Edward Cramp > Recent Status Updates

US residents hold an individual-as-central sensibility, in which “it is the individual alone who is socially significant, who determines what his or her contribution to the commonweal will be, and who is therefore responsible for the degree of personal success achieved.” This sensibility is central to a culture of inequality, “an interpretation of unequal outcomes given the assumption of equal chances.” The culture

"The explanation for our conviction is often trivial: we assert a judgement and think it is correct because we suppose we have correctly applied the relevant principles and criteria of practical reasoning." This is a quote on the grounding of objectivity, as it is used in forming political liberalism.

"Whether [the moral psychology with regard to the political] is correct for our purposes depends on whether we can learn and understand it, on whether we can apply and affirm its principles and ideals in political life, and on whether we find the political conception of justice to which it belongs acceptable on due reflection."

"It is unrealistic - or worse, it arouses mutual suspicion and hostility - to suppose that all our differences are rooted solely in ignorance or perversity, or else in the rivalries for power, status, or economic gain." A quote on reasonable disagreement and the burden of judgement as its source.

The position of Mouffe lies between that of Carl Schmitt and those of John Rawls and Juergen Habermas. She considers fundamental disagreement and the threat of antagonism as essential to the political, but identifies grounds on which such disagreement can be settled between adversaries without threatening political disassociation.

Ostrom favors discovering what works by observation more than conjecture.

Ostrom seems to possess little bias for the state or the private firm, instead believing in what combinations lead to empirical results in real world situations.

Ostrom seems to possess little bias for the state or the private firm, instead believing in what combinations lead to empirical results in real world situations.

Twenty pages in and Hardin's tragedy, Olsen's collective action, and the prisoner's dilemma have all been introduced and partly addressed.

His distinction between civitas, a group identified by belief and governed by rules and authorities, and communitas, a group arising out of ignorance investigate a mystery, is interesting.

Archetypal act of belief
1. Content directed inward at its faithful and outward at its opponents
2. Vitality depend on conflict with opponents
3. Conflict bounds ones beliefs
4. Belief forms agreement with external authority, which we unknowingly establish
5. Temptation in crossing the bounds of our beliefs requires self-denial and rejection
6. Complete, intelligible set of beliefs required to resist temptation

This book presents an interesting view of the “idea of America”. The idea that the Founding Fathers “developed a belief system that did not completely believe itself” and that “what gives the United States its distinctive identity is its ability to restrain the excesses of belief”.

Having clarified my understanding of Kirzner, I still find his presentation of entrepreneurial discovery as creation as clearer than most Austrian works. Still, I find it an unsatisfying answer to the limits of the privoso of Nozick.

So far this has been a good representation of entrepreneurial discovery theory and Austrian economics. I am unconvinced by the argument that there is an desirable, intuitive mechanism by which we are drawn to opportunities of pure profit.

Israel Kirzner presents a his argument for the Austrian economic perspective better than most.

The common thread from many of these is that appropriation of natural resources requires compensating others for the appropriation, according to agreeable contract and often for value in excess of what could be attributed to the resource alone. It is disappointing how little attention such an idea seems to get.

A brief discussion of philosophy and of the newest of MIT sociable robots. So ends the part of the book on robots and begins the part on social computing.

Necessity and capacity stirs us to make elder care machinations. These machines need to be pleasing in fulfilling their duties, but are they taking away something that the former, biological caregivers needed. Does the robot steal away a relationship that people need or are better for having.

I have actually read 83 to 95, an article on alternate tallying under approval voting that Hamming distances to represent a kind of proximity and distance weight for a minimax regret analysis.

Polling information seems to foil the monotonicity of voter choice even under plurality and approval voting, if one allows insincere voting.

Never considered the possibility that robots may take over our social roles rather than or in addition to our labor roles. This is a somewhat chilling consideration.

The range of effects that iterated polling can have under approval voting is somewhat surprising.