Moralizing vs Thinking

Seattle said:
You are comparing home prices to income rather than mortgage payments to income.
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:rolleyes:
Since the average Loan-to-Value for new mortgages hasn't really changed since the 1960s in the USA, house value is a reasonable proxy for mortgage when comparing.
 
Sarkus said:
So when you explicitly mentioned 1960s as a comparison, and when you tried to correct TheVat about the 1960 figures he quoted and experience thereof, you were really just making shit up, and not really talking about the 1960s? Got it. Thanks. ;)

And, seriously, wtf has "average interest rates" got to do with the affordability of mortgages, and their share of one's income?? From what I gather the most common mortgage product in the USA is a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage... so "average interest rates" mean diddly squat to those people.
Want to throw any more nonsense at the wall to see what might just stick? :)
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If you compare apples to apples, mortgage payment (not house prices without interest) to household income, it's simple now to the past.
 
C C said:
Rebellion isn't fundamentally dependent on having justice theories to appeal to, as pre-Christian history might indeed support. But nevertheless a chief tool that has arisen and been recruited since the Enlightenment.

I wish the Jacobin review wasn't walled off. It might sport less obscure-school-nuanced technobabble than the one at very bottom. I can't see either class struggle or cultural hegemony offshoots being abandoned for the radical equality of "everyone is a fecal ball opportunist" cynicism. That undermines the very exploitation of morality to accommodate a group or individual's ascent to power. Every anti-elitist movement needs its devils or scapegoats to rally against. Theories like that output essential "noble victims versus bullies" discernments for the narratives. And the covert Christian legacy of being saviors and paladins of the weak is preserved, that contributed to righteous warrant for classic church authority. Moderates, also, probably aren't free of that "we're the Lord Protectors template" (say hello to the new boss, just a tweak of the old one). But arguably less so than the far ends (or maybe it's just more subtle and tactful prick politicians in the middle).
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I swear that Jacobin used to be free. Either that, or I had a subscription for a long time and had just completely forgotten about it. Either way, I'm confident that it would be a whole lot clearer than whatever the hell that Christiansen guy is on about. In fact, the brief snippet that's freely available more accurately conveys Ceika's thesis than anything that Christiansen says: it's more to do with reconciling the popularly perceived nature of Nietzsche's anti-humanism with Marx than anything else.

It's hard to imagine what sort of saliency or momentum any movement might gather without some form of a heroes vs. villains narrative. Such isn't absolutely essential, perhaps, but it helps. I think that thinking through Nietzsche might facilitate conceptualizing the "villain" differently, in ways that are perhaps more palatable to those of a more Sternerian mindset maybe.

Of course, I say this having just listened to Tim Pool go on and on about "volunteer" fire departments in non-urban areas as a way of "explaining" how and why "socialism doesn't work". Apparently, in Pool's addled mind, volunteer fire departments are entirely voluntary, and not heavily reliant upon tax dollar funding and suchlike--someone just donates those gazillion dollar fire trucks, I guess. So, goes without saying, even sans humanism or humanistic elements, the arguments aren't gonna resonate with everyone.

Christiansen's hilarious concluding remarks:

In conclusion, the book seems like an attempt to portray a Marxism for post-modernist/anti-essentialist intellectuals; a bad infinity that creates “many but not more”; intellectuals standing on the sideline quibbling over “purity”. Both the work of Marx and Nietzsche are made to work like a trash compactor in the depraved Western superstructure of Categories.

to paraphrase Christiansen himself: sounds like projection. Not quite sure how anyone might come away with that take.
 
parmalee said:
Wait--are you arguing against yourself now?
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No. You seem confused though. If you have more money you can buy a $200k house or whatever you can afford. This is where the "thinking" comes in...
 
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Seattle said:
If you have more money you can buy a $200k though whatever you can afford. This is where the "thinking" comes in...
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How does "if you have more money you can buy a $200k though whatever you can afford" reflect "thinking"? Honestly, you lost me on that "though whatever you can afford" part--can you elaborate? I tried substituting words close to "though", like "through" maybe, but it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Nor does it suggest anything akin to "thinking".
 
Seattle said:
Before widespread student loans, tuition was much cheaper. Before credit cards, obviously there was no credit card debt. People used to commonly save and pay cash for a small house, now they borrow and buy huge houses. People saved for basic cars, now they borrow for massive SUVs and trucks (and complain).

Before Social Security, people had to save so they had paid for houses and saving at retirement. Now they don't.

All this is largely made possible due to moralizing vs thinking.
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Still haven't explained how any of this--let alone all--was "made possible" via "moralizing" as opposed to "thinking". Do things like actual history and suchlike not factor in to your "economic" considerations?
 
parmalee said:
Still haven't explained how any of this--let alone all--was "made possible" via "moralizing" as opposed to "thinking". Do things like actual history and suchlike not factor in to your "economic" considerations?
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When the government stays out of the way, people have to and do take care of themselves. When the government intervenes we have all of the problems that people complain about every day. Thinking would avoid that.

People wanted freely available school loans and it only drove up the cost of an education and now they complain that they can't pay the loans back that they wanted.

Thinking would avoid that.

Common memes are "1% of the people have more wealth than the other 99%". Thinking would show that, while true, it's only because you lump the other group in with those with nothing.

In reality the top have about twice the wealth of the very bottom. In what world is that not going to be the case? The middle in absolute terms have the most.

The top 1% have about 31% of the wealth, not 99%. The bottom have little wealth. What is surprising here to a thinking person? Nothing.
 
Seattle said:
When the government stays out of the way, people have to and do take care of themselves. When the government intervenes we have all of the problems that people complain about every day. Thinking would avoid that.

People wanted freely available school loans and it only drove up the cost of an education and now they complain that they can't pay the loans back that they wanted.
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So clearly "actual history and suchlike" do not factor. Got it. When you enter the real world, get back to us.

But, for starters, let's dispense with your silly notions about the history of debt--this should (well, should) help:

A major argument of the book is that the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of "human economies" is only replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts through the introduction of violence, usually state-sponsored violence in some form of military or police. A second major argument of the book is that, contrary to standard accounts of the history of money, debt is probably the oldest means of trade, with cash and barter transactions being later developments. The book argues that debt has typically retained its primacy, with cash and barter usually limited to situations of low trust involving strangers or those not considered credit-worthy. Graeber proposes that the second argument follows from the first; that, in his words, "markets are founded and usually maintained by systematic state violence", though he goes on to show how "in the absence of such violence, they... can even come to be seen as the very basis of freedom and autonomy".[1]
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Debt: The First 5,000 Years
 
Seattle said:
When the government stays out of the way, people have to and do take care of themselves.
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And far more people die.

Police stay out of the way of drunk drivers? More people die.
Government gets out of car safety standards? More people die.
Government lets airlines handle ATC however they want? More people die.

There is societal value in having fewer people die. even if you (or even most people) get less money at the end of the year.
 
parmalee said:
A major argument of the book is that the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of "human economies" is only replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts through the introduction of violence, usually state-sponsored violence in some form of military or police.
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Graeber fan here. One of the few books I retain a paper copy of. Ok, you mention him, now I'm going to read back through your posts and CC's in the morning.
 
billvon said:
I am sorry you are living a life in which you believe that to be true.
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It has nothing to do with my life. If you run a charity and give all of your time, money and effort to that, it's still a true statement. If the economy is run into the ground everyone suffers and there is no money for charity. Think.
 
billvon said:
And far more people die.

Police stay out of the way of drunk drivers? More people die.
Government gets out of car safety standards? More people die.
Government lets airlines handle ATC however they want? More people die.

There is societal value in having fewer people die. even if you (or even most people) get less money at the end of the year.
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Those are false argument (and you already know that). The argument is for thinking and for an efficient economy. It's not about no government or safety standards. Think.
 
C C said:
Rebellion isn't fundamentally dependent on having justice theories to appeal to, as pre-Christian history might indeed support. But nevertheless a chief tool that has arisen and been recruited since the Enlightenment.

I wish the Jacobin review wasn't walled off. It might sport less obscure-school-nuanced technobabble than the one at very bottom. I can't see either class struggle or cultural hegemony offshoots being abandoned for the radical equality of "everyone is a fecal ball opportunist" cynicism. That undermines the very exploitation of morality to accommodate a group or individual's ascent to power. Every anti-elitist movement needs its devils or scapegoats to rally against. Theories like that output essential "noble victims versus bullies" discernments for the narratives. And the covert Christian legacy of being saviors and paladins of the weak is preserved, that contributed to righteous warrant for classic church authority. Moderates, also, probably aren't free of that "we're the Lord Protectors template" (say hello to the new boss, just a tweak of the old one). But arguably less so than the far ends (or maybe it's just more subtle and tactful prick politicians in the middle).
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Just returning briefly to this notion of governance sans "moralizing" or "emoting" (two notions which are repeatedly confused and conflated, but that's a separate matter)... just, why? I mean, I suppose it's theoretically possible to govern without any ethical principles or foundations, solely based upon pragmatics, but why would anyone even bother? Who's gonna be enthusiastic about that?

Excepting sociopaths and persons with very particular strains of neurodivergence, maybe, there really aren't any Vulcans or Romulans amongst us, and if there were... what would be the primary motivating forces for action?

When you get too far into "Minority Report" or PK Dick-esque territory, and seriously begin entertaining that as tools for real governance, you've already lost like 99-plus percent of your potential audience.
 
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