decades to erode prosperity, and (b) robots revolutionize economics before prosperity is lost, THEN our ethical stance becomes meaningless because the entire basis for productivity has change.
IF we shrug and prosperity is lost precipitously (war, epidemic, asteroid impact) THEN we can serve as philosophical templates for the reconstruction of a free society.
So, the conclusion that I come to from reading this thread is that we are a 'back-up on durable media' against catastrophe. (This is not where I thought I was going, but it is where I ended up...)
Jan
If you liked the direction this thread took, I am going to recommend that like a new Gulcher named ArtIficiarius recommended in
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/31...
that you should go to
http://starkermann.com/Starkermann.com/W...
The third .pdf, particularly sections 5 and 6, are pretty interesting on the interactions between individuals.
worked with for years!
Yes, we should encourage the wealthy to enlist in
the Giving Pledge, and we should organize a charity
to receive their dollars::: the John Galt Line, a
distributor of free books and videos and pamphlets
celebrating capitallism, free markets, Ayn Rand's
principles and the peace-through-strength maxim.
this would not count as sabotage -- it would be
progressive in the real sense. . a hundred languages,
a hundred countries, kids everywhere, the future
of the world.
I'll start with a hundred bucks if it'll go. . crowdfund. -- j
.
This is a new development in Europe: https://ari.aynrand.org/blog/2015/01/27/...
South America tour: https://www.aynrand.org/search-results?s...
Yaron Brook radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/yaronbrook/...
Thank much.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/25...
Genius, Sir!!! -- j
.
.
wonderful material for heat transfer. .could it be
scaled up for homogenizing the temperatures
across a "radiator" (convector)? -- j
.
I don't really see how you could "use" this resonance concept against anyone so it would be very hard to call it "sabotage". When someone is actively engaged in combating that which is "hell bent" on destroying them, no one calls it "sabotage".
Additionally, if you are focused on creating what you want instead of combating what you don't like, you naturally set up an harmonic dissonance in those who would enslave you.
It eventually gets the best of them and they go down in a heap. That's not sabotage either. It's the universe exacting justice. :-)
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