Democratic Peace

May 13th, 2011

For a while, the theory of Democratic Peace was popular, widely believed, and widely argued.  Supposedly democracies do not go to war with each other.

On the basis of this theory, Osama Obama and Bush have been promoting democracy in the middle east.  Supposedly, if Muslims get to vote, they will vote against making war on us.

Of course, one could look at much the same evidence and conclude that countries that are capitalist and predominantly free market do not go to war with each other, and that countries with McDonald’s franchises do not go to war with each other.

The last theory, in addition to being better supported by the evidence, also has  more plausible theory behind it:  If two countries both have McDonald’s franchises, they have business connections to the world, and thus to each other, so you have vested interests in both countries in favor of peace.

The democratic peace theory was always based on wishful thinking and torturing the evidence till it confesses.  The three most dreadful recent wars were the American civil war, between democracies, the first world war, mostly between democracies, in the sense that the Kaiser’s war budget had to voted by democratically elected legislators, and World War II, which was primarily caused by a democracy, the Weimar Republic,  suicidally voting for totalitarians.  Proponents of the Democratic Peace theory argue that does not count, because Nazi Germany certainly was not democratic, but the notorious propensity of democracies to commit suicide in a messy fashion certainly ought to count.  The Nazi party came to power in accordance with the Weimar Republic rules, because they got more votes than any other party in the Weimar Republic ever did in any election.  The only reason that they did not get an outright majority is that lots of people were voting for the communists, so though there was no clear majority for any one party, there was clear majority in favor war, terror, and bringing democracy to an end.

Now, the US has successfully exported democracy to Egypt. And how shall we be rewarded?

The most likely winner of the election proposes to end the peace treaty with Israel, confront Israel, and allow terrorists to operate from Egypt. None of the candidates are saying “war”, but they are proposing to act in a way that makes war likely, and perhaps unavoidable.

“Democracy never lasts long”

May 9th, 2011

In 1814, John Adams, second president of the United States, and one of the revolutionaries that founded it, said

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.

And that was the common wisdom at the time.  Democracy in the United States, the work of the revolutionaries, has lasted a lot longer than anyone expected, but the end is now in sight.

I hope that after democracy, we will get, in at least some small parts of what once was the United States, anarcho capitalism, or failing that, monarchy, but the usual successor to democracy is a brief period of oligarchy swiftly followed by the worst form of dictatorship:  popular dictatorship.  Mencius Moldbug hopes that popular dictatorship will transition to monarchy, but consider that in the case of Rome, that took a very long time.

One small ground for optimism is that we are seeing a fair bit of crypto anarchy, as business goes underground, and non state armed forces, both legal and illegal, are growing stronger.  The rise of crypto anarchy could lead to anarcho capitalism, at least for the wealthy, and the rise of private armed forces could lead to feudalism, but I fear that the way to bet is popular dictatorship.

The difference between popular dictatorship and monarchy is illustrated by the difference between Botswana and Zimbawe.  Mugabe, endorsed by the London School of Economics to rule Zimbabwe, had to allow and encourage one group to loot another, in order to maintain a base of support.  Similarly, Ivy League Graduate  Ouattara, sent to rule the Ivory Coast by the world bank, now presiding over the place as the Muslims that gave gave him his legitimacy run amuck.

When the colonialists left, most of Black Africa turned into hellholes, with the notable exception of Botswana, now 53 in world GDP, far above any other black African country.  When Botswana became independent they elected the man born to be King, and the place remained in good shape so long as he lived. Till the day he died, it was the fastest growing economy in Africa. So long as he lived, the place had low and stable taxes, and the best economic and personal freedom in Africa  – because he was elected on the basis of his royal birth, not elected on the basis of paying off one group with the lives and property of another group.

Unfortunately, popular dictators, such as Mugabe, have the same need to pay off their supporters as democratically elected presidents, such as Quattara, so I am less optimistic than Mencius Moldbug about the prospects for America transitioning to a relatively benign monarchy via one man one vote once.  When the deluge commences, let us aim for anarchy and/or feudalism, rather than monarchy.  It takes generations for the sons of dictators to become monarchs, and in the meantime you get most of the disadvantages of democracy with none of the benefits.

Google is evil

May 8th, 2011

Firefox reports your IP and all nearby wifi systems to Google. Thunderbird reports your IP to Google. From the nearby wifi systems, Google can locate you relative to nearby wifi points.. From a multitude of browsers reporting in, it can locate wifi systems relative to each other. When it does ground level photo drives for Google Earth, it locates wifi systems relative to streets and houses. Knowing the location of some wifi systems relative to streets and houses, it can locate all wifi systems relative to streets and houses. So when you launch a search for a sexual preference, or a politically incorrect fact, Google can tell where you are sitting, what house you are in, when you search for unapproved knowledge. It keeps this information forever.

The intent is that when you search for a restaurant or some such, Google will know to provide information about local restaurants. But Google notoriously plays ball with governments. More sinister uses are also possible. And why does Google need to know the geographic location where your email is coming from?

To turn this off:

  • Mozilla Firefox
    • Type ‘about:config’ in the address bar
    • Click through the warning
    • Type ‘geo.’ in the search box. A list of items appears
    • Doubleclick on the geo.enabled item till it reads ‘False’
    • Rightclick on the ‘geo.wifi.uri’ item and select ‘Modify’
    • Modify the item from evil google to ‘http://localhost’
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
    • Select Tools/Options/Avanced/General/Config Editor
    • click through the warning
    • type ‘geo.’ in the search box. A list of items appears
    • Doubleclick on the geo.enabled item till it reads ‘False’

Google piously proclaims:

Your privacy is extremely important to us, and Firefox never shares your location without your permission.

This is of course a lie. Firefox never shares your location to advertisers without your permission – but it does continually send your location to Google without your permission.

If your privacy was actually important to Google, the browser would only send this information to Google when advertisers requested it and you gave them permission.

Democracy in the Ivory Coast

April 27th, 2011

The UN refugee agency estimates that over a million people have fled.  Many of them are hiding in the jungle, and many of them have no food.

However, it piously avoids saying who is fleeing whom, and why.

The great majority of refugees are westernized Christians and animists  fleeing Muslims with a markedly lower level of civilization.  The great majority of refugees are not immigrants or the children of immigrants, but people who have lived on the coast for generations, who have now become exiles.

The refugees are people that made the Ivory Coast function.  Those that drove them out are immigrants, many of them illegal immigrants, or the children of illegal immigrants, that come from inland areas with a marked lower level of civilization, lower living standard, and less westernization – and less ability to operate a society that is, by African standards, advanced.

These immigrants were allowed in, in part to provide cheap labor, but in large part to provide cheap votes.  In due course, the tranzis bid for these cheap votes, and got them.  One of the things they offered in return for these cheap votes, was a takeover of the Ivory Coast by the new voting block, offered them the land and housing and equipment of the old voting block.

What has happened in that inlanders led by tranzis have taken the coast away from its previous inhabitants, and driven the coastal people  inland into the jungle.

These refugees are not fleeing a storm, or an earthquake.  They are fleeing democracy in action.

The Ivory Coast illustrates the two great problems of democracy:  The fact that bids for votes have no limit, since the politicians are bidding with the promise of stolen goods, and the propensity of governments, pursuing a cheaper vote, to elect a new people.  A government composed of people native to the ivory coast elected a new people, a people not native to the ivory coast, and that new people, in turn, elected a new government, a government of tranzis in place of a government of people native to the Ivory Coast.

Tranzis tend to have a socialist outlook, that stuff such as banks, ports, farms, belong to the people collectively, rather than individually, so it is natural for them to bid for votes with all of other people’s property.  And then those other people make problems, and have to be chased away from their property. And so they were.

The survival prospects of democracy

April 26th, 2011

Until the American Republic demonstrated impressive longevity, the conventional wisdom was that democracy was inherently short lived.  As soon as the masses discovered they could vote themselves rich, it would implode.

Today, we observe that if it does not fall apart immediately, the elite import cheaper votes, and then it falls apart.

The latest casualty of democracy is the Ivory Coast.  According the the mainstream media, everything is just lovely on the ivory coast, now that the Ivy League graduate and World Bank Bureaucrat has been installed by international forces over the evil dictator.

Yet somehow there are lots of anecdotes of ethnic cleansing and cannibalism, and those who are owed money by the Ivory Coast government are worried because the ports are closed, the banks are closed, and the crops are rotting in the fields.

In the Ivory Coast, we see the worst possible outcome of democracy.  First the top elements of the local elite imported cheap votes, then the transnational ruling elite used those imported voters as political cover to take power away from the top elements of the local elite, which process went out of control resulting in the ejection of the entire local elite – including the people who operated the farms, the banks, and the ports.  In the process, the cheap imported voters physically displaced the people who built and operated those farms and ports, and in some cases, ate them.

You think that could only happen in the third world?  Observe Detroit, though in Detroit they did not drop all the way to cannibalism.

What we are seeing in the Ivory Coast is an alliance of the top people (Ivy League and transnational bureaucrats) and the bottom people (Islamic illegal immigrants who have never had much contact with western civilization) displacing the middle people (farmers, bankers, and the like).  Unfortunately neither the top people, nor the bottom people actually produce anything.  The transnational elite, unlike the local elite that has just been replaced in the ivory coast, is parasitic and unproductive.

The Ivory Coast, where the banks are closed, the ports are closed, and the cocoa crop is rotting in untended fields, is the future of democracy.  The city of Detroit is the future of democracy.  Democracy collapses faster when you have blacks and/or Muslims voting, but Liverpool is starting to look a lot like Detroit.  In Detroit, the two legged feral animals are entirely black, in the ivory coast, entirely Muslim, but in Liverpool, mostly white,  Democracy, rather than race is the critical factor. The Ivory Coast would still be one of the most prosperous nations in Africa were it not for democracy.    In the Ivory Coast, democracy means that they really do eat the rich.  They have always been black, but were not eating people until the recent elections.  In the US, towards the end, we will very likely see members of one voting block eating members of another voting block, just as we are now seeing on the Ivory Coast.

And in America we cannot vote our way out of this problem, due to a combination of ballot box stuffing, as in the ivory coast, and the government electing a new people, as in the Ivory Coast.

Democracy has got to go, and is going to go, and the only question is how much damage it will do when it falls, and what will replace it.

The end state of democracy  is members of the winning voter blocks eating members of the defeated voter blocks as the lights go out. Democracy is not the American Republic, but the Ivory Coast.

Democracy in America started off as a republic of white property owning males, in a land where every hard working man could expect to eventually acquire property, so that most males eventually became eligible to vote.  The franchise inexorably expanded, because politicians always want voters whose votes are cheaper to buy.  And when there were no more cheap votes to be had by expanding the franchise, they set about importing cheap low IQ voters, the end state of this process being the Ivory Coast.

The ruling coalition of top and bottom, of ivy league and primitive savages, tends to get ever smaller at the top, and ever more inferior at the bottom, as at the top the self perpetuating elite becomes ever smaller and more detached from reality, and at the bottom, the votes it relies on get ever cheaper.  Vote buying is democracy’s weakness, because the ruling elite winds up relying on the cheapest and most easily manipulated source of votes, which tend to be the worst people – people incapable of operating a civilization, a ruling underclass, as in Detroit.

The ruling coalition of Ivy league and human garbage becomes ever smaller at the top, looking down on ordinary members of the elite, such as farmers from a vast height, till for lack of numbers the top element of the coalition loses control of the bottom element of its coalition – thus in Detroit, the community organizers took over, in the Ivory Coast, the cannibals.  The pretended democracy became all too horrifyingly real.

The transnational elite now have possession of the Ivory Coast banks and ports, but lack the ability to operate them.  Even less can the horde of savages that they have unleashed operate them.

Consensus

April 22nd, 2011

When Galileo explained the scientific method, he condemned consensus:

The testimony of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those who reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling I should agree that several reasoners would be worth more than one, just as several horses can haul more sacks of grain than one can. But reasoning is like racing and not like hauling, and a single Barbary steed can outrun a hundred dray horses

Peer review is consensus. Consensus is religion, not science. Peer review works as depicted in this excellent cartoon: Click on the snippet of the cartoon to see the full cartoon.

Peer Review

Peer Review in action

Observe the priestly robes worn by the scientists

The end is not nigh

April 21st, 2011

But it is in sight.

There is a lot of ruin in a nation, but we have had a lot of ruin.

The US government lacks cohesion, and is insolvent. Lack of cohesion means that in a crisis it is apt to disappear, dissolve into its parts, with each part seeking its own interest. Insolvency means a crisis is looming.

I would expect the Euro to collapse before the US dollar, and the Euro is not going to collapse all that soon, and I would expect Europe to collapse politically before the US government collapses politically, and European political collapse is still far off. I predict interesting times in the 2020s.

A lot of people have made the metaphor that the Democrats have been driving the bus towards the cliff at one hundred miles per hour, and the Republicans propose to slow down to ninety eight miles per hour, but are willing to compromise for ninety nine miles per hour. What are they thinking?

Noble prize winning economist Krugman explains what he is thinking, which is pretty much what the Office of Management and Budget explains it is thinking, so I suppose this is what they are all thinking: The government is going to save pots of and pots of money by economizing on various things, especially health care.

How, you may ask, is it going to economize on health care?

Among the many measures the government is deploying to save pots and pots of money on health care, is that the government is forming two large new bureaucracies with the job of telling hospitals, doctors, and patients, how to save money on health care.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Like a poker player in the grip of tilt, our ruling elite plan to solve their problems by doubling down on what got them into trouble.

Who rules the world?

April 17th, 2011

Tracing rulers academic connections yields an interesting picture. Thus Mugabe, like so many third world rulers, comes from the London School of Economics, but Harry Lee Kuan Yew was educated in Singapore. And lo and behold, Mugabe was installed in power by the “international community” aka the tranzis, while Harry Lee Kuan Yew was installed in power by Singaporeans.

A similar trace is visible in the Ivory Coast, where shortly before I wrote this, the “international community” held a blatantly rigged election, wherein Muslim cannibals were elected, under the leadership of a Muslim cannibal educated in an American Ivy League university. Since it was likely that the new elite would eat the old elite and their cats, the old elite was reluctant to acquiesce, so, as usual, the “international community” sent in peacekeeping troops. The “international community” says it is quite horrified that the new elite is killing the old elite and their cats, and sometimes eating them as I write this, and I suppose it truly is horrified, but not so horrified that they hold back from imposing the new elite. If massacres and sometimes cannibalism is taking place, it is supposedly all the old elite’s fault for resisting the benign prodemocracy forces of transnationalism.

This much resembles the Tranzi reaction to the crimes of Mugabe, and the Tranzi reaction to the Hutu genocide of the Tutsi, which genocide was supposedly not happening, was happening but was supposedly the fault of the old colonial elite, not the new Tranzi elite, and which the Tutsi supposedly brought upon themselves by their evil collaboration with the old colonial elite.

The man being imposed by Tranzi troops in the Ivory coast is Alassane Ouattara, educated in a US Ivy Leage university, and then sent directly from the Ivy League to the World Bank (a classic tranzi institution to rule those benighted third worlders) and then sent directly from the world bank in a rigged election to directly rule the ivory coast. He is not an ivory coast politician, but a World Bank bureaucrat. Seems, however, that because of the great respect for cultural diversity in the Ivy League, they overlooked to teach him that eating people is wrong. He may not personally eat people, but in the glorious Ivy League tradition of tolerance, is alarmingly tolerant of those that do.

The man being overthrown by tranzi troops in the Ivory coast is Laurent Gbagbo, who was also educated in a western university, though a somewhat less classy and prestigious one than Ouattara, but unlike Ouattara arrived in back in the ivory coast as a mere ordinary teacher, and worked his way up to ruler in local politics, unlike Quattara who worked is way up in the World Bank bureaucracy, and arrived in the Ivory coast from overseas to rule.

The power transfer in the Ivory Coast looks like it may have much the same effect as it did in Rhodesia, where politically unreliable farmers were removed from their farms, to be replaced by politically reliable non farmers, resulting in a total collapse of production. If the tranzis create a desert in the Ivory coast, as they did in Rhodesia, this will confirm that they would rather destroy wealth, than let anyone politically unreliable control it.

The same transnational elite runs the US, most of Europe, and most of the third world. Observe that when “gay pride day” was exported to most of the world, they used the made in US Ivy League word “gay” which shows who is calling the shots.

India was initially ruled by the LSE, but in India local elites have taken charge, and Singapore was independent of the LSE from the day it became independent of Malaysia. Stalin thought he was running the western progressive ruling elite, but the reason they were so on board with Stalinist infiltration is that they thought they were running Stalin. Maybe they were, but they were not running Khrushchev. China, they thought, was run by Stalin, and they ran Stalin, so they thought, but China was not run by Khrushchev, and they did not run Khrushchev.

So we have, already, furtively and conspiratorially, a united ruling elite that runs the US, Europe, and most third world shitholes – observe, for example, what is happening in the Ivory Coast – made-in-France massacres of the Christian and animist minority. The French ruling elite get the money, the power, and the chocolate, and the local Muslims get to kill and eat infidels, and their cats.

However, the tranzi elite does not run that part of the formerly third world that is doing OK, indeed getting out from under that transnational ruling elite seems to be a precondition for doing OK. You cannot get rich unless you let competent people run production, and if you let competent people run production that is a threat to tranzi power. The tranzi elite colonized in the name of uprooting colonialism, a strategy that, as in Rhodesia, is apt to create deserts. In Singapore and Hong Kong the local eurasian elite, colonialist descended, held power. In Botswana, the partially black, colonial descended elite held on power for a while, but may have lost it now. Zimbabwe, a tool of the tranzis, invaded, Botswana had to turn the tranzis for help, and the tranzi assistance came, naturally, with strings attached, with the result that Botswana, like South Africa, may now be descending into the usual African chaos. Hard to tell, since the each elite hides behind the other.

So at present, if the world ruling elite simply dropped their cover, the transnational elite would rule a large part of the world, but not enough of the world to call themselves “United World Government” in place of “United States Government”

Hide the decline, part umpteen

April 12th, 2011

Stephan and Rachit cored lots of trees, to estimate weather in past years.  In a cold climate, near the tree line, a tree will generally grow more if the weather is warm than if it is cold, though lots of other things affect it too.  Still, if you check lots of trees over a wide area of very cold land, other factors will probably average out, and the rate of growth,the width of the tree rings, will largely indicate temperature.  And Stephan and Rachit cored a lot of trees, over a lot of very cold land, while being attacked by hordes of ravenous mosquitoes.

Yet somehow, strange to report, only about a tenth of the trees they cored were used to construct a hockey stick graph.  Most of their data was quietly buried as unwanted, but leaked in the climategate files documents/briffa-treering-external/stepan.  Recently Climate Audit took a look at this neglected data.

Why, you may ask, were some trees included and other trees, the vast majority of the trees, not included?

Climate Audit constructs a graph of growth.  The red line is the growth rate of the small set of trees the Anthropogenic Global Warmists chose to use for their hockey stick of doom.  The black line is growth rate for all of the trees that Stephan and Rachit cored while fighting off mosquitoes, including the vast majority of trees which the the Warmists somehow chose to not use.

Cherry picking a hockey stick

What the real data showed

Observe that the red line, the cherry picked trees, show something dramatic and unusual happening in the twentieth century, especially the late twentieth century, show something like a hockey stick.  The unselected trees, the vast majority of the trees, show a slight warming trend over centuries, but no more so in the twentieth century than in any other century.

Conservative bloggers declare victory

April 10th, 2011

According to Strata and others, the outcome of the budget negotiations (to reduce by one percent spending that was recently increased by by thirty percent) was a mighty victory.

By a vote of approximately ten to one, the US House of Representatives voted to continue at slightly lower speed on a course that leads to bankruptcy, hyperinflation, social collapse, and, if we are lucky, civil war in the next decade or two.