Who Is IOZ?: The Primordial Oops

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Primordial Oops

I have a confession to make. I do not believe that Barack Obama is a bloodsucking, shapeshifting Reptilian alien; I don't even think he's a very bad man necessarily--a tad self-regarding, obviously; schoolmarmish; disapproving; but also probably a pretty decent dad and husband, a fellow who, but for a slight overabundance of ambition and a few luck shakes of the Fatal snowglobe would be the second-most-popular law prof at U Chicago. You see, what I'm saying is that nothing about Barack Obama inclines him to kill a whole lot of fucking people . . . nothing inherent, anyway; nothing intrinsic to his character; nothing ineluctable in his soul. But he does it anyway. It does not require a mad-dog megalomaniacal pseudohereditary dictator backed by a military junta to kill a lot of innocent people, and, hell, even al-Assad, you know, but for the peculiar turning of fortune, he might yet be just another tacky foreign millionaire living in louche London expatriacy, keeping several mistresses and a skinny British wife who works for World of Interiors. What I am saying is that the state makes these men; or, it feeds upon them. Their brains are corrupted and plugged into the war machine. And, on the other hand, this is likewise one reason I think the idea that the first thing everyone will do after the oil runs out or after the nuclear war or after the rising seas crack open the old system of states is form themselves into atavistic and avaricious affinity groups and reconsitute all this shit all over again; like, um, it took ten thousand years of particular history to get from tilled fields to unmanned drones; why assume it is inevitable, instinctual, inescapable? Might it not be, like like itself, the ungainly result of a whole series of accidents?

54 comments:

mistah charley, ph.d. said...: A very wise and pertinent analysis. At this point I wish to recommend

Donella H. Meadows (2008) Thinking in Systems - A primer ISBN 978-1-84407-726-7; 9:34 AM
High Arka said...: How shameful, to see IOZ choosing the "not responsible for actions" angle. Is this a deliberate attempt to exonerate those poor soldiers, too?

Are all those whose chosen profession is ordering genocide crazy?

Or wait...is it the fault of the "state"?

Infantrymen making $24K/yearly with benefits, whose other choice is starving (or flipping burgers at $7/hr. for 20hrs./week, if you believe in endless employment opportunities), have far less of a choice--even if you engage in the endless employment fantasy--than do exorbitantly wealthy lawyer-professor-hospital administrators who could choose to retire, keep performing banal work, or even use their tenure and social respect to withdraw from the system or encourage others to do so.

IOZ revealed: a religious zealot who blames "Statan" for the crimes of mankind, rather than poor choice!

Or was it just a clever ruse to draw out this one's points about

Most likely, you're just a pusher of an idea. Marketing "anarchy" on the back of the tagline "look at how bad the leaders are" certainly makes your product seem more fulfilling.

You there--aren't you hungry? Buy a Big Mac! You there--dissatisfied with leaders? Reject the state and pursue IOZ-style anarchism!; 9:40 AM
Picador said...: The only part of your analysis I disagree with -- and it's a doozy -- is the assumption that fewer people were getting murdered during the "tilled fields" phase than during the "unmanned drones" phase. All the available data suggests otherwise. Strongly. I don't put a whole lot of credence in anything Steve Pinker writes, but his last book might nonetheless be a good place to start if you want to disprove his thesis that rates of violent death have declined drastically at every stage of history, from hunting-gathering to agrarian feudalism to liberal democracy (such as it is). The 20th century was a charnel house, but the average citizen of the world stood a better chance of surviving it without being disemboweled than they did, say, the 4th century.; 9:41 AM
High Arka said...: points about...responsibility?

IOZ, you poor victim of the state...it forces you to blame the state for all the world's problems.

We must abolish the state so that IOZ is forced to stop saying ludicrous things about it! Won't somebody please think of the IOZ?!; 9:41 AM
High Arka said...: oh, vomit, Picador...you're pulling out the Pinker in support of IOZ?

In Which Voltaire Dies for the 1 Millionth Time.; 9:43 AM
IOZ said...: Oh dear. The Precious Steven Pinker.; 9:44 AM
Anonymous said...: instead of pinker (a bore), try reading pierre clastres. especially the last few chapters of archeology of violence.

societies without states are societies against the state. they ward off the state formation.; 9:52 AM
LeonTrollski said...: Because the survivor are former citizens of the former states and they've got the legacy of those 10,000 years of accidents seared inside their skulls. It may not have been an inevitable happening when we crawled out of the trees but it probably will be when crawling from the rubble of hardees.

If smashing the state was sufficient the history books would be shorter and much more boring.; 10:02 AM
Picador said...: Oh dear. The Precious Steven Pinker.

Yes, IOZ, I read that criticism of Pinker as well, but I didn't need to: I'm already well aware of that weakness in Pinker's thesis. I thought I sufficiently disclaimed my recommendation in that regard, but apparently not, so here's something more substantive:

Pinker's books are designed to sell a lot of copies to non-scientists with romantic ideas about the world. He writes in broad strokes, waxing philosophical and making extravagant claims that aren't supported by his data. He is, in other words, the world's foremost pop-science evo-psych celebrity academic.

His latest book is typical of this tendency: he takes a bunch of data about declining rates (ALERT: make sure you know what "rate" means in this context) of violent death over time and spins it into a tale about the glories of the Enlightenment and of the modern liberal state, and furthermore about the indestructible kernel of benevolence housed within the darkness of the human soul, which has waited thousands of years for the proper conditions under which to express itself. I am skeptical of this interpretation of the data.

But the data cited in the book is as good a compilation as you're likely to find on the subject of actual rates (there's that word again, "rates") of violent death at various times and places in history. The data strongly suggest that these rates (Rates!) have declined as societies have transitioned from one stage to the next. Which is exactly what I said in my post above.

Hart's criticism, linked above, thinks Pinker is a twit for all of his philosophical musings. I don't disagree. As for the actual, you know, scientific part of the argument (i.e. rates of violent death have declined over time), Hart actually AGREES that Pinker is right, but then moves the goalposts thusly:

"In the end, what Pinker calls a “decline of violence” in modernity actually has been, in real body counts, a continual and extravagant increase in violence that has been outstripped by an even more exorbitant demographic explosion."

I'm sorry, but this is just pathetically weak. The RATE of violent death has declined; what the fuck is the point of trying to measure humanity's violence by the actual NUMBER of violent deaths irrespective of the total population? A non-violent utopia of a million people is going to have more violent deaths per year than a psychopathic bloodthirsty family of ten. That's how math works.; 10:05 AM
History of the Great American Fortunes said...: In time of doubt, turneth thou to the classics:

"Don't say wop," the President shouted back. "How many times do I have to tell you? Don't say wop
or kike or any of those words anymore." He spoke with some asperity, since he lived daily with the
dread that someday the secret tapes he kept of all" Oval Room transactions would be released to the
public. He had long ago vowed that if that day ever came, the tapes would not be full of "(expletive
deleted)" or "(characterization deleted)." He was harassed, but still he spoke with authority. He was,
in fact, characteristic of the best type of dominant male in the world at this time. He was fifty-five
years old, tough, shrewd, unburdened by the complicated ethical ambiguities which puzzle
intellectuals, and had long ago decided that the world was a mean son-of-a-bitch in which only the
most cunning and ruthless can survive. He was also as kind as was possible for one holding that
ultra-Darwinian philosophy; and he genuinely loved children and dogs, unless they were on the site
of something that had to be bombed in the National Interest. He still retained some sense of humor,
despite the burdens of his almost godly office, and, although he had been impotent with his wife for
nearly ten years now, he generally achieved orgasm in the mouth of a skilled prostitute within 1.5
minutes. He took amphetamine pep pills to keep going on his grueling twenty-hour day, with the
result that his vision of the world was somewhat skewed in a paranoid direction, and he took
tranquilizers to keep from worrying too much, with the result that his detachment sometimes
bordered on the schizophrenic; but most of the time his innate shrewdness gave him a fingernail grip
on reality. In short, he was much like the rulers of Russia and China.

Of course Barry-O is a little younger so the impotence thing probably has'nt kicked in and these days there's always the BobDole potion. As for the rest of it however...; 10:06 AM
IOZ said...: A non-violent utopia of a million people is going to have more violent deaths per year than a psychopathic bloodthirsty family of ten. That's how math works.

A domestic disturbance leading to a crime of passion in a two-person household will lead to a higher rate of violence than a family of 10 psychopathic cannibals eating the 4 youngest children.

A war fought with 20th century field medicine will have a lower rate (I am talking about RATES now (in this context, we are referring to RATES (remember, this is just "rates" we are talking about))) of battlefield fatalities than the B attle of Hastings . . . maybe, of course, since we have no actual accurate figures . . . indeed no figures to within an order of magnitude (that is a math thing; it is how MATH works) on how many people died in that battle, or in any other ancient battle, or ancient society, or whatever. Did smallpox kill a million Indians, or a hundred million? Who knows? Who cares?; 10:20 AM
Leonard said...: Foseti had a good review of The Better Angels of Our Nature:

I started this book 99.5% sure violence had declined over time. I finished it 65% violence had declined over time and 100% sure that Steven Pinker needs a more aggressive editor.

...

Pinker’s basic problem is that he essentially defines “violence” in such a way that his thesis that violence is declining becomes self-fulling. “Violence” to Pinker is fundamentally synonymous with behaviors of older civilizations. On the other hand, modern practices are defined to be less violent than newer practices.

A while back, I linked to a story about a guy in my neighborhood who’s been arrested over 60 times for breaking into cars. A couple hundred years ago, this guy would have been killed for this sort of vandalism after he got caught the first time. Now, we feed him and shelter him for a while and then we let him back out to do this again. Pinker defines the new practice as a decline in violence – we don’t kill the guy anymore! Someone from a couple hundred years ago would be appalled that we let the guy continue destroying other peoples’ property without consequence. In the mind of those long dead, “violence” has in fact increased.; 10:47 AM
la Rana said...: if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.; 10:52 AM
IOZ said...: egards. That's a fine letter, Jamison, that's an epic. That's dandy. Now, I want you to make two carbon copies of that letter and throw the original away. And when you get through with that, throw the carbon copies away. Just send a stamp, airmail, that's all. You may go, Jamison. I may go too; 10:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Holy shit I'm tired of Arka's shtick where enlistees are practically dying of starvation in the streets until they happen to stumble into a recruiting station.; 10:57 AM
Picador said...: indeed no figures to within an order of magnitude (that is a math thing; it is how MATH works) on how many people died in that battle, or in any other ancient battle, or ancient society, or whatever.

My apologies if my "math" comment came across as aimed at my interlocutors in this thread; it was intended for Hart.

As for your claim that there are no figures on numbers of deaths to within an order of magnitude for the periods in question: do you have a basis for that statement, or are you just assuming that the scientists and historians who claim otherwise are lying? Pinker sets out his methodology here, and while it's a bit sketchy, the book itself provides significantly more detail.

Furthermore, the data on modern-day (and recent-day) hunter-gatherers is consistent with this thesis. Rates of violent death in these societies are astronomical compared to our own.

I'm not averse to the argument that the state produces many evils other than violent death, and that these other evils may make, say, hunter-gatherer existence preferable to the one we're more familiar with. But the argument you're making -- about "unmanned drones" vs. "tilled fields" -- is just wrong, for all the reasons I've set out above.

Did smallpox kill a million Indians, or a hundred million? Who knows? Who cares?

Uh... really? 99 million dead Indians isn't an important fact to you, that might inform your worldview and your evaluation of the relative importance of one problem vs. another? If that's true, then I've misunderstood your position vis-a-vis anarchy and the state completely. I took you to be concerned with encouraging the conditions under which fewer human beings will die painful deaths.; 11:00 AM
Leonard said...: It is important when discussing elected officials in our political system to distinguish between two things. One the man himself (or occasionally, woman): an individual with personality, a personal history, hopes and fears, etc. The other is the man as a political figure; this is basically a committee with a brand. Although this committee does also have a history, unlike its figurehead person, it is remarkably bloodsucking, shapeshifting, Reptilian, and alien.

Thus, Barack Obama is two things. Barack Obama the person is a gentle intellectual. A father of two, good husband, who like basketball. Etc. Just as IOZ says.

But then there what we might call "Barack Obama[R]", using "[R]" as a reptilian trademark. This is a committee of people, liberal and progressive and just power hungry, whose spokeman/committee chairman/figurehead is the aforementioned Barack Obama. This group will agree to about anything, because it makes decisions in a reptilian committee which has little human morality involved; because collectively responsibility is diffused; and because it has plenty of actors involved (i.e. Hillary Clinton[R]) who have no scruples at all in the pursuit of power.

For lower level politicians, the mayor of Muskeegan perhaps, the two things are one. But everyone at the national level has a staff, and the bureaucracy also helpfully provides a huge braintrust of "experts" available for any decision at all. Thus they are all reptiles in terms of their political actions.; 11:02 AM
IOZ said...: I just really dislike Indians, Picador.; 11:10 AM
Leonard said...: But as to IOZ question, to wit: [people] form themselves into atavistic and avaricious affinity groups... why assume it is inevitable, instinctual, inescapable? Might it not be, like like itself, the ungainly result of a whole series of accidents?

The particular states we have are accidental, and would not reform the same way. But it seems completely obvious that people are instinctually tribal. Is there any evidence to the contrary? Do we know of any organization of primitive humans except tribes? Do we know of any hunter-gatherer tribe anywhere that does not distinguish itself from neighbors? Do we know of any humans, anywhere, in all of time and space that do not? Do we know of any chimpanzee band that does not?; 11:10 AM
Rob Payne said...: Yeah, right, Obama is just a nice guy misunderstood. What is this, TPM?; 11:11 AM
Leonard said...: cf.:
The Stanford prison experiment.
The Robber's cave experiement.; 11:17 AM
IOZ said...: I think, Rob, the point is not that Obama is a nice guy, misunderstood, but that he must be understood in a certain context. I hope I won't give anyone heart murmurs when I say that Leonard, at 11:02, is right.; 11:21 AM
C. Nihilist said...: agree with Trollski. it's been let out of the box.

like in Terminator 2 when they froze the T-1000 with liquid nitrogen and blasted him into a million pieces. it did buy the protagonists some time, but...

certain types of power flow like water and puddle.; 11:31 AM
la Rana said...: Explication is not absolution.; 11:35 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: I don't put a whole lot of credence in anything Steve Pinker writes, but his last book might nonetheless be a good place to start if you want to disprove his thesis that rates of violent death have declined drastically at every stage of history, from hunting-gathering to agrarian feudalism to liberal democracy (such as it is).

Great satire of a Bright.

Yes, Pinker's full of shit, but if you want to assess reality in the Big Leagues, you must refute Pinker's book's meanderings because... because... because he's Pinker!; 11:39 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: Barack Obama the person is a gentle intellectual. A father of two, good husband, who like basketball. Etc. Just as IOZ says.

Hah hah hah hah. So gentle! And VERY intellectual! Why he used to teach con law! Thus, a powerful brain in an intellectual's person!

Wait... this is about the banality of evil? So to make the point we stress that Barrio Bama is a swell dude aside from his Acts While In Office?

That's some funny shit right there, hilarious copy of Hannah Arendt!; 11:42 AM
Rob Payne said...: I’ve got nothing against Leonard or that he may be right. I just don’t buy into that Obama is a nice guy who went to Washington as a Mr. Smith and then was corrupted into being a bad man who kills people. Obama is the quintessential American and Americans like to kill things. People, animals, it is all the same to Americans. Obama sought out being a politician and in particular the office of the prez knowing full well that he would be murdering people on a grand scale and that didn’t bother him a bit or at least it certainly didn’t stop him from running for office. That’s the context that I see him in.; 11:44 AM
Anonymous said...: "Might it not be, like like itself, the ungainly result of a whole series of accidents?"

No.; 11:46 AM
Foregone conclusion said...: IOZ skimmed Pinker's book to give his shallow mockery street cred, his ideology having dictated beforehand that the data was unacceptable and therefore wrong. Witness his citation of the innumerate David Bentley Hart's pomo sophistry as some kind of authoritative takedown.; 12:02 PM
IOZ said...: I will admit that even the internet had not prepared me for something named foregone conclusion calling David Bentley Hart pomo. Mirabile dictu!; 12:17 PM
Picador said...: IOZ skimmed Pinker's book to give his shallow mockery street cred, his ideology having dictated beforehand that the data was unacceptable and therefore wrong.

I'm kind of inclined to agree with this assessment.

IOZ et al, forget Pinker. I should have known better than to bring him up. Pinker qua Pinker is a red herring here.

Instead, consider the dozens of other scholars who have come to the same basic, statistical conclusion that Pinker has: namely, that hunter-gatherers and people living in feudal agrarian societies are much more likely to meet a violent end than those of us living under the Modern State.

My questions are:

1. Do you actually disagree that this conclusion is correct?

2. If not, what is your basis for disagreeing with my initial statement (i.e., the claim that IOZ's age of "unmanned drones" involves less murder per capita than his age of "tilled fields" did)?; 1:12 PM
davidly said...: If not, what is your basis for disagreeing with my initial statement (i.e., the claim that IOZ's age of "unmanned drones" involves less murder per capita than his age of "tilled fields" did)?
Murder per capita in your neighborhood, Picador, or where the drones go?; 1:25 PM
IOZ said...: It's almost as if "carrying capacity increases faster than mass murder, [and] this looks like moral improvement on the charts, but it might mean only that fertilizers and antibiotics are outpacing machine guns and machetes -- for now."; 1:30 PM
NutellaonToast said...: Wait, if it's total numbers we care about and not rates, shouldn't we just kill everyone and end murder once and for all?

Oh, you're right, that would be too ironic. Sterilize, then?; 1:49 PM
Picador said...: "carrying capacity increases faster than mass murder, [and] this looks like moral improvement on the charts, but it might mean only that fertilizers and antibiotics are outpacing machine guns and machetes -- for now."

Oh, Jesus. You really don't think that maybe there's a correlation between [Number of Murders] and [Number of People Around to Murder and/or Be Murdered]?

Quick, everybody reproduce faster, or the eerie, levitating, bloodthirsty machetes of The State will murder us faster than we can replace ourselves!

Seriously, this is getting retarded.

Let's put this in human terms: if I'm a hunter-gatherer, the chances that my father died a violent death are much, much higher than if I'm a citizen of a modern state. The chance that my mother gets raped by raiders from the next village over are much, much higher if I'm a hunter-gatherer than if I'm a citizen of a modern state. The chance that I myself will die a painful, violent death is much, much higher... you get the idea? That's what it means to have higher per capita rates of violence. If those things are important to you, then per capita rates of violence should be important to you.; 2:55 PM
IOZ said...: I actuarially believe that. I don't usually like to throw out appeals to education, seeing as I hate the stuff, but prevalence and incidence are different measures, and the former, though it's good enough for the internet, apparently, is not actually a measure of risk.; 3:19 PM
Anonymous said...: is the word "CLASS" unmentionable round here? i know oxtrot is jealous of marx, and leonard (11:02) gets at part of it, but a person like obama: who are his friends? his wife's friends? yes, all his advisors, staff, etc., etc. fellow "dignitaries," heads of state, media figures, etc. etc.

it's the morality of their class.

their private morality don't mean shit. who gives a fuck if b.ho. is a nice guy, except his daughters?; 3:19 PM
Troville said...: "I have a confession to make. I do not believe that Barack Obama is a bloodsucking, shapeshifting Reptilian alien; I don't even think he's a very bad man necessarily--a tad self-regarding, obviously; schoolmarmish; disapproving; but also probably a pretty decent dad and husband, a fellow who, but for a slight overabundance of ambition..."

There it is, right there. Even a youngster who works for a lefty non-profit or joins the Peace Corp and runs off to Cambodia to play with brown people would cut your balls off and feed them to you if he or she is ambitious and if such an act would result in a glossier name tag. Ambition is where the heart of evil lies.; 3:23 PM
Solar Hero said...: I love retarded people like Picador who are functional enough to write like they are not completely retarded.; 3:26 PM
Solar Hero said...: I had a girlfriend like that once . . .; 3:26 PM
Jack Crow said...: Anon @ 3:19,

Obama is a special case. He has phenotypical characteristics which generally indicate a membership in one class (and expectations about behavior, accordingly), while he's rather clearly a member of another, judging from his choices, his ambitions, and his current office.

As Glen Ford wrote very recently, that makes him the more perfectible evil, in so much as he can satisfy the images which accompany expectations without doing much of anything to justify that satisfaction.; 3:36 PM
Anonymous said...: in hunter-gather societies you may have been more likely to die a violent death, but, on the positive side, you only work like 2 hours a day.; 4:16 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: i know oxtrot is jealous of marx

Yeah his writing style is what makes me really jealous, as well as his fabricated "truths" and "seize the state then convert the state" hilarity.

I've always been jealous of the great Con Artists and Bunko Men. Me and David Mamet talk regularly on how to weave confidence scams into everyday work!

Actually, what I'm really jealous of is Marxists and their utter certainty about Its Truth while disparaging Religion Under Other Names Besides Marxism.; 4:33 PM
NutellaonToast said...: Alright, then, IOZ, provide some evidence of any kind that the incidence is higher now.

Hint: funny references to flying killer robots or the holocaust or nuclear bombs do not count as evidence.; 4:44 PM
Anonymous said...: I actually don't believe he's that great of a husband and dad, either, EG talking down to Michelle in public and on the right television channels, making chortle noises in the correct patriarchal tones about his daughters' virginity.; 5:03 PM
Anonymous said...: So now we need to throw a bone to any asshole has also been known to change diapers and read his kids bedtime stories?; 5:54 PM
Sorry said...: Dude's got plenty of bones to gnaw on if he wants 'em & I totally saw him shapeshift at Crazy Mocha. Just saying.; 6:13 PM
John said...: Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves,

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.; 6:16 PM
Anonymous said...: But Zimmerman got arrested. Aren't we supposed to celebrate the State now?; 9:00 PM
Anonymous said...: and

2. Din bube, mucegaiuri, si gunoi iscat-am frumuseti si lucruri noi.

The Dull Sycophant; 10:08 PM
Anonymous said...: 'But it seems completely obvious that people are instinctually tribal.' (Leonard, 11:10 AM)
A tribe is not a state. It's an alternative to a state, with members taking collective responsibility for each others security. You join the posse to avenge your blood-brothers or you pay your share of the blood-money if your tribe needs to buy an end to a feud, but that's about it. No state machinery, no personnel, no taxes. A tribe can take conquer and take over a state, but then it ceases to be a tribe. (See Ibn Khaldun for details.); 7:30 AM
Enron said...: The good life was so elusive
Handouts, they got me down
I had to regain my self respect
So I got into camoflauge

To have ambitions was my ambition
But I had nothing to show for my dreams
Time with my girl I spent it well; 12:51 PM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...: Enron needs an order.

(shoot! shoot!); 2:36 PM
Chris Busby said...: So now we need to throw a bone to any asshole has also been known to change diapers and read his kids bedtime stories?; 12:35 AM

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Primordial Oops

54 comments:

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