tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60618201221338250652024-03-06T05:04:59.629+11:00ledlogPatrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.comBlogger134125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-49184072021241788042022-07-03T19:41:00.009+10:002022-08-18T21:13:30.231+10:00Climate Change<p></p><h2 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Preamble</span></h2><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">While the war in the Ukraine goes on, fuel prices increase. This prompted a work colleague to stop driving their diesel car, for recreation, on the weekends. As they told me this, I thought "I ride to work everyday, to prevent just that little bit more carbon from going into the atmosphere, and you cruise around, in a huge vehicle, for pleasure?"</span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>In the Anthropocene, each litre of petrol burnt in a car melts over a tonne of glacial ice. (Based on 652g carbon per litre of petrol)</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/53230928-the-best-of-times-the-worst-of-times" target="_blank">The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science</a></i><span>, Paul Behrens.</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Behrens calculated that from initial inputs at <a href="#">HOW MUCH ICE IS MELTED BY EACH CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSION?</a></span><blockquote><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycleice.html" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #24890d; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">According to the USGS</a>, there 24,064,000 km<span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1ex; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">3</span> of ice and snow in the world.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/8/e1500589" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; color: #24890d; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">According to Winkelmann et al. (2015)</a>, it would take about 10,000 GtC to melt (nearly) all of this ice.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; margin: 0px 0px 24px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: arial;">If we divide 24,064,000 km<span style="border: 0px; bottom: 1ex; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">3</span> by 10,000 GtC, assume the density of the ice is 1 kg per liter, and do the appropriate unit conversions, we can conclude that each kg of carbon emitted as CO<span style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> will ultimately melt about 2,400 kg of ice.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">If you do the units conversion, this means that each American on average emits enough CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;"> every 3 seconds to ultimately add about another liter of water to the oceans. The Europeans emit enough CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;"> to add another liter to sea-level rise every 8 seconds, and the sub-Saharan Africans add a liter of seawater’s worth of CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;"> emissions every minute.</span></span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">[...]</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">Admittedly, by the time scales of our ordinary activities, ice sheets take a long time to melt. The melting caused by a CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;"> emission today will extend out over thousands of years.</span></span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/how-much-ice-is-melted-by-each-carbon-dioxide-emission/" style="text-transform: uppercase;" target="_blank">HOW MUCH ICE IS MELTED BY EACH CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSION?</a></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Returning to the discussion with my colleague, it doesn't matter all that much what each of us do; whether I ride, religiously, or they drive, obsessively. We're just two people out of eight billion. Two people that have contributed <b>vastly </b>more carbon to the atmosphere than almost all of those other eight billion and orders of magnitude more than any humans have ever.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I've burnt tonnes of carbon over my life, in various ways. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">What is obscene is that I don't even know how much carbon I've dumped into the atmosphere. All the work to calculate this could have been done decades ago. The entire climate change problem could have been calculated, mitigated and resolved decades ago. It wasn't mitigated. And it </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>won't</b></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b> </b>be mitigated.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The political and media </span><span style="font-family: arial;">idiots</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">think we can adapt to climate change while the billionaires think they can escape to Mars.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We have condemned the future to a world of climate chaos.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">420 ppm</span></h2><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We hit 420 ppm of <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>at <a href="https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/mlo.html" target="_blank">Mauna Loa</a> observatory in April 2022. In pre-industrial times, before 1750, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial;">was about 280 ppm. It's increased by 50%.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Our ancestors may have looked a bit like this artist's depiction of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proconsul_(mammal)" target="_blank">proconsul</a> <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/7/graphic-carbon-dioxide-hits-new-high/" target="_blank">the last time there was this much <span style="background-color: white;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> in the atmosphere</a>.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nzlLj1k9Tmv2osC9KIgaSfFefBcAbZmEymO2WoZRhk0eZoeiitCHtivCW93x8W6oxSeK3GxnpLJtsSsS9uD932YutkAbnhKzYFd79WFf-6T26ZXvHTlo3hJvYcChB5tIESo7_NH8qIbhZXcZBadcsAymSFxr-J8-Ej-P6OiP-fwnBfYB28Y7X14JHQ/s1320/Proconsul_africanus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="1320" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2nzlLj1k9Tmv2osC9KIgaSfFefBcAbZmEymO2WoZRhk0eZoeiitCHtivCW93x8W6oxSeK3GxnpLJtsSsS9uD932YutkAbnhKzYFd79WFf-6T26ZXvHTlo3hJvYcChB5tIESo7_NH8qIbhZXcZBadcsAymSFxr-J8-Ej-P6OiP-fwnBfYB28Y7X14JHQ/s320/Proconsul_africanus.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: #212529;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">...when was the last time that CO2 levels were this high, and what was the climate like back then? </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212529; font-size: 14px;">There is no single, agreed-upon answer to those questions as studies show a wide date range from between 800,000 to 15 million years ago. </span><a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-last-time-co2-was-this-high-humans-didnt-exist-15938" target="_blank">The Last Time CO2 Was This High, Humans Didn’t Exist</a></span></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: normal;">We are now a people living outside of time.</span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We can't get the carbon out</span></h2><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Unfortunately, though we absentmindedly dumped hundreds of billions of tonnes of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span><span style="font-family: arial;">into the atmosphere (</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://www.iea.org/news/global-co2-emissions-rebounded-to-their-highest-level-in-history-in-2021" target="_blank">36.3 billion tonnes for 2021 alone</a>)</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> we don't have any way to get it back out beyond some "interesting" proposals. They are:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Trees: This won't work because they provide no permanent means to sequester the carbon over the long term. To work, they would need to take in the carbon and lock it away for tens of thousands of years. Also, as the planet heats, trees are increasingly burning, putting the <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>back into the atmosphere decades before they otherwise would have naturally.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_fertilization" target="_blank">Ocean fertilisation</a>: Fertilise the ocean with iron particles to promote algal blooms that will grow, capturing CO<span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; outline: none; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span>, die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, sequestering the carbon as it does so. There are no figures for <i>actual </i>carbon sequestered by this method.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_air_capture" target="_blank">Direct air capture</a> (DAC): The IEA have <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/direct-air-capture" target="_blank">a page on it</a>. 19 operating plants, capturing 8000 tonnes of <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span>/year, maybe getting as high as about 1,000 Mt <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span>/year captured by 2050. However, that's the "maybe" future; current levels are: <b>0.01 Mt/year CO<span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; outline: none; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span> removed</b> vs <b>36,300 Mt/year added</b> (next year, the rate per year added will have increased more than the increase in the rate removed). If we wanted to use only DAC to clean-up our carbon pollution, it would have to <b>increase by 25 million times its current level</b>, with absolutely no extra emissions involved in any of that scaling up (building, operating, maintenance and decommission of the facilities).</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Direct seawater capture: There is a <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acssuschemeng.0c08561" target="_blank">recent paper</a> on this. Seems less daft than DAC ("water contains nearly 150 times more CO<span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0; outline: none; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white;"> than air per unit volume"</span>). There are no operating plants.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioenergy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage" target="_blank">Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage</a>: This is taking plants that would otherwise release the <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>when they die and using human intervention to store it. The 5 facilities are removing 1.5 Mt <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span>/year. We would need to quickly ramp up to <b>30,000 times that rate,</b> with no increase in emissions to achieve that, for it to deal with current emissions.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar" target="_blank">Biochar</a>: a process to burn organic matter to make charcoal that could pull <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>into it. According to <a href="http://www.ierm.ed.ac.uk/homes/sshackle/WP2.pdf" target="_blank">UKBR</a>, we might be able to capture as much as 10 billion tonnes/year by 2100 (but <b>we're currently dumping nearly 4 times that annual right now</b>).</span></li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Can we bounce it back?</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_geoengineering" target="_blank">geo-engineering</a> approach to reduce global heating is to bounce the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_radiation" target="_blank">shortwave radiation</a> from the sun back into space before it can become <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outgoing_longwave_radiation" target="_blank">outgoing longwave radiation</a> (OLR) and then be potentially absorbed as heat by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Below are some of the proposals.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_0QrwVmVYs7p4veYMcVslXStdp9-_5hVO9EVbVt1zmiCwuTE22v99-nI-AN-kUpdzS82iUs4kDkkPnYqFTBGfffFJqLnpM2XGjLrVAeUkNhCoXLW6TQuSjT6cvlqJpOD8_sVqA-b-EonoJ_P8vF8PLV_bl-DVvRUrIkKywzBEwCmgqRH7jY471pM_yQ/s908/SPICE_SRM_overview.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="671" data-original-width="908" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_0QrwVmVYs7p4veYMcVslXStdp9-_5hVO9EVbVt1zmiCwuTE22v99-nI-AN-kUpdzS82iUs4kDkkPnYqFTBGfffFJqLnpM2XGjLrVAeUkNhCoXLW6TQuSjT6cvlqJpOD8_sVqA-b-EonoJ_P8vF8PLV_bl-DVvRUrIkKywzBEwCmgqRH7jY471pM_yQ/w400-h295/SPICE_SRM_overview.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_mirror_(climate_engineering)" target="_blank">Space mirrors</a>: Not even sure why anyone would suggest this. Sunlight doesn't have to be <b>reflected </b>in space, it's sufficient to simply absorb it; any way to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching earth.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade" target="_blank">Space sunshield</a>: A more complete idea than space mirrors. Although probably the most outrageous idea, something we could lose control of, and probably not even feasible in the huge scale of the shield that is required... other than all that, maybe?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aerosol_injection" target="_blank">Stratospheric aerosol injection</a>: This is what the Indian government does in the fictional book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ministry_for_the_Future" target="_blank">Ministry for the Future</a>. Without reducing our carbon use, it would have to be done for all time.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening" target="_blank">Marine cloud brightening</a>: Create more clouds so they can bounce the sunlight back before it hits the land/ocean. We would never be able to stop doing this either. If we stopped, the sun might get through again. Also, do we want more clouds?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_cloud_thinning" target="_blank">Cirrus cloud thinning</a>: Cirrus clouds are up high. Apparently they act like a blanket in the same sort of way that </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span><span style="font-family: arial;">does. If we reduce them, maybe more of OLR will get past. But how are we going to do this without messing anything else up?</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Terrestrial mirrors: Someone calculated we'd have to cover <a href="https://www.arcticdeathspiral.org/geo_engineering_using_mirrors.htm" target="_blank">2.3% of the world with mirrors to stop the heating</a>. That is an <b>immense</b> area. But once you build the mirror, it'll work for years (unlike the cloud/aerosol-based solutions that require constant energy inputs). It doesn't seem like anyone is seriously considering mirrors, but they seem like an okay idea to me. Low tech. Low energy input to build. Would have a local and regional effect.</span></li></ul><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Geo-engineering in general</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm not concerned about the idea of geo-engineering. We're already doing that on a monumental scale. But the ideas above seem, as something who isn't a physicists, like they're not actually achievable given a limited amount of hydrocarbons we have to do it with. They look like bad, coffee-stained, "back of napkin" ideas by a high-schooler. Not necessarily</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> crazy...</span></div></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Why didn't we stop burning carbon?</span></h2><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I don't really know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We could blame the West. <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2">They've contributed most of the carbon</a> that's in the atmosphere, even if China and India will take over soon. However, many people in the West didn't significantly contribute to this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We could blame overpopulation. Yet, only about 20% of the world populace alive today have significantly contributed to <span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2 </span>levels.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We could blame fossil fuel corporations. They have lied about climate change, constantly, decade after decade. For sure, these denialists are the greatest criminals that have ever existed - far worse than Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, etc. These denialists have helped transform the future, condemning billions to suffering and death. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">But we went along for the ride using the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">petrol, diesel, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">plastics, fertiliser, pesticides, synthetic clothing, fossil gas for heating, electricity, kerosine for air travel. Their lies weren't very difficult to see through. It was simply easier to hop on the denial-wagon with them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We could blame capitalism. Afterall, <b>there is no profit in preventing climate change</b>. Yet capitalism exists only as a vicious world religion for the ever expanding accumulation of capital.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets! “Industry furnishes the material which saving accumulates.” Therefore, save, save, i.e., reconvert the greatest possible portion of surplus-value, or surplus-product into capital! Accumulation for accumulation’s sake, production for production’s sake: by this formula classical economy expressed the historical mission of the bourgeoisie, and did not for a single instant deceive itself over the birth-throes of wealth. But what avails lamentation in the face of historical necessity? If to classical economy, the proletarian is but a machine for the production of surplus-value; on the other hand, the capitalist is in its eyes only a machine for the conversion of this surplus-value into additional capital.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">Karl Marx, <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm" target="_blank"><i>Capital</i> volume 1, chapter 24</a></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Capitalism trapped us in an obsession with ourselves, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">an obsession </span><span style="font-family: arial;">with </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>value</b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">, and while we've been doing that for the past 270-odd years, we didn't notice that we've now condemned those that come after us to a life of ever increasing harshness, suffering and death. And yet, capitalism is only an ideology we created for ourselves. At every point we've had the option to ditch it and adopt a new way of interacting with each other and the world. We didn't do that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">From the 19th century (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Newton_Foote" target="_blank">Foote</a> 1856, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall" target="_blank">Tyndall</a> 1859, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect" target="_blank">Arrenhieus</a> 1896), to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Stewart_Callendar" target="_blank">Callender</a> 1938 and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_David_Keeling" target="_blank">Keeling</a> 1958 in the 20th Century, and then conclusively with GISS, Hansen and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen#US_Senate_committee_testimony" target="_blank">the senate enquiry</a> 1988 and the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/about/history/" target="_blank">first IPCC report</a> 1990 we've known what we've been doing but we did it anyway. 34-166 years of an increasing level of certainty until we knew for sure, 32 years ago; followed by 32-34 years of denial and inaction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Yet, i</span><span style="font-family: arial;">t was </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>only </b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">32 years to completely transform our interpersonal and environmental relationships, globally. All 8 billion of us, cooperating to prevent what is coming after hundreds and hundreds of years (thousands?) of not doing </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>anything </b></span><span style="font-family: arial;">remotely like that. It's not especially surprising that we failed. The denialists, corporations, policy-makers and capitalists have been especially egregious scum and villainy these last decades, but odds were extremely slim of being about to turn this around anyway.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Ultimately, I don't even blame capitalism. Anthropogenic climate change is an extremely unfortunate side-effect of treating this planet like a garbage dump. We've been doing that for a very long time already. Capitalism simply allowed us to scale that up by more than two orders of magnitude times faster than any natural rate (a rate no-one in the past 10,000 years of civilisation has even the remotest experience).</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: arial; font-size: 16.64px;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">Carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.</span> </span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/">https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/</a></span></p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><h2 style="font-size: large; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Collapse</span></h2><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Collapse. It's coming. It's a bit scary. It's not possible to know what it'll be like and how it'll form. When I first started thinking about it I was horrified and incredulous. I was thinking of the end of the human species. Now I think that climate change doesn't necessarily mean human extinction. Certainly, it's t</span><span>he end of neoliberalism and</span><span> globalisation. I can imagine fascism taking hold and holding on for many decades but not "a boot stamping on a human face - forever." (George Orwell, </span><i>1984</i><span>) Fascism requires large amounts of energy and stable natural conditions so that humans can turn on each other. It'll be difficult to attack yourself when you're constantly reeling from one climate catastrophe after another. Capitalism will hang on, after all those leave, for as long as it can, but it too can't survive.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We could choose planned decline, if we wanted. De-growth. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">De-populate.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Re-wild. Keep as much of the good stuff we received from industrial society as we can. Decline while delaying collapse as long as possible. I don't think that'll happen either though. It's looking more like we'll go out in a blaze of self-immolation.</span></p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">So, we're Doomed?</span></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As a species, we're not doomed by anthropogenic climate change. However, tens of thousands of other species are <b>already </b>doomed to go extinct. At this rate, with no change in our activity, Capitalism and complex civilisation will not be able to continue much beyond the 21st century. Billions of people (instead of the current millions) will suffer this century and many will die from climate change (heatwaves, crop failures, increasingly intense and frequent disasters, climate wars, etc.) But humans could survive in many areas of the world well beyond this century.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_Rebellion" target="_blank">Extinction Rebellion</a> (XR), one of the groups <b>trying </b>to do something to stop what's coming are interesting in that they <b>overestimate </b>the effect of climate change (and the larger environmental devastation) on humanity, calling it an "existential crisis" - while <b>underestimating</b> what's required to get governments to act on climate change. <a href="https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/" target="_blank">They claim</a> "evidence shows that we need the involvement of 3.5% of the population to succeed". I suspect XR believe this because of that underestimation of the scale of the challenge. It's not because oil companies, politicians and the rich nations are (merely) dickheads who don't care. They <b>are </b>dickheads. They're liars and they're evil. Nevertheless, they can't fix what would have required systemic change. They're dickheads but also not idiots - they're not going to do anything that would end their way of life.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: arial;">XR are also correct in the statement that "we have the worst possible leaders at the worst possible time in history". This is the age - the 21st Century - when we have committed the greatest crime against humanity that any people have ever committed. It's greater than all previous crimes combined. All the holocausts and genocides, all wars and oppressive regimes, they are nothing next to the fossil fuel catastrophe.</span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Is there no hope?</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There is no hope. Climate change is here now and we are doing nothing to prevent it. We could do much to slow it, but it's useless to be delusional about what's going to happen. We'll surpass 1.5°C of warming. We'll surpass 2</span><span style="font-family: arial;">°C</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> not long after. The possibility to prevent 4</span><span style="font-family: arial;">°C</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> of warming by 2100 is vanishingly small while we do nothing. For the past 32 years, we've looked at graphs like the below and talked about how we'll implement the policies. Yes, we'll all do "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_neutrality" target="_blank">net zero</a>", <b>later</b>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0mTZZhPC2Kt8_cVEjOFG5peFujsOUO_lTcx1WLF5W7-dadqZiignt2dV8MWEfWpDu_cNUxAtCQ9jCOBB-r4zqy9CD2bIwYPdBapzHK9I3-4iMDqGImr3_20RNZYEs-Js14sDpvy_Eh5fzpCcFcU6ekcEfoFQBF-BORvfCw3VfHAxg-F03GNOhL-iEpw/s960/Greenhouse_gas_emission_scenarios_01.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="960" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0mTZZhPC2Kt8_cVEjOFG5peFujsOUO_lTcx1WLF5W7-dadqZiignt2dV8MWEfWpDu_cNUxAtCQ9jCOBB-r4zqy9CD2bIwYPdBapzHK9I3-4iMDqGImr3_20RNZYEs-Js14sDpvy_Eh5fzpCcFcU6ekcEfoFQBF-BORvfCw3VfHAxg-F03GNOhL-iEpw/w400-h340/Greenhouse_gas_emission_scenarios_01.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">What we need to be looking at is the following graph. The "current policies" with the only current policy in effect.</span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetwqv1h8jvr_IZgh3FxHvHGoyvEl3Ey3Bss2wPam0ucUY0TLqfEBdrtGr0o2rmwFTNEvDHDxVLt-IW2_qEdibvXEtx8jlJ66vPFk70o72KYwuWJ181EoslRXWG9GEnoe5R1A2qyKR7N-vPhc_lRKtQTYHnerz2pnjrOZ2Lcqt9p-rn-ju4X6i_OolIg/s960/Greenhouse_gas_emission_scenarios_02.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="960" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhetwqv1h8jvr_IZgh3FxHvHGoyvEl3Ey3Bss2wPam0ucUY0TLqfEBdrtGr0o2rmwFTNEvDHDxVLt-IW2_qEdibvXEtx8jlJ66vPFk70o72KYwuWJ181EoslRXWG9GEnoe5R1A2qyKR7N-vPhc_lRKtQTYHnerz2pnjrOZ2Lcqt9p-rn-ju4X6i_OolIg/w400-h340/Greenhouse_gas_emission_scenarios_02.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Australia</span></h2></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>There was a federal election in Australia recently. The winners claimed to be ending "the climate wars". Presumably all they mean by that is the end of decades of denialism that has become part of the Australian pop culture. All they've done is shifted to <b>functional </b>denialism, with the approval of the the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ultra-polluting-scarborough-pluto-gas-project-could-blow-through-labors-climate-target-and-it-just-got-the-green-light-184379" target="_blank">Scarborough-Pluto gas project</a> </span><span>(i.e., no intention to do anything - I guess that's stage 2 of </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial" target="_blank">The 5 stages of climate denial are on display ahead of the IPCC report</a><span>)</span><span>. It's bad faith denialism. Doublespeak. The Australian governments UN climate agreement is </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHXmLrdGFM" target="_blank">only concerned with electricity</a><span>. Nothing about transport, construction, agriculture, heating, fashion and all the other contributors to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b;">CO</span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2b2b2b; height: 0px; line-height: 0; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 0.5ex; vertical-align: baseline;">2</span><span> emissions. Nothing about mitigation.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">July 2022 (as I publish this): <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-03/sydney-floods-where-are-the-warnings-forecast-emergency/101204376" target="_blank">The floods are back, again</a>.</span></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Acceptance</span></h2><div><span style="font-family: arial;">After decades of living through climate change, I kind of accept it now. That doesn't mean I don't think about it a lot. Doesn't mean I wouldn't want to be a part of doing something to stop climate change. Doesn't mean I'm a doomer.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It means I'm letting it go a bit. I won't join the nihilistic hedonists that is the Australian Way. But I accept it's happening and I'm along for the ride. I'm learning to accept the decline of complex civilisation.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I may even get to explore some of the beautiful ruins before I go.</span></div><p></p><p></p>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-35836148987490894152022-07-02T11:25:00.008+10:002022-07-02T11:28:22.890+10:00The Changing Climate<p><span style="font-family: arial;">I found two pages about climate change in a Reader's Digest Atlas, published 1987. That's one year before Hansen's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen#Climate_change_activism" target="_blank">US Senate committee testimony</a>. Is that a good enough excuse? (The emphasis below is mine.)</span></p><p></p><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The Changing Climate</b></span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We inhabit a thin, damp tissue of the atmosphere, where hospitable warmth and moisture are maintained in a critical balance. What we think of as the planet's "normal" weather patterns are typical only of the period in which we live.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Clues to the climate of the future lie in the facts of the past. <b>There is every likelihood that the climatic conditions that gripped the Earth at the height of the last ice age 18,000 years ago will return one day. A drop in global average temperature of only 4°F (2°C) could initiate a new ice age. The advancing glaciers would imprison so much of the world's water that the oceans would shrink, stripping the seas from the continental shelves.</b> New York City would lie under an ice sheet thick enough to bury the Empire State Building twice over. Montreal, Detroit, and Chicago would be entombed in snow, and the Midwestern prairies would survive only as wind-whipped steppe. Japan would become a peninsula of Asia, and you would be able to walk from England to France. On the other hand, some scientists believe that a rise of only a few degrees in global temperature would start a meltdown of the polar ice sheets and flood low-lying cities worldwide.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Many forces interact to create changes in the Earth's climate. These include tilts in the planet's axis and changes in its orbital path, sunspots that swell the stream of radiation emitted by the Sun, and spasms of volcanic activity that hurl veils of dust into the atmosphere.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeK1vWm8uyFiAHaAKLLCcSc7QoW_XU_GKBhqEo_NOef11ybbOG1S46ojKUW9yDmoGb01nFzxzJePhw-jtJj6aU0mj7ZVEredBy0ILufC3ZnvOe0i_jPB2IhoRe16utDUzTPtPTjGX0XUpGcKF5PBo3jsuVDS8lk62gOQbGgN_sgYA9Wg-hR9p_A7UxCQ/s1739/Ice-Age%20World.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1698" data-original-width="1739" height="624" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeK1vWm8uyFiAHaAKLLCcSc7QoW_XU_GKBhqEo_NOef11ybbOG1S46ojKUW9yDmoGb01nFzxzJePhw-jtJj6aU0mj7ZVEredBy0ILufC3ZnvOe0i_jPB2IhoRe16utDUzTPtPTjGX0XUpGcKF5PBo3jsuVDS8lk62gOQbGgN_sgYA9Wg-hR9p_A7UxCQ/w640-h624/Ice-Age%20World.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1. ICE COVER. Ice sheets covered much of North America and Europe, New York, Berlin, Stockholm, Montreal, and Copenhagen would be buried beneath the ice if such conditions returned. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">2. CONTINENTAL CONNECTIONS. The sea level was lower, baring continental shelves and creating land bridges, Asian nomads migrated to America over the bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">3. GREAT LAKE. Fed by melting snow from the Rockies, the now-vanished Lake Bonneville grew almost as big as today's Lake Michigan. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">4. DRY LAND. Monsoons were weaker than today, with the result that in West Africa the Sahara stretched farther south than its present extent. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">5. LARGER LAKES AND INLAND SEAS. Because of lower temperatures, there was less evaporation in arid lands, and some lakes and inland seas increased in size. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6. POLAR HIGH. Vast high-pressure cells lingered over the polar ice sheets. Strong winds blew silt across the barren areas surrounding the ice and created dust storms. </span> </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><p></p>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-10184825571320750672022-04-17T22:04:00.007+10:002022-04-17T22:14:10.100+10:00From Hell book review<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwjDC7u5qjeQRcH54yjAuGe6dcCuoVTzrPEqCuIboOuMNq_FvhIC3I9TZzDYX7wfsQy4Mho6K8NGCOh-AjSR-hw5-qIirAAehCmTPyNDoXaoq2JAs_DzWZrncHURzU_J5tKEep4BbNLgbXLONmN_dqHvqWPKnIVL8BsG6TMltqf-QqrSa3wYCPSAhRVA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1837" data-original-width="1400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiwjDC7u5qjeQRcH54yjAuGe6dcCuoVTzrPEqCuIboOuMNq_FvhIC3I9TZzDYX7wfsQy4Mho6K8NGCOh-AjSR-hw5-qIirAAehCmTPyNDoXaoq2JAs_DzWZrncHURzU_J5tKEep4BbNLgbXLONmN_dqHvqWPKnIVL8BsG6TMltqf-QqrSa3wYCPSAhRVA=w305-h400" width="305" /></a></div><p>I'm planning to read a good portion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore" target="_blank">Alan Moore</a> comics. I got to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell" target="_blank">From Hell</a> this week. My review:</p>A most unnecessary book. It is the only book I've read where I found the appendix more interesting than the book itself.<div><br /></div><div>The best line is<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>“The one place Gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity.”</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's no <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism_and_religion#Karl_Marx_and_Friedrich_Engels_on_religion" target="_blank">"opium of the people" schtick from Marx</a> - which describes religion nearly perfectly - but it's up there.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I learned what a twopenny hangover was. However, having just read <a href="https://mikedashhistory.com/2021/05/19/the-twopenny-hangover/" target="_blank">this</a>, it appears I already learnt that decades ago when I read <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London" target="_blank">Down and Out in Paris and London</a></i>, while on a George Orwell back catalogue read and had merely forgotten. The joys of old age - you can forget and learn something you forgot you'd already learnt. I remember thinking, when I was young, "gee, wouldn't it be great if I forgot the plot of Star Wars? I could then watch it for the first time."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A funny snippet from the appendix that also happened to explain something I thought was a bizarre inclusion:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>Although the weights removed from Druitt's pockets were described as "stones" by the policeman who was summoned after watermen had pulled the decomposing body form the river, I have chosen to suggest this was deliberate blurring of the evidence. I have no reason for supposing this to be the truth, and indeed only brought the bricks into the scene so that I would have another opportunity to say malignant and unfounded things about the Freemasons.</blockquote><p>I also learnt that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetic_Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn">the Golden Dawn</a> aren't just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Dawn_(Greece)" target="_blank">a bunch of Greek fascists</a>.</p><p>I don't have particularly negative things to say about this book. It is simply a book that never needed to be written. The world has enough books that have a fascination with violence against women.</p></div></div>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-41285529878358875972021-12-31T18:50:00.003+11:002021-12-31T18:50:24.683+11:00Pathfinding revisited<p>The other day someone enquired about some code I wrote almost 10 years ago. It's about <a href="https://ledpup.blogspot.com/2011/06/unity-hexagons-and-path-finding.html">pathfinding, hexagons and Unity</a>.</p><p>Unity projects are a pain. When I don't use it for about 2 weeks, I forget everything about it. Getting it into source control is another issue in itself.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAznIbp9Wsh1KJYDFz3Nkk3nCHqg_4yZ9zGmnUrViKjbmMjahEnc4eqsHpcYcxbLEhgzik8DJ5PbNYsDswQiKL8w1_opVfD8nQtq2gU3HYSu_kfizVLx5mLH88P34B9BGkg5Jbd5YPuYp/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="893" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiAznIbp9Wsh1KJYDFz3Nkk3nCHqg_4yZ9zGmnUrViKjbmMjahEnc4eqsHpcYcxbLEhgzik8DJ5PbNYsDswQiKL8w1_opVfD8nQtq2gU3HYSu_kfizVLx5mLH88P34B9BGkg5Jbd5YPuYp/w400-h398/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />It's working again. It's on <a href="https://github.com/ledpup/HexagonalPathfinding">github</a>. I followed <a href="https://thoughtbot.com/blog/how-to-git-with-unity">How to Git with Unity</a> to get the code properly under source control.<p></p><div>Maybe I'll look at it again in another ten years.</div>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-27966270942612430612019-02-12T11:28:00.001+11:002019-02-12T11:32:00.276+11:00Windows 10 and different languages/keyboards suckI switch my input language between English and Spanish. Sometimes it switches on me without me wanting it to. It is caused by an accidental combination of key-strokes. I'm fine with Windows -> spacebar.<br />
<br />
Below is how to fix the accidentals:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<ol>
<li>Go to Settings -> Typing</li>
<li>Then click Advanced keyboard settings</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2o6JEKAJz958CREgTkw0a1_vc93WnS64xeHNVMZTpZE9tfv9NaQ7CaWS2hw3a4BWVAJtDEjasCrA8UnWWRseGWoQUzyFFCjeCue9-DvWP0X2JLAxA6FutviNDIgOVqtQjigcLM3mODSC/s1600/Settings+2019-02-12+11.13.49.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="1007" data-original-width="815" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2o6JEKAJz958CREgTkw0a1_vc93WnS64xeHNVMZTpZE9tfv9NaQ7CaWS2hw3a4BWVAJtDEjasCrA8UnWWRseGWoQUzyFFCjeCue9-DvWP0X2JLAxA6FutviNDIgOVqtQjigcLM3mODSC/s640/Settings+2019-02-12+11.13.49.png" width="515" /></a></div>
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<li>Language bar options<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LgoVTTNxCeyMEmwJH_ZgnjCg_nlyYo696p1ao1Uoc_VpCfOI-v8B6_Fs7ZveKPSk_hWc6RuwyprovkRVttXGIa6ZuD6o1IDkWJ3MzzAo27RhZfrtmjiCw0JHYLvBd58YYqvjEVDE88iP/s1600/Settings+2019-02-12+11.18.27.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="710" data-original-width="583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LgoVTTNxCeyMEmwJH_ZgnjCg_nlyYo696p1ao1Uoc_VpCfOI-v8B6_Fs7ZveKPSk_hWc6RuwyprovkRVttXGIa6ZuD6o1IDkWJ3MzzAo27RhZfrtmjiCw0JHYLvBd58YYqvjEVDE88iP/s640/Settings+2019-02-12+11.18.27.png" width="524" /></a></li>
<li>Advanced Key Settings<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-UnAXEfYVSc3DOQvgAo67tXEINzhmuKIQgS23gsbzdWAoVJ4YlY2C4Kw0tT4zCYp5ZtiC-9fSgT6mWjyx8ZQiKg5GbErViEl6-RRFJOV5ho_HyHrqpJftVkFkUzO7Dbx-KYRsO6C7F6o/s1600/Text+Services+and+Input+Languages+2019-02-12+11.19.51.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="418" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-UnAXEfYVSc3DOQvgAo67tXEINzhmuKIQgS23gsbzdWAoVJ4YlY2C4Kw0tT4zCYp5ZtiC-9fSgT6mWjyx8ZQiKg5GbErViEl6-RRFJOV5ho_HyHrqpJftVkFkUzO7Dbx-KYRsO6C7F6o/s400/Text+Services+and+Input+Languages+2019-02-12+11.19.51.png" width="343" /></a></li>
<li>Finally, turn off those awful other keystroke options<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhq_AQfSnjC7akeCN2NMwK7opox_ggilWr59eOPHWc73SnjIZ0vbHJKlhE2EYuyunB2hEykEC2sX7Ac3LZGqcT1VIDVFnTQ5tmnf1uMBRP06HwDRcpGq60v4SYOagoMISi3izYZ049iVq/s1600/Change+Key+Sequence+2019-02-12+11.25.14.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="827" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOhq_AQfSnjC7akeCN2NMwK7opox_ggilWr59eOPHWc73SnjIZ0vbHJKlhE2EYuyunB2hEykEC2sX7Ac3LZGqcT1VIDVFnTQ5tmnf1uMBRP06HwDRcpGq60v4SYOagoMISi3izYZ049iVq/s400/Change+Key+Sequence+2019-02-12+11.25.14.png" width="400" /></a></li>
</ol>
<div>
Finding those options is not easy to do. Really, really bad UX Microsoft.</div>
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<br />Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-65450600175198945322018-08-07T20:27:00.000+10:002018-08-07T21:06:32.971+10:00Edison Robot<div style="text-align: justify;">
Wow, over 5 years since I wrote a blog entry. Seems like yesterday.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC1BN7KuIsoq_WKmIAdbglNAddDwdEzRL_G5FjByukB921rervyB9nhY0vZ66iD7vKQKWD8LqUqG_aa2lshOLxum3F1v1aIlNgWuj6MFCsxrHO-RhadxPcONla0Yk2_UuCeAbd9dULzHkF/s1600/Turtle_draw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="845" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC1BN7KuIsoq_WKmIAdbglNAddDwdEzRL_G5FjByukB921rervyB9nhY0vZ66iD7vKQKWD8LqUqG_aa2lshOLxum3F1v1aIlNgWuj6MFCsxrHO-RhadxPcONla0Yk2_UuCeAbd9dULzHkF/s400/Turtle_draw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Aida, Luis and I bought a programmable robot! I've been looking for a toy robot for some time, wanting to get a writing robot (I used to love <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_graphics">turtle graphics</a> on the computer when I was a child - I didn't know it was designed with real drawing turtle robots in mind.) I bought a <a href="https://mime.co.uk/products/mirobot/">Mirobot v3</a> and assembled it with Aida. It didn't work (well, we made it beep, once). That was a shame.</div>
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We saw a little robot called <a href="https://meetedison.com/">Edison</a>. It doesn't draw, unfortunately (though you could <a href="https://meetedison.com/teach-engineering-design-with-edcreate/">hack-it in</a>). It was really cheap, for a robot. It's programmable with a number of different sensors, lights, buttons and 2 drive motors for the wheels. Programs are loaded via a stereo-jack cable that get converted into light and read underneath the robot. The programs are compiled into wav files. It's an ingenious data transfer method that I haven't seen before.</div>
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The robot looks like this:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKf5r49anjmHAwi4Zp0AaV90IrRotpcd4WLhaPAN0MzV2FrNV-OJtQzH8yoGKj6N56qtlsRWT__bIWSN7FF73BGV5vMZXK9S9PxQHJGaMAtwyhhSxsHg-oSD-JA_qPMLdMHG58tWsc9eot/s1600/Edison-V2.0-Educational-robot-270x203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKf5r49anjmHAwi4Zp0AaV90IrRotpcd4WLhaPAN0MzV2FrNV-OJtQzH8yoGKj6N56qtlsRWT__bIWSN7FF73BGV5vMZXK9S9PxQHJGaMAtwyhhSxsHg-oSD-JA_qPMLdMHG58tWsc9eot/s1600/Edison-V2.0-Educational-robot-270x203.jpg" /></a></div>
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Below is the first program we wrote. It's called Zackaboomba.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQAncefeDTDUV0DbJDKeJLDzoyX-sLS6Zp88f1vJsuqnHhs7gFKZMNjmJ1x0YW3X31nwDrF2W4vHlb3WaDATLJSNa-Bq_5wqFLLbmujBw8jOf7Fr7dBPjvBIcfufjMeIjZk0LRBRKLDX17/s1600/Zackaboomba.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="603" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQAncefeDTDUV0DbJDKeJLDzoyX-sLS6Zp88f1vJsuqnHhs7gFKZMNjmJ1x0YW3X31nwDrF2W4vHlb3WaDATLJSNa-Bq_5wqFLLbmujBw8jOf7Fr7dBPjvBIcfufjMeIjZk0LRBRKLDX17/s320/Zackaboomba.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The iterations on coding it were interesting. The bugs were:</div>
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<ul>
<li>We didn't realise the numbers below the drive blocks (blue) were measured in seconds. We had the robot turning right for 90 seconds at one point (I presumed it was measured in degrees);</li>
<li>The robot almost ran off the table because of a bug in the loop (it drove forward for 2 seconds instead of 1). That was funny. Made me think of some of the errors that rocket engineers working for NASA do (similar level of complexity);</li>
</ul>
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Below is a video of Zackaboomba in operation.</div>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mv2XP9YrB3E" width="560"></iframe></div>
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I think we're going to have quite a bit of fun making Edison do things. Some other things about the robot:<br />
<ul>
<li>It takes 4 AAA batteries;</li>
<li>You can attach lego to the top and the wheels (there were squeals when little lego people started spinning round-and-around);</li>
<li>It can drive over and read bar-codes to load pre-programmed routines. This will be great when the children just want to reset it back to one of the more game-orientated programs (such as obstacle avoidance);</li>
</ul>
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I still want a drawing robot. Here is my shortlist (in order of preference): </div>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.codewithroot.com/">Root Robot</a> (not out yet but maybe soon)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.tindie.com/products/MakersBox/open-source-turtle-robot-ostr/">Open Source Turtle Robot (OSTR)</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.roamer-educational-robot.com/">Valiant Roamer</a> (<a href="http://roamerrobot.tumblr.com/About%20Roamer">history</a>)</li>
</ul>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-4515000832240885662013-03-07T21:09:00.004+11:002013-03-08T06:32:55.071+11:00Luce Irigaray - “Women on the Market”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTw5HBRWNWHuIUE0bJx5claMTYHBfeFIAZLiAZ1JuWofOMw_glWom55zdhpdd6N7kEP-wk4QBTGsLakiiSIX-lQkyP6efWGHOZ2Bge2EE4-IWndPB7dHJCEFw1z-gb5nGV8h6HNqzvTIRP/s1600/this-sex-which-is-not-one-luce-irigaray-paperback-cover-art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTw5HBRWNWHuIUE0bJx5claMTYHBfeFIAZLiAZ1JuWofOMw_glWom55zdhpdd6N7kEP-wk4QBTGsLakiiSIX-lQkyP6efWGHOZ2Bge2EE4-IWndPB7dHJCEFw1z-gb5nGV8h6HNqzvTIRP/s1600/this-sex-which-is-not-one-luce-irigaray-paperback-cover-art.jpg" /></a></div>
It's been a while since I <a href="http://ledpup.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/julia-kristeva.html">ridiculed a post-modernist</a>. I thought I'd have another go. This time I've picked on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luce_Irigaray">Luce Irigaray</a>.<br />
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In <a href="http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/luce-irigaray-women-on-the-market/">“Women on the Market”</a>, written in 1978, Irigaray attempts to meld ideas from Karl Marx with feminism. The result is not good. In fact, it's terrible. She gets some of Marx's critique correct, but a lot of it is <i>completely </i>wrong. The connection between her interpretation and how it relates to women is almost entirely nonsensical. Her essay is almost devoid of substance, with an <i>utterly</i> conservative, pro-capitalist conclusion.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
Irigaray's first sentence is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The society we know, our own culture, is based upon the exchange of women.</blockquote>
A contemporary capitalist society is generally <i>not</i> based on the exchange of women. Slavery, especially sex slavery of women and girls, is a very important component of modern capitalist society. These women, millions around the world, are living as slaves. They are exchanged in the market. However, <i>billions </i>of women <i>aren't</i> slaves - they aren't exchanged as commodities.<br />
<br />
It's true that women exchange their ability to work (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour-power">labour-power</a>) for money. They are generally paid atrociously for their time. Their wage is frequently below its value (meaning they must rely on other sources of income to survive). It's true that women have to do large amounts of unpaid work in a house. This is a horrible, never ending grind that destroys women's physical and mental health. But neither of those situations mean that women themselves are being exchanged. Sure, there is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bride_price">bride price</a> for marriage, but this is not enough to go on.<br />
<br />
Therefore, Irigaray's first sentence is false. Not a great start. <br />
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--- <br />
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Later, she says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[1] In this new matrix of History, in which man begets man as his own likeness, [2] wives, daughters, and sisters have value only in that they serve as the possibility of, and potential benefit in, relations among men.</blockquote>
I broke this sentence into two parts. [1] I entirely do not understand this. What could "man begets man as his own likeness" possibly mean? Irigaray gives no explanation. [2] This part of the sentence is correct. Women are forced, by men, into roles of subservience. They are forced to find a life as sex worker or unpaid house-worker. If they go off by themselves they're attacked as being too masculine, or worse, <i>lesbian</i>. Women have been, and still are, persecuted for not filling their gender role - they are violently forced to do so.<br />
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--- <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In other words, all the social regimes of “History” are based upon the exploitation of one “class” of producers, namely, women. Whose reproductive use value (reproductive of children and of the labor force) and whose constitution as exchange value underwrite the symbolic order as such, without any compensation in kind going to them for that “work.”</blockquote>
The first sentence is correct. Since the beginning of class society, women have had the worst of it. The second sentence throws in some Marxist terms, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use-value">use-value</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-value">exchange-value</a>. It's ambiguous, but it appears that Irigaray is suggesting that exchange-value exists in all class societies. It doesn't. Exchange-value only exists in commodity economies. Furthermore, exchange-value <i>is</i> compensation for work! In a capitalist economy, if you don't receive your exchange-value for your labour-power, you die.<br />
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--- <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Commodities among themselves are thus not equal, nor alike, nor different. They only become so when they are compared by and for man.</blockquote>
If a tree fell in forest and no-one was around, would it make a sound? If there are no humans around to turn things and actions into commodities, they aren't commodities. Commodities can't be "among themselves." Things and actions (products and services), regardless of whether they are commodities or not, are never equal nor alike.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
the commodity obviously cannot exist alone,
but there is no such thing as a commodity, either, so long as there are
not at least two men to make an exchange. In order for a product - a
woman? - to have value, two men, at least, have to invest (in her.)</blockquote>
This appears to contradict the above, though at least Irigaray is correct this time. But she's really not saying anything new. Yes, you need (at least) two men (or women) for an exchange of commodities.<br />
<br />
Why does Irigaray keep trying to reduce women to <i>mere</i> commodities?! Commodities are empty vessels with no power to change the world. Irigaray is espousing an anti-feminism. Women can, and have <i>always</i>, resisted; as commodities (slaves), as serfs, as waged workers, as unpaid servants of fathers and husbands. Admittedly, women's role over the past hundred years has often come extremely close to slavery, in practical terms it was/is, but women don't generally take the form of commodities on the market - except when they literally <i>are </i>slaves like in the illegal sex industry and mail order brides, etc. If Irigaray was making an analogous argument, I wouldn't mind. But she isn't. She is literally saying that women are exchanged as commodities. That's just not true.<br />
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---<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The price of the articles, in fact, no longer comes from their natural form, from their bodies, their language, but from the fact that they mirror the need/desire for exchanges among men.</blockquote>
The price of articles have <i>never</i> come from their natural form, they have <i>always</i> come from their value form.<br />
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---<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The general equivalent of a commodity no longer functions as a commodity itself.</blockquote>
Irigaray throws in some Marxist jargon with no definition of her terms. That's fine for Marxists, no good for everyone else. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-form#General_form_of_value">general equivalent</a> is (basically) money. She's also completely wrong in her conclusion. The general equivalent is a commodity and it always will be. If it weren't a commodity, it couldn't be used in exchange. If it ever ceased to be a commodity, the entire capitalist economy would immediately collapse because there would be no equivalent to exchange for the relative.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We must emphasize also that the general equivalent, since it is no longer a commodity, is no longer useful. The standard as such is exempt from use.</blockquote>
Therefore, money is no longer useful? Okay...<br />
<br />
---<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This means that mothers, reproductive instruments marked with the name of the father and enclosed in his house, must be private property, excluded from exchange.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...]</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Once deflowered, woman is relegated to the status of use value, to her entrapment in private property; she is removed from exchange among men. </blockquote>
Is Irigaray suggesting that private property is excluded from exchange? It appears so. Either way, these sentences are nonsensical.<br />
<br />
---<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mother, virgin, prostitute: these are the social roles imposed on women.</blockquote>
Agreed. But what about violence against women? What about the culture of rape, domestic abuse, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killings">honor killings</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slut_shaming">slut shaming</a>? What about old women being ignored in society? Irigaray only scrapes the surface of women's oppression and exploitation.<br />
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---<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For, without the exploitation of women, what would become of the social order? What modifications would it undergo if women left behind their condition as commodities - subject to being produced, consumed, valorized, circulated, and so on, by men alone - and took part in elaborating and carrying out exchanges? </blockquote>
This paragraph, right at the end of the essay, is where Irigaray reveals her true colours. It's only here that her utterly conservative approach to political economy is exposed. What would happen if women "took part in elaborating and carrying out exchanges?" Exactly what was already happening in 1978 and what is still happening today (2013). Women <i>were</i> and <i>are</i> an integral part of the economy. Women are slaves, unpaid labourers and wage slaves in capitalist society. They are not and never were mere commodities exchanged among men. They have no need to become full citizens of exploitation because they are that already.<br />
<br />
Instead of joining the market (that they've already joined), women need to: 1) refuse their gender role to end their oppression and 2) refuse to be workers to end their exploitation. Both refusals are interconnected. To fight against one is to threaten the other. But they're not the same thing and women need to deal with both issues. Men, on the other hand, only really need to deal with their exploitation as workers. Men clearly materially benefit from women's gender role. If men want all humans to be free, they will have to completely change their relationship with women and in doing so, give up a substantial component of what it is to be a man. In effect, they'll have to stop being men. They're not going to do this willingly.<br />
<br />
By horribly mangling Marxism and feminism, Irigaray's essay, if it reflects the rest of her work, suggests that she is a poor critic of patriarchal society and doesn't understand the critique of capitalism, let alone have any sort of anti-capitalist politics.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-79815132038333616572013-02-27T01:12:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:24:25.591+11:00Essays on Marx's Theory of Value<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3I5ahnWgunlUxl1vxtmYHjzfxDtf-lpCHWjbBpSk4mTrE2MUaZbSvfDF40Ffid9WgXGZ4PszTsr-VAQBao0VpZvXBzs5AdG8uRiA9CO6o_oBq2MtQc1xbsVehRjEOzu49c44gWQgMyvh/s1600/cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3I5ahnWgunlUxl1vxtmYHjzfxDtf-lpCHWjbBpSk4mTrE2MUaZbSvfDF40Ffid9WgXGZ4PszTsr-VAQBao0VpZvXBzs5AdG8uRiA9CO6o_oBq2MtQc1xbsVehRjEOzu49c44gWQgMyvh/s320/cover.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/index.htm"><i>Essays on Marx's Theory of Value</i></a> by<i> </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaak_Illich_Rubin">Isaak Illich Rubin</a> is one of the best books I've read on Marx's critique of capitalism. It contains a very detailed explanation of many aspects of Marx's critique of political economy.<br />
<br />
The book is available <a href="http://sdrv.ms/XDnLdy">here</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Fetishism </b><br />
<br />
The most important aspect of this book is Rubin's reintegration of the fetishism of the commodity as underpinning Marx's entire critique of capitalism. In this way, political economy becomes <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
not a science of the relations of <i>things to things</i>, as was thought by vulgar economists, nor of the relations of <i>people to things</i>, as was asserted by the theory of marginal utility, but of the relations of <i>people to people</i> in the process of production. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch00.htm">Introduction</a>)</blockquote>
This is not necessarily easy to understand, nor does it seem initially particularly convincing (or perhaps it appears to be uselessly obvious?) but it enabled Marx to look behind the veil of money, employment, interest and rent, work-time and industrial production; to expose these interactions as ideological constructions that we have created between each other. Our day-to-day lives are lives where we act out our roles in a capitalist society as though these relationships between commodities and people are really existing categories rather than socially constructed phantoms of our consciousness.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One can only wonder why Marx's critics did not notice this inseparable connection between his labor theory of value and his theory of the reification or fetishization of the production relations among people. They understood Marx's theory of value in a mechanical-naturalistic, not in a sociological, sense. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch08a.htm">Chapter 8</a>)</blockquote>
Since Rubin's time - he wrote these essays in the 1920s - it hasn't just been Marx's critics that didn't notice the inseparable connection, but the bulk of his biggest fans: Marxists.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since the things come forth with a determined, fixed social form, they, in turn, begin to influence people, shaping their motivation, and inducing them to establish concrete production relations with each other. Possessing the social form of "capital," things make their owner a "capitalist" and in advance determine the concrete production relations which will be established between him and other members of society. It seems as if the social character of things determines the social character of their owners. Thus the "personification of things" is brought about. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch03.htm">Chapter 3</a>)</blockquote>
<b>Economists</b><br />
<br />
Rubin's ability to summarise economists is superb. He does so in one paragraph:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Vulgar economists commit two kinds of errors: 1) either they assign the "economic definiteness of form" to an "objective property" of things (C., II, p. 164), i.e., they derive social phenomena directly from technical phenomena; for example, the ability of capital to yield profit, which presupposes the existence of particular social classes and production relations among them, is explained in terms of the technical functions of capital in the role of means of production; 2) or they assign "certain properties materially inherent in instruments of labor" to the social form of the instruments of labor (Ibid.), i.e., they derive technical phenomena directly from social phenomena; for example, they assign the power to increase the productivity of labor which is inherent in means of production and represents their technical function, to capital, i.e., a specific social form of production (the theory of the productivity of capital). (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch03.htm">Chapter 3</a>)</blockquote>
According to Rubin, Marx's approach is the inverse to how economists analyse the world:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Starting with the social forms as given, the Classical Economists tried
to reduce complex forms to simpler forms by means of analysis in order
finally to discover their<i> material-technical basis or content.</i>
However, Marx, starting from a given condition of the material process
of production, from a given level of productive forces, tried to explain
the origin and character of <i>social forms</i> which are assumed by the material process of production. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch04.htm">Chapter 4</a>)</blockquote>
<b>Value</b> <br />
<br />
Rubin links value with prices, in a way that all the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kliman">Klimans</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladislaus_Bortkiewicz">Bortkiewiczs</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cockshott">Cockshotts</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sraffa">Sraffas</a> persistently fail to do:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The basic error of the majority of Marx's critics consists of: 1) their complete failure to grasp the qualitative, sociological side of Marx's theory of value, and 2) their confining the quantitative side to the examination of exchange ratios, i.e., quantitative relations of value among things; they ignored the quantitative interrelations among the quantities of social labor distributed among the different branches of production and different enterprises, interrelations which lie at the basis of the quantitative determination of value. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch08a.htm">Chapter 8</a>)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The deviation of market prices from values is the mechanism by means of
which the overproduction and underproduction is removed and the tendency
toward the reestablishment of equilibrium among the given branches of
production of the national economy is set up. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch08a.htm">Chapter 8</a>)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The average prices do not correspond to the actual movements of concrete
market prices, but explain them. This theoretical, abstract formula of
the movement of prices is, in fact, the "law of value." From this it can
be seen that every objection to the theory of value which is based on
the fact that concrete market prices do not coincide with theoretical
"values," is nothing more than a misunderstanding. Total agreement
between market price and value would mean the elimination of the unique
regulator which prevents different branches of the social economy from
moving in opposite directions. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch09.htm">Chapter 9</a>) </blockquote>
This "moving in opposites directions" is the result of the uncontrolled overproduction and underproduction in the anarchic commodity economy.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a commodity economy, no one controls the distribution of labor among the individual branches of production and the individual enterprises. No clothmaker knows how much cloth is needed by society at a given time nor how much cloth is produced at a given time in all cloth-making enterprises. The production of cloth thus either outruns the demand (overproduction) or lags behind it (underproduction). (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch08a.htm">Chapter 8</a>)</blockquote>
<b>Prices</b> <br />
<br />
Chapters 17 and 18 were the most challenging for me. Chapter 17 explains how supply and demand relate to value. Chapter 18 concerns the relationship between production prices and average profits, on one side, and value, on the other. This is more famously described as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_problem">transformation problem</a> (the linked Wikipedia page needs a complete re-write, by the way.) Rubin provides no mechanistic transformation of value to production prices, but links them as layers in a general scientific theory.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The increase of productivity of labor, expressed in the labor-value of products, cannot influence the distribution of labor any other way than through its influence on the distribution of capital. Such influence on the distribution of capital is in turn possible only if changes in the productivity of labor and labor-value cause changes in costs of production or in the average rate of profit, i.e., influence the production price. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch18.htm">Chapter 18</a>)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The labor theory of value is a theory of simple commodity economy, not in the sense that it explains the type of economy that preceded the capitalist economy, but in the sense that it describes only one aspect of the capitalist economy, namely production relations among commodity producers which are characteristic for every commodity economy. (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch18.htm">Chapter 18</a>)</blockquote>
This layering works in much the same way as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_theory">theory of the cell</a> gives way to organs, systems and organisms in biology. Perhaps a better analogy is the distinction between the matter of the brain and the formation of human consciousness. We know that human consciousness stems from chemical and electrical impulses in the brain, but we'll probably always be clueless as to how that manifests as what we experience as consciousness. In a similar sort of way, there is no mechanical transformation of value into price. However, we know the sociological truth that workers have nothing to sell but their labour-power. Workers are employed in a system that is so productive that they can easily out-produce what they need to survive, as workers, from day-to-day. This excess produce is captured and shared (between those that own everything) via an intellectually sophisticated and <i>enforced </i>social relationship, money. The only thing different between this - capitalism - and slavery or serfdom is that the excess produce isn't completely consumed by those that own everything, but used to expand this way of life.<br />
<br />
NB This is not to suggest that the value-price relationship suffers from the same issue as the brain-mind relationship, an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap">explanatory gap</a>. The relationship between value and price is fully explained. It's merely that the relationship cannot be fully explained <i>solely </i>in economic or mathematical terms.<br />
<br />
<b>Rubin</b><br />
<br />
Rubin's life in soviet Russia appears to have been especially traumatic. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaak_Illich_Rubin">his Wikipedia page</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rubin was arrested on December 23, 1930, and accused of being a member of the All-Union Bureau of Mensheviks, a fictitious secret organisation. [...] On January 28, 1931, Rubin was brought to another cell, where he was
shown another prisoner and told that if he did not confess, the prisoner
would be shot. Rubin refused and the prisoner was executed before him.
The process was repeated the next night. After the second shooting,
Rubin negotiated a "confession" with his interrogators, who insisted
that he implicate his mentor David Riazanov as a member of a secret Menshevik conspiracy.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rubin served most of his prison term in solitary confinement, during
which he continued his research as best he could. When he fell ill with a
suspected cancer, he was removed to a hospital and encouraged to make
further confessions in return for favourable treatment, but declined the
offer. He was released on a commuted sentence in 1934 and allowed to
work in Aktyubinsk, Kazakhstan, as an economic planner. Rubin was arrested once more during the Great Purge in 1937. After this arrest he was never seen alive again.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaak_Illich_Rubin#cite_note-medvedev-1"></a> </blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-34577522942794629872013-02-21T14:46:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.149+11:00Old Age Marxism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The following is a response to Paul Cockshott's review of Michael Heinrich's <i>Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital</i>, <a href="http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/paul-cockshott/2013/02/15/new-age-marxism">New Age Marxism</a>. Read Cockshott's review first.<br />
<br />
<b>Biology</b><br />
<br />
Cockshott begins his review by criticising Marx's and Heinrich's biological metaphor:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The anatomy of man is a key to the anatomy of the ape. On the other hand, indications of higher forms in the lower species of animals can only be understood when the higher forms themselves are already known</blockquote>
I'd agree with Cockshott that to suggest humans are better than other apes is ridiculous. There are no higher and lower forms of life, just ones that are successful (extant) and unsuccessful (extinct). However, other than using sloppy language, I'm not sure that Heinrich and Marx are saying anything controversial. If one replaced "lower" with "less complex" and "higher" with "more complex," there wouldn't be an issue. They're not actually suggesting that humans are better than other apes and they're not even really talking about evolutionary biology.<br />
<br />
<b>Value Theory</b><br />
<br />
It's when discussing value theory that Cockshott goes awry:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The establishment of capitalist industry went hand in hand with the development of artificial sources of power: coal then oil. We also all know that in today’s world the owners of oilfields are fabulously wealthy, so might energy not be the source of value?</blockquote>
There are a couple of problems with this:<br />
<ol>
<li>It appears as if Cockshott is suggesting that value only came into being at the beginning of capitalism. But value relates to commodity exchange, not capitalism as such. There were commodities before capitalism and therefore there was value before capitalism. Since coal and oil use, at least in any generalised form, came after commodities, how could they be the source of value?!</li>
<li>Cockshott makes a logical jump from oil/coal to energy. Oil/coal is not the same thing
as energy. There have been lots of different sources of energy
throughout human history with vastly different uses. E.g., burning wood for
heat and food; burning candles for light; oil/coal for industrial
production. Can one really jump through wood-candles-coal-oil to
energy, from there to a value theory, without any theoretical complications? </li>
</ol>
Cockshott's argument is that the labour theory of value is lacking, so we must look to what science does.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If one adopts the normal method of science, the answer is simple. You see what price structure would be predicted by the labour theory of value, what price structure would be predicted by the energy theory of value, and see which theory gives the better predictions. Such tests have been done<a href="http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/paul-cockshott/2013/02/15/new-age-marxism#wsa-endnote-9" name="wsa-inline-9"></a>, and they show that actual prices correspond much more closely to what the labour theory of value predicts than to what the energy theory predicts. But as we will see in the next section Heinrich’s approach prohibits this sort of scientific test.</blockquote>
Does science really work like this? It's true that empirical measurements are essential to science, but it's at least misleading, probably downright wrong to apply empirical results to a poor theory. For a scientific theory to be accepted, it needs to make coherent, logical arguments in a purely abstract form that then fits fairly well with reality. If the theory is faulty, the evidence is irrelevant.<br />
<br />
As an example, I could propose f = mac (force = mass * acceleration * crap). Most of the time c is 1, but occasionally I decide that it's 1.5 or .5 for masses that I have a peculiar distaste. Now, it could be, with God's favour, that the world really does agree with my formula, f = mac. Or it could be the case that we never come across masses that I don't like (e.g., invisible pink elephants). (My formula would be essentially f = ma.) Neither of these possibilities have anything to do with the fact that this formula is logically inconsistent with other physical laws.<br />
<br />
My point: you have to sort out your theory, regardless of the evidence! Cockshott suggests you can "go through the passage from Marx above and wherever there is a reference to labour substitute energy or power and the essence of the argument would be unchanged." If that were true, Marx's labour theory of value would be wrong. It would not be theoretically sufficient. It would need to be revised or abandoned.<br />
<br />
I do not agree for a moment that you can substitute terms in Marx's theory. For a start, Cockshott missed a crucial section, <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S4">the fetish of the commodity</a>. This grounds Marx's value theory as part of the social consciousness of humanity. The commodity, abstract labour, value-form, etc. is a <i>psychological trick</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>Abstract Labour</b><br />
<br />
Cockshott truly breaks with my reading of Marx in the notion of abstract labour:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So abstract labour is the abstract expenditure of human physiological effort and society has only a certain amount of this effort available to it which can be expended in different concrete forms.<br />
<br />
This concept is indeed ‘naturalistic’ and ‘a-historical’. It is naturalistic in that it depends on our adaptability as a species, our ability to turn our hand to any task. It is a-historical in that any society with a division of labour has abstract labour.</blockquote>
Marx's theory is the opposite of this view. It is concrete labour, <i>actually doing stuff in the world</i>, that is the only transhistorical, ahistorical or naturalistic conception of labour in Marx's theory. Concrete labour existed before capitalism, before class society. Abstract labour is vastly more modern and arises with commodity exchange. Abstract labour did not arise with the division of labour because many societies - those based on slavery or serfdom, for example - hardly measured and compared work at all. To the extent that they were not based on the exchange of commodities, they were not societies based on value and abstract labour. The key thing lacking in Cockshott's theory in these paragraphs is a clear understanding of the history of social production.<br />
<br />
I.I. Rubin sorted out the issue of abstract labour and physiological effort long ago:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Marx never tired of repeating that value is a social phenomenon, that the existence of value (<i>Wertgegenstandlichkeit</i>)
has "a purely social reality" (C., I, p. 47), and does not include a
single atom of matter. From this it follows that abstract labor, which
creates value, must be understood as a social category in which we
cannot find a single atom of matter. One of two things is possible: if
abstract labor is an expenditure of human energy in physiological form,
then value also has a reified-material character. Or value is a social
phenomenon, and then abstract labor must also be understood as a social
phenomenon connected with a determined social form of production. It is
not possible to reconcile a physiological concept of abstract labor with
the historical character of the value which it creates. The
physiological expenditure of energy as such is the same for all epochs
and, one might say, this energy created value in all epochs. We arrive
at the crudest interpretation of the theory of value, one which sharply
contradicts Marx's theory. (<i>Essays on Marx's Theory of Value</i>, <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch14.htm">Chapter 14: Abstract Labour</a>)</blockquote>
Cockshott's theory becomes incredible problematic when we bring in temporal concerns. If abstract labour is physiological effort, what can you say about that effort when the value of the commodities you've already produced halve in value because a competitor produces the same commodity for much cheaper? How does your physiological effort - that you've already expended - suddenly disappear into the ether? As abstract labour is the substance and measure of value, you've got a problem explaining where it went to.<br />
<br />
Cockshott says: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On the other hand there is no doubt that were we to accept Heinrich’s reading we would have to abandon any claim that Marxian analysis of value was scientific. Science rests on the testability of its propositions and has to be wary of hypothesising causal entities which are in principle unmeasurable. If we say with Heinrich that the labour time that creates value can not be independently measured, can only be inferred from the price at which things sell, then you no longer have a testable theory. </blockquote>
Yes, it's true, we don't have a testable theory in the same way that a lot of the physical sciences do. If you tried to measure every aspect of commodity production, concrete labour-time, physiological equivalents, prices, etc. you would not arrive at Marx's critique of political economy. You would arrive at the tools of appearances that we already have: supply/demand curves, employment rates, economic statistics, etc.<br />
<br />
Marx's critique has many complexities and subtleties that does not make it appropriate for empirical measurement as proof in the way Cockshott would prefer. One huge issue, for example, is moving from value to production prices and average profits. (See: <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch18.htm">Value and Production Price</a>)<br />
<br />
Finally, possibly the worst part of Cockshott's review, is a comment on a quote from Marx to Kugelmann:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labour in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves.” One can scarcely have a more explicit assertion of the natural and a-historical basis of abstract labour than that.</blockquote>
However, Marx was not talking about abstract labour in slightest! He was simply talking about the necessity for humans to work. Humans, from the time when we developed self-awareness, have had to work to survive. We need to gather, sow, reap and kill for food. We need to bring-up the young, collect water and dispose of waste. We need to look after the old. We will have to do this until we cease to exist as a species. Nothing, not pre-class society, slavery, serfdom, mercantilism, capitalism or communism is going to prevent this necessity for work. All that changes is how we organise work in society, as the most social species on the planet. What does abstract labour have to do with it? It is nothing but the form of how we are choosing to work at the present time, under capitalist conditions.<br />
<br />
To suggest that abstract labour is going to be the form of society, not only of capitalism, but also communism, brings nothing but horrible images of totalitarian monsters into our mind.<br />
<br />
Down with measurement!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-56627282858591959812013-02-01T18:00:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:26:43.295+11:00Critique of the Gotha Programme<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_the_Gotha_Program">The Critique of the Gotha Programme</a></i> (<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm">text</a>) was written by Karl Marx in 1875 as a response to a document by the nascent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Social_Democratic_Party">Social Democratic Party of Germany</a>. It was one of Marx's last writings (he died in 1883). The Wikipedia page describes the SPD as "one of the first Marxist-influenced parties in the world." It's difficult to see how that could be true given Marx's deep criticisms of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotha_Program">Gotha Program</a> (which was adopted by the party). It is not until the Gotha Program was eventually replaced by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_Program">Erfurt Program</a> (<a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm">text</a>) in 1891 that the statement on Wikipedia starts to have some truth to it. Engels wrote <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm">a critique of the Erfurt Program</a>.<br />
<br />
As usual, I've made the text into an e-book: <b><a href="http://sdrv.ms/10zf70H">http://sdrv.ms/10zf70H</a></b><br />
<br />
<b>Wealth, Value and Labour</b><br />
<br />
I remember reading this document ten years ago and being immediately confused by Marx's distinction between wealth and value. I remember Anthony patiently trying to explain it to me. I kind of half got it, but not really. It's taken fifteen years for me to understand the entire scientific critique of political economy that Marx presents. Even a year or two ago I still refused to accept it on scientific grounds. I could not fully grasp the basic distinctions and categories. Turns out that Marx was correct.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Labor is <i>not the source</i> of all wealth. <i>Nature</i> is just as much the source of use values (and it is surely of such that material wealth consists!) as labor, which itself is only the manifestation of a force of nature, human labor power. The above phrase is to be found in all children's primers and is correct insofar as it is implied that labor is performed with the appurtenant subjects and instruments. But a socialist program cannot allow such bourgeois phrases to pass over in silence the <i>conditions</i> that lone give them meaning.</blockquote>
I'm not alone in my failure to understand Marx's critique. The SPD didn't understand it in 1875. They don't understand it today. Most Marxists don't understand it. To the great misfortune of millions of people, the pre-existing communists of the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. didn't understand it either. Marx is clear, but it <i>is </i>difficult to understand, especially if you grow up in a world almost entirely dominated by the bourgeois mode of production. To make matters worse, there are a lot of people who don't want to understand it or don't want <i>you </i>to understand it. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The bourgeois have very good grounds for falsely ascribing <i>supernatural creative power</i> to labor; since precisely from the fact that labor depends on nature it follows that the man who possesses no other property than his labor power must, in all conditions of society and culture, be the slave of other men who have made themselves the owners of the material conditions of labor. He can only work with their permission, hence live only with their permission. </blockquote>
The only other modern scientific theory that has come under sustained attack is the theory of evolution. That attack, almost entirely by religious forces, continues into the 21st century. Nevertheless, even at its most ferocious, the scale of the attack on evolution barely registers compared to the scale of the attack on the scientific critique of capitalist society.<br />
<br />
<b>Higher and lower stages of communism</b><br />
<br />
<i>The Critique of the Gotha Programme</i> gets you thinking about a future communism. One of the notable things Marx discusses is the lower and higher orders of communism. I used to find this splitting of the idea of communism problematic, but I don't think I do anymore. Marx's justification is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has <i>developed</i> on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it <i>emerges</i>
from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically,
morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the
old society from whose womb it emerges.</blockquote>
Lower order communism is best described as "To each according to his contribution."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.</blockquote>
Marx described higher order communism as:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly — only then then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!</blockquote>
Of course, money needs to be abolished immediately. However, there is no longer a need for labour vouchers. We have these wonderful machines - computers and the Internet - that we could use to track peoples' contributions and ensure necessities are distributed correctly. The logistics of this isn't trivial; keeping track of billions of people wouldn't be easy. However, Facebook already tracks one billion accounts. It isn't a monumental effort to extend this infrastructure so we could record vital information on the entire population of the planet. A new form of distribution needs to be quickly realised. A disruption to distribution (or a failure to transform existing distribution) is where there is a huge risk to lives from starvation and disease. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If the material conditions of production are the co-operative property of the workers themselves, then there likewise results a distribution of the means of consumption different from the present one. Vulgar socialism (and from it in turn a section of the democrats) has taken over from the bourgeois economists the consideration and treatment of distribution as independent of the mode of production and hence the presentation of socialism as turning principally on distribution.</blockquote>
<b>The state</b> <br />
<br />
There are some interesting comments on the state in <i>The Critique of the Gotha Programme</i>. Marx is very critical of the idea of the "free state." Engels, in his letter to August Bebel, sums it up really well:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All the palaver about the state ought to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in the true sense of the term. The <i>people’s state</i> has been flung in our teeth <i>ad nauseam</i> by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the <i>Communist Manifesto</i> declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still <i>makes use</i> of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore suggest that <i>Gemeinwesen</i> ["commonalty"] be universally substituted for <i>state;</i> it is a good old German word that can very well do service for the French “Commune.” </blockquote>
Marx has some good stuff on the state and education:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable. Defining by a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the qualifications of the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc., and, as is done in the United States, supervising the fulfillment of these legal specifications by state inspectors, is a very different thing from appointing the state as the educator of the people!</blockquote>
Ultimately, Marx seals the fate that the SPD succumbed to.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The German Workers' party — at least if it adopts the program — shows that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical, and libertarian bases.<b></b></blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-42764953365622565362013-01-26T21:02:00.001+11:002013-01-26T21:19:40.249+11:00Happy Australia Day!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ4ayPFtWqfPKrulHP0Dsnw6bwTBmHJ5mVOy_BQX2Beb4Tsy8z-PPCwYbY2A0SLPtPhMGFHbpjruALNWIiusvMAS0XJVzNpKhexjeub2EAxiC3FkspJZg24pedRYCVyfXRljB0r2AdySDb/s1600/500px-Australian_Aboriginal_Flag.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ4ayPFtWqfPKrulHP0Dsnw6bwTBmHJ5mVOy_BQX2Beb4Tsy8z-PPCwYbY2A0SLPtPhMGFHbpjruALNWIiusvMAS0XJVzNpKhexjeub2EAxiC3FkspJZg24pedRYCVyfXRljB0r2AdySDb/s320/500px-Australian_Aboriginal_Flag.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Every year, on this day, Australians celebrate the discovery and settlement of their country. Such a beautiful gift that God bestowed on us - an unsettled land for our enjoyment. And we <i>have</i> enjoyed.<br />
<br />
1788 marks the end of one dreamtime and the beginning of a new dreamtime - the time to dream of work, commodities, debt and infinite growth. Here is a short list of some of the wonderful memories.<br />
<br />
From Wikipedia pages: <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Line">Black Line</a></b></span><br />
<br />
After many years of conflict between <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom" title="United Kingdom">British</a> colonists and the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_Aborigines" title="Tasmanian Aborigines">Aborigines</a> known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_War" title="Black War">Black War</a>, Lieutenant-Governor <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Arthur" title="George Arthur">George Arthur</a> decided to remove all Aborigines from the settled areas in order to end the escalating raids upon settlers' huts. To accomplish this he called upon every able-bodied male colonist,
convict or free, to form a human chain that then swept across the
settled districts, moving south and east for several weeks in an attempt
to corral the Aborigines on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasman_Peninsula" title="Tasman Peninsula">Tasman Peninsula</a> by closing off <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaglehawk_Neck" title="Eaglehawk Neck">Eaglehawk Neck</a>
(the isthmus connecting the Tasman peninsula to the rest of the island)
where Arthur hoped that they could live and maintain their culture and
language.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation">Stolen Generations</a></b></span><br />
<br />
The <b>Stolen Generations</b> were the children of <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aborigines" title="Australian Aborigines">Australian Aboriginal</a> and <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_Strait_Islander" title="Torres Strait Islander">Torres Strait Islander</a> descent who were removed from their families by the Australian <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_government" title="Australian government">Federal</a> and <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_states_and_territories" title="Australian states and territories">State</a> government agencies and <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_%28Christian%29" title="Mission (Christian)">church missions</a>, under <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_parliament" title="Act of parliament">acts</a> of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation#cite_note-1"></a></sup> and 1969,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-read_3-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation#cite_note-read-3"></a></sup> although in some places children were still being taken until the 1970s.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1967_%28Aboriginals%29">Australian referendum, 1967</a></b></span><br />
<br />
This gave the Commonwealth parliament power to legislate with respect
to Aborigines living in a State as well as those
living in a federal Territory. The intent was that this new power for the Commonwealth would be used
beneficially, yet despite several opportunities, the High Court has
never resolved that it cannot also be used detrimentally.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Section 127</b> was wholly removed. Headed "Aborigines not to be counted in reckoning population", it had read:<br />
<dl><dd><i>In reckoning the numbers of the people of the Commonwealth, or of
a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not
be counted.</i></dd></dl>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians_and_crime">Prison</a></b></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Bureau_of_Statistics" title="Australian Bureau of Statistics">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a> figures showed that Indigenous people accounted for 25 percent of Australia's prison population in 2009. The <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_standardisation" title="Age standardisation">age-standardised</a>
imprisonment rate [...]
meant that the imprisonment rate for Indigenous people was 14 times
higher than that of non-Indigenous people.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_title_in_Australia">Land rights and 10 point plan</a></b></span><br />
<b> </b>
<br />
The <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wik_Decision" title="Wik Decision">Wik Decision</a> in 1996 clarified the uncertainty. The court found that the statutory pastoral leases under consideration by the court did not bestow rights of exclusive possession on the leaseholder. As a result, native title rights could co-exist depending on the terms and nature of the particular pastoral lease. Where there was a conflict of rights, the rights under the pastoral lease would extinguish the remaining native title rights.<br />
<br />
The decision found that native title could coexist with other land
interests on pastoral leases, which cover some 40% of the Australian
land mass.<br />
<br />
[The "10 Point Plan" of 1998] provided security of tenure to non-Indigenous holders of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoral_lease" title="Pastoral lease">pastoral leases</a>
and other land title, where that land might potentially be claimed
under the Native Title Act 1993.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Territory_National_Emergency_Response">The Intervention</a></b></span><br />
<b> </b>
<br />
The measures of the response which have attracted most criticism comprise the exemption from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Discrimination_Act_1975" title="Racial Discrimination Act 1975">Racial Discrimination Act 1975</a>,
the compulsory acquisition of an unspecified number of prescribed
communities (Measure 5) and the partial abolition of the permit system
(Measure 10). These have been interpreted as undermining important
principles and parameters established as part of the legal recognition
of indigenous <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_rights" title="Land rights">land rights</a> in Australia.<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_generation#cite_note-4"></a>Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-24585647180702379612013-01-23T10:55:00.000+11:002013-01-23T14:23:46.301+11:00Communist utopia in Spain?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzhGP3sB4Eciu5LTVHJKcjyL-fKg-rcWhcr2HHDidli9KQWodeiF27Ut5CUtPKIRS2K8s0wRhp7bdp0z23bGn9P8kHdrzrR0DbXEYPLjP_H-erPMK963hWmEPqQaoXkwy_vxDNFiH6kdA/s1600/utopia+and+the+valley+of+tears_cover_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZzhGP3sB4Eciu5LTVHJKcjyL-fKg-rcWhcr2HHDidli9KQWodeiF27Ut5CUtPKIRS2K8s0wRhp7bdp0z23bGn9P8kHdrzrR0DbXEYPLjP_H-erPMK963hWmEPqQaoXkwy_vxDNFiH6kdA/s320/utopia+and+the+valley+of+tears_cover_01.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
While <a href="http://boingboing.net/2012/08/22/spains-pocket-communist-utop.html">browsing the Interwebs</a>, I came across a book about a small town called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinaleda,_Spain">Marinaleda</a> in Andalucía, Spain. The town was described as a communist utopia. Intrigued, I found a copy of the book to see what it was like.<br />
<br />
<b>“If you work it with your hands and water it with your sweat, the earth is yours, worker”</b><br />
<br />
The book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Valley-Tears-journey-ebook/dp/B008YF7DRG">Utopia and the Valley of Tears</a></i>, written by <a href="http://dan-hancox.blogspot.com.au/">Dan Hancox</a>, an English author and journalist for <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/danhancox">the Guardian</a>, is an account of the Hancox's trip to Seville, Marinaleda and nearby towns. It contains a sizable interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_S%C3%A1nchez_Gordillo">Sánchez Gordillo</a>, where the content of the communist experiment is revealed.<br />
<br />
The town is no utopia, but I was a little deflated to discover that it's
old-school communist too - not the communism I'm looking
for. It could best be described as a "workers' paradise." <br />
<br />
I got the impression that things in Marinaleda started out okay. First, they had to secure land:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We saw that the Duke of Infantal had the most lands – 17,000 hectares between Andalucía and Extremadura. So we fought the Duke for twelve years! We occupied his land, we cut off roads, and at the same time we pressured the government. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the Marinaleños kept going and going – occupying, protesting, disrupting; direct action gets the goods, as the saying goes. After 12 years of struggle, with 1992’s Sevilla World Expo just round the corner and the authorities’ resolve finally weakening, incredibly, they won, securing 1,200 hectares of the Duke’s land. </blockquote>
Every communist movement has to secure land. Their method of expropriation seems entirely appropriate. It's what happened next that concerns me:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
With the land they had won through occupation, they began planting,
deliberately choosing crops that would need industrial processing, to
create more work back in the town, in the factory. “Our aim was not to
create profit, but jobs, so we created a complementary industry to
transform our agrarian products: peppers, artichokes, favas, broccoli,
olive oil and olives”. The idea, he says, is that “la tierra es de quien
la trabaja” – the land is for those who work it. The town co-operative
does not distribute profits: any surplus is re-invested to create more
jobs. Everyone in the co-op earns the same salary, 47 Euros a day for
six and a half hours of work (which they try and keep equivalent with
public service wages) [...] </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Quoting Sánchez Gordillo:] our goal is to make jobs. Instead of pocketing the
profits we reinvest them back into the project. That’s why we believe
the land should belong to the community that puts it to work, and not in
the dead hands of the nobility.</blockquote>
There are quite a few things wrong here.<br />
<br />
1) Why would you want to deliberately increase the amount of work that Marinaleños had to do? The whole point of communism is to take the massive surplus generating power of machines to reduce work to the absolute minimum. What the Marinaleños are doing is the exact opposite. Though perfectly in line with (pre-)existing communism, it isn't a good approach. A better approach would have forged a path where machines are used and the work-day reduced.<br />
<br />
2) What about the so-called non-workers? I assume they don't receive the salary. Some may say that "if you don't work, you don't earn" but have they really investigated what work is? Does the category of non-work extend to house-work? Do women house-workers only earn via their husbands? None of this is discussed, neither in the book nor other articles I've read.<br />
<br />
3) "Land for those that work it" has been the catch-cry for colonists for the past five-hundred years, displacing indigenous populations and killing millions of people. Do you really want to be associated with that history and present day reality? Instead, what about "land for those who need to live from it"? In that way you include primitive, peasant, and industrial workers and can exclude those who don't need it (i.e., the nobility).<br />
<br />
4) The fact that the co-operative re-invests profits to create more jobs is the very definition of capitalism, not communism. It is hardly a distinguishing feature of their form of organisation. If capitalists didn't re-invest their profit they wouldn't be capitalists. By doing the same, the Marinaleños are in no way distancing themselves from capital social relations.<br />
<br />
As for the rhetorical "dead hands of the nobility" phrase, what is that supposed to mean? That because the nobility don't work, their hands are figuratively dead? Isn't that the same argument that the bourgeoisie use to seize power from the aristocracy?<br />
<br />
<b>Content of the work</b><br />
<br />
A friend raised a good criticism of the type of work. It's not only tedious, but gruelling labour.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We walk over to the farm’s olive oil processing plant, where four or five men in blue overalls are working the machinery. The olives are stripped from the branches by the first machine, then cleaned by the next, then smashed into pulp, filtered, and filtered again. They produce 300,000 litres of olive oil a year.</blockquote>
Not only have the Marinaleños chosen labour intensive work, but generally fairly unappealing work.<br />
<br />
Undoubtedly, whether capitalist, feudal or communist, dull and tedious work needs to be done. Thankfully, a lot of people like doing a lot of different things, we shouldn't all have to do horrible work all the time. What separates communism from other highly organised societies is the idea that we can reduce this labour to a minimum. We have seen that quantitatively and qualitatively, the town of Marinaleda are not attempting to do this.<br />
<br />
<b>“This is how we’ve built 350 homes.” </b><br />
<br />
I don't like how Marinaleda works, but there is a definite attraction to the way they create housing for the community. Land is assigned and houses are collectively built. There are no mortgages.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The new houses have been built on land on the fringes of the town which was municipalised, made public property for just this purpose. “Once we had this land, we prepared it, negotiated with the Andalucían government to obtain materials, and then we called the people who needed housing. We give them land, materials, and architects for free, and they put in their labour from the beginning of construction to the end.” Each plot consists of 90 square meters for construction, and 100 square meters for a patio or garden – normally three bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, kitchen and courtyard.</blockquote>
Bourgeois houses, to be sure, but it's nevertheless an impressive feat, and appears to be a genuinely communist moment.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The rub: to prevent people from profiting, residents cannot sell their houses. (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/world/europe/26spain.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2">A Job and No Mortgage for All in a Spanish Town</a>)</blockquote>
You can't sell your house? Good.<br />
<br />
<b>“You know you have to work on Sundays?”</b> <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One Sunday a month in Marinaleda is designated a Domingo Rojo (Red Sunday), where the townspeople work for free for the mutual benefit of the town [...]</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the dream that housing should belong to everyone, because you are a person, and not a piece of merchandise to be speculated with. The dream that natural resources, for instance energy, shouldn’t be in the service of multinationals but in the service of the people.</blockquote>
Why Sundays? Why not have every fourth Friday for collective projects? That you have to work on Sundays goes to the core of their form of communism. It is a workers' paradise, not an attack on work and the role of being a worker. And they go against two hundred years of working class activity on this. God may have given us <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday#Sunday_and_Sabbath">Sundays</a> (or Saturdays/Fridays depending on the god), but it was the working class that gave us the weekend and the eight-hour day. Why haven't the Marinaleños given themselves a three-day weekend yet? I guess, with a 6.5 hour work day (as opposed to the <a href="http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/studies/tn0803046s/es0803049q.htm">7.5 hour Spanish standard</a>) they have effectively done this. But the psychological effect of an extra day without work is much greater than one less hour a day.<br />
<br />
<b>Bourgeois criticism</b><br />
<br />
I've read a few bourgeois criticisms of the Marinelda, none of which actually attempt to engage with the content of the project, but nit-pick with holier-than-thou hypocrisy claims, such as:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Analysts and political opponents dismiss Mr. Sánchez’ populist bluster,
noting that while he portrays Marinaleda as a Communist oasis, it
depends heavily on money from the regional and central governments it
decries. The materials for each house, for example, cost the regional
government about $25,000. (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/world/europe/26spain.html?_r=2&">A Job and No Mortgage for All in a Spanish Town</a>)</blockquote>
Where do these "analysts" (un-named, un-analysable) think a project like this is going to come from? Who cares where they get their money? Money has that wonderful property of leaving no smell. Maybe money comes from the forced labour of billions, yet it leaves no trace. Oh, guess what? The people living there are also labour-power created and nurtured under modern Spanish capitalist conditions. What hypocrites - they can't even attempt communism without having first come from a communist society! <br />
<br />
<b>The end</b><br />
<br />
The book covers more than Marinaleda and Sánchez Gordillo. It touches on
the economic crisis in Spain and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Spanish_protests">15-M Movement and the Indignados</a>. The author clearly has a sympathy with some sort of an idea of communism. It was enjoyable reading about his youth and engagement with communist ideas - reading <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homage_to_Catalonia">Homage to Catalonia</a></i>, distancing himself from Stalinism and all existing communism, etc. It was an enjoyable read about an aspect of Andalucian life that I was completely unaware of.<br />
<br />
As for Marinaleda, I don't want to be overly critical. I think in some ways they've entirely missed the point. In other ways, they're attempting an inspiring communist experiment. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_S%C3%A1nchez_Gordillo#Robin_Hood_raids">self-reduction they've done in supermarkets</a> is certainly a critique of capital in practice. However, they must drop the 20th century ideology of workerism if they want to genuinely contribute to the movement of communism.<br />
<br />
What the town of Marinaleda does is allow us to imagine how to create a new way of living. It'll need to be different from what the Marinaleños are doing, but it's an interesting point of departure.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-36409769003131670592012-12-26T23:12:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.152+11:00Reading Capital Politically, Part 3This blog entry contains the final set of quotes from <i>Reading Capital Politically</i>. These quotes are generally concerned with the money-form of value. Overall, a very quotable book, it would seem. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We can see now that just as the relative value form finds its meaning only in the equivalent form so it is that the working class recognizes itself as working class only through its relation to capital. Indeed, it is working class only within that relation. The relative form thus expresses the perspective of the working class. Destroy capital and there is no more working class as such. And, conversely, the refusal to function as working class (i.e., to work) acts to destroy capital. Put in the language above, the mass of workers have their joint condition as working class reflected to them through capital acting as a mirror which mediates this recognition.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Children work for capital to the extent that they produce their labor-power for future roles as workers (waged and unwaged), but they are not directly waged. They, like housewives, are supported by the resources (money) obtained by their waged father or mother. The relation with capital is mediated directly for the father by the money wage, but for the children and housewives there is also the father/husband. In these circumstances the fact that children and women in the family work for capital is hidden by their condition of wagelessness. They appear to stand only in some private relation to the male wage earner but not to capital. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This was one of the main aims of colonialism - the creation of a world-wide reserve army. And poverty continues to be the tool by which vast millions are kept alive but (it is hoped) easily available when it suits capital's purpose. These reserves are then drawn upon either for immigration into areas where their cheap labor can be used to hold down the wage demands of more powerful workers (e.g., Mexican and Caribbean labor drawn into the U.S.; workers from Mediterranean countries brought into northern Europe) or for employment in their own areas when runaway shops seek out their cheap labor locally. Of course, time and again things have not worked out so well and the struggles of the unwaged have made them unfit for capital's factories.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Another way the class struggle refuses the mediation of money is the refusal of price. This is the essence of direct appropriation and includes not only the price of labor-power but also the prices of other commodities. It involves self-reduction of utilities or housing prices, changing labels in a supermarket, using 15-cent slugs instead of 50-cent tokens in the subway, or total elimination of price through shoplifting, employee theft, or Black Christmases where commodities are seized. This refusal of price is a refusal of capital's rules of the game. The refusal to accept the role of money is the refusal to accept everything we have seen going into the determination of money - the whole set of value relations. This is the working-class perspective with a vengence.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Inflation means rising prices due, not to increases in labor input, but to monetary deflation. Prices are the money equivalents of the value of commodities which are expressed in the price form. To raise prices means to increase the amount of money (gold or paper) being exchanged for goods. If the amount of money the working class holds is fixed, then the amount it can buy decreases accordingly. In this way, the amount of value the working class receives for its labor-power is reduced, and the amount of surplus value that capital gets is increased.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] it is easy to raise prices simply by circulating more paper so that a given quantity of commodities, being represented by an increased quantity of paper, has higher prices (assuming velocity of money constant, etc.). This was just the idea of Keynes, then Lewis and others. The state could print more money, or expand money via the credit system, and thus raise prices, which would decrease the value of each unit of money and thus undercut working-class wages. This undercutting could be done whether working-class wages were constant or increasing. </blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-75009913130541295442012-12-20T19:00:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.167+11:00The robots have (finally) arrived<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99LzG1sRoxPyU1wD9AklW_Ccq2Zh9DJDEPTokQplSxuqUTyiEao8thNW3fHzeu2Z5uPPtZjh3zN9dCi1XRltphGJ4Ct8DMlbnNTBydBkVgMFXocl4ulTh4otZ3_89IV17Fj2893SSGoym/s1600/JP-ROBOT-1-articleLarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99LzG1sRoxPyU1wD9AklW_Ccq2Zh9DJDEPTokQplSxuqUTyiEao8thNW3fHzeu2Z5uPPtZjh3zN9dCi1XRltphGJ4Ct8DMlbnNTBydBkVgMFXocl4ulTh4otZ3_89IV17Fj2893SSGoym/s320/JP-ROBOT-1-articleLarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The New York Times recently published <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/business/new-wave-of-adept-robots-is-changing-global-industry.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">an article</a> with content and arguments straight out of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_loom#Social_and_economic_implications">1820s</a>.<br />
<br />
OMG! Robots are replacing labour-power! I cannot believe it. What <i>are </i>these new fantastical devices? Quoting Karl Marx, the NYT declares that you can make a profit by replacing people with robots:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In one example, a robotic manufacturing system initially cost $250,000 and replaced two machine operators, each earning $50,000 a year. Over the 15-year life of the system, the machines yielded $3.5 million in labor and productivity savings.</blockquote>
Quoting John Stuart Mill, the NYT proclaims, when you think about it, no jobs are <i>really </i>lost. Think of all the new jobs being created!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Moreover, robotics executives argue that even though blue-collar jobs will be lost, more efficient manufacturing will create skilled jobs in designing, operating and servicing the assembly lines, as well as significant numbers of other kinds of jobs in the communities where factories are.</blockquote>
Don't Panic! Robots are kinda human and they're even fighting against the division of labour:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But the arms seem eerily human when they reach over to a stand and change their “hand” to perform a different task. While the many robots in auto factories typically perform only one function, in the new Tesla factory a robot might do up to four: welding, riveting, bonding and installing a component.</blockquote>
This brave new world - a beautiful symbiosis between man and machine - is a worker's paradise!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Graves wears headsets and is instructed by a computerized voice on where to go in the warehouse to gather or store products. A centralized computer the workers call The Brain dictates their speed. Managers know exactly what the workers do, to the precise minute.</blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-85652610200096298422012-12-19T23:08:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.172+11:00Reading Capital Politically, Part 2My last posthad a selection of quotes from <i>Reading Capital Politically</i>. There were so many that I retained some quotes until this blog entry.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the overwhelming majority of the people are put in a situation where they are forced to work to avoid starvation. The capitalist class creates and maintains this situation of compulsion by achieving total control over all the means of producing social wealth. The generalized imposition of the commodity-form has meant that forced work has become the fundamental means of organizing society - of social control. It means the creation of a working class - a class of people who can survive only by selling their capacity to work to the class that controls the means of production.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Most fundamentally, the view of the commodity as use-value is the perspective of the working class. It sees commodities (e.g., food or energy) primarily as objects of appropriation and consumption, things to be used to satisfy its needs. Capital sees these same commodities primarily as exchange-values - mere means toward the end of increasing itself and its social control via the realization of surplus value and profit.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The preoccupation of the working class with exchange-value and the preoccupation of capital with use-value, however, are both the outgrowth of capital's success in imposing its social system.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Because of our need for this use-value of food, capital understood early on that its control over food as a commodity gave it control over workers. This was why the most basic means of production stripped from workers in the period primitive accumulation was land - the traditionally necessary precondition for producing food. Thus the fundamental use-value of food for capital is the power to force the working class to work to get it. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One way in which the old dichotomy between politics and economics has often been posed has been to label as "economism" struggles by workers which are deemed solely quantitative, for example, more wages, shorter workday, and so on. These struggles are said to be within capital, which is itself essentially quantitative. "Political" struggles are only those that challenge the "quality" of capital itself, that is, that threaten the "revolutionary" overthrow of capital via the seizure of state power. From what we have seen already, it should be apparent that struggles over the length and intensity of the workday (how much the commodity-form is imposed) are at once quantitative and qualitative: quantitative because they concern the amount of work that will be done for capital, qualitative because they put into question the realization of enough surplus value to maintain capital's control</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Quoting Marx:] ". . . the idea held by some socialists that we need capital but not the capitalists is altogether wrong. It is posited within the concept of capital that the objective conditions of labor -- and these are its own product -- take on a personality toward it, or what is the same, that they are posited as the property of a personality alien to the worker. The concept of capital contains the capitalist."</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Men do benefit from women's work; whites do benefit from blacks' lower status; local workers do benefit from immigrant workers' taking the worst jobs. Therefore, the struggle to destroy the divisions generally finds its initiative in the dominated group, since the other side cannot be expected to always work to destroy its privileges. The efforts to overcome racism, sexism, imperialism, or the exploitation of students in the 1960s were led by the struggles of blacks not whites, women not men, peasants not Americans, students not professors or administrators. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] to conceive of the value of a commodity as being the direct result of the work of producing that individual commodity is to lose the social character of value and to see it instead as some metaphysical substance that is magically injected into the product by the worker's touch. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Quoting Marx:] ". . . the real level of the overall labour process is increasingly not the individual worker. Instead, labour-power socially combined and the various competing labour-powers which together form the entire production machine participate in very different ways in the immediate process of making commodities, or, more accurately in this context, creating the product. Some work better with their hands, others with their heads, one as a manager, engineer, technologist, etc., the other as overseer, the third as manual labourer or even drudge. . . . If we consider the aggregate worker, i.e., if we take all the members comprising the workshop together, then we see that their combined activity results materially in an aggregate product which is at the same time a quantity of goods. And here it is quite immaterial whether the job of a particular worker, who is merely a limb of this aggregate worker, is at a greater or smaller distance from the actual manual labour."<br />
These very important concepts should lead us once and for all away from any tendency to try to grasp value in terms of individual cases. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When Marx wrote, for example, in Chapter 15, Section 3, on the employment of women and children, he saw these persons being drawn ever deeper into the industrial machine to be chewed up daily and left to recuperate at night in the same fashion as male workers. There was no need for any special theory about the family, housework, or schoolwork, because these constituted negligible parts of the day. But later, with the expulsion of women and children from the mines and the mills and the factories, with the creation of the modern nuclear family and public school system by capital, such a theory is vital. Today, we must study how capital structures "free time" so as to expand value. We must see how housework has been structured by capital with home economics and television to ensure that women's time contributes only to the reproduction of their own, their husbands', and their children's labor-power. We must see the desire for the reproduction of life as labor-power behind capital's propaganda that it is in the interest of the individual or the family to have a "nice" home or a "good" education.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Both housework and schoolwork are intended to contribute to keeping the value of labor-power low. The more work done by women in the home, the less value workers must receive from capital to reproduce themselves at a given level. The more work students do in the school, the less value must be invested in their training and disciplining for the factory (or home).</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the labor an "average person" can perform, say, in the United States of 1775 and in the United States of 1975, or in the United States of 1975 and in upland Papua of 1975, is quite different. When put concretely this way, the vagueness of the notion vanishes. Workers of all these periods and places could be trained to perform "average labor" today in a New York City factory or office. But the amount of training our 1775 farmer or our 1975 tribesman would require would be substantially more and of a different order, involving not just linguistic, mathematical, or mechanical skills, but regularity and discipline.</blockquote>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-56531222141384983252012-12-17T19:00:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:26:43.293+11:00The Civil War in France<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKiWiBd-1SnEV6yfcoImYwsYj61d2SrVVeW4qgpsp_7Kj_M-fou_EoZwVdunk50CkTf5nMoLMUw8YxknkvTmdxgamIyhTs1ZPA00_zVZMypXI8TqIV4IymCj6wh5FUlZfF_uWs3QOGhfOJ/s1600/Marx-civilwarinfrance-1922.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKiWiBd-1SnEV6yfcoImYwsYj61d2SrVVeW4qgpsp_7Kj_M-fou_EoZwVdunk50CkTf5nMoLMUw8YxknkvTmdxgamIyhTs1ZPA00_zVZMypXI8TqIV4IymCj6wh5FUlZfF_uWs3QOGhfOJ/s320/Marx-civilwarinfrance-1922.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
I recently read Karl Marx's <a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15843"><i>The Civil War in France</i></a>. It's about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War">Franco-Prussian War</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune">Paris Commune</a>, 1870-71. This was the book that really began Marx's rise to infamy - <a href="http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/karl_marx1871.htm">accused of plotting the whole uprising from London</a>. It was written during the war and subsequent revolution in Paris.<br />
<br />
If, like me, you're not overly familiar with the history of 19th Century France (and Prussia), here is a short description of the main characters you'll encounter reading this book:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Thiers">M. Thiers</a> - French historian, prime minister, suppressor of the Paris Commune, president of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Third_Republic">Third Republic</a></li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III">Louis Bonaparte</a> - Emperor of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_French_Empire">Second Empire</a>, started the war with Prussia</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck">Otto von Bismarck</a> - Minister President of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia">Prussia</a>, credited with unifying modern Germany</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Auguste_Blanqui">Blanqui</a> - French socialist, absent leader of the Paris Commune</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Philippe_I,_King_of_the_French">Louis-Philippe I</a> - King of France until the 1848 revolution</li>
</ul>
<div>
Large chunks of this book aren't very interesting for a modern reader. These sections are largely concerned with military strategy and the criticism of various personalities (mostly Bonaparte and Thiers). At the time, revealing these people for what they were was an important thing to do, but they're now long dead.<br />
<br />
There are six chapters. I've summarised them below:<br />
<br />
Chapter 1 is amazing in that it contains communiques from French and Prussian workers opposing the war.<br />
<blockquote>
The English working class stretch the hand of fellowship to the French and German working people. They feel deeply convinced that whatever turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war. The very fact that while official France and Germany are rushing into a fratricidal feud, the workmen of France and Germany send each other messages of peace and goodwill; this great fact, unparalleled in the history of the past, opens the vista of a brighter future.</blockquote>
Chapter 2 is mostly concerned with military tactics, towns of Germany and France and a history of the two nation's conflicts. The chapter ends with an extremely ominous (and prophetic) warning:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let the sections of the International Working Men’s Association in every country stir the working classes to action. If they forsake their duty, if they remain passive, the present tremendous war will be but the harbinger of still deadlier international feuds, and lead in every nation to a renewed triumph over the workman by the lords of the sword, of the soil, and of capital.</blockquote>
In Chapter 3, Marx gets stuck into Thiers, describing him as a "monstrous gnome" and elucidating the build-up to the massacre. I thought chapters 3 and 4 were the least relevant to anyone reading nowadays.<br />
<br />
In chapters 5 and 6 Marx writes about the events of the Paris Commune; its successes and its destruction.</div>
<div>
<blockquote>
In spite of all the tall talk and all the immense literature, for the last 60 years, about emancipation of labor, no sooner do the working men anywhere take the subject into their own hands with a will, than uprises at once all the apologetic phraseology of the mouthpieces of present society with its two poles of capital and wages-slavery (the landlord now is but the sleeping partner of the capitalist), as if the capitalist society was still in its purest state of virgin innocence, with its antagonisms still undeveloped, with its delusions still unexploded, with its prostitute realities not yet laid bare. The Commune, they exclaim, intends to abolish property, the basis of all civilization!</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
To find a parallel for the conduct of Thiers and his bloodhounds we must go back to the times of Sulla and the two Triumvirates of Rome. The same wholesale slaughter in cold blood; the same disregard, in massacre, of age and sex, the same system of torturing prisoners; the same proscriptions, but this time of a whole class; the same savage hunt after concealed leaders, lest one might escape; the same denunciations of political and private enemies; the same indifference for the butchery of entire strangers to the feud.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
If the acts of the Paris working men were vandalism, it was the vandalism of defence in despair, not the vandalism of triumph, like that which the Christians perpetrated upon the really priceless art treasures of heathen antiquity; and even that vandalism has been justified by the historian as an unavoidable and comparatively trifling concomitant to the titanic struggle between a new society arising and an old one breaking down.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
All the chorus of calumny, which the Party of Order never fail, in their orgies of blood, to raise against their victims, only proves that the bourgeois of our days considers himself the legitimate successor to the baron of old, who thought every weapon in his own hand fair against the plebeian, while in the hands of the plebeian a weapon of any kind constituted in itself a crime.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them.</blockquote>
Engels, in his 1891 Introduction, makes some <i>very </i>interesting comments about the state and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, especially relevant in light of the horrors done in his and Marx's name in the 20th Century.<br />
<blockquote>
From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.</blockquote>
I read the edition at <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm">marxists.org</a>. I've re-formatted it as an e-book (including the bulk of the appendix) and made it available at: <a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15843">The Civil War in France</a>.</div>
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Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-39096287442217516072012-12-12T22:57:00.000+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.154+11:00Reading Capital Politically<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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I have recently re-read <i>Reading Capital Politically</i> by Harry Cleaver. It's a book that injects contemporary discussion (until 1979) and class analysis into a reading of the first chapter of Karl Marx's <i>Capital, Vol 1.</i> I re-read an e-book edition (below) that I put together from <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwebspace.utexas.edu%2Fhcleaver%2Fwww%2F357k%2F357krcp.html&ei=a_7HULXPF8eeiAfAx4HoAQ&usg=AFQjCNHBasU4FM9cCs35eXVuqdvd90AbgA">Harry Cleaver's university webpage</a> (which currently - Dec 2012 - no longer contains the files).<br />
<br />
My edition is generally not as good as <a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15802">the PDF edition</a>. The main disadvantage is that the footnotes aren't hyper-linked. However, it has the advantage of containing all the prefaces to the various editions that Cleaver has written over the years. It is current as of the preface to the German translation of November 2011. (I excluded the 2011 Polish preface as it is very similar to the German preface.) In that respect, it's the most complete version. I've also done some minor editing.<br />
<br />
The formats that you can download are:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15327">HTML</a></li>
<li><a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15814">MOBI</a></li>
<li><a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15815">EPUB</a></li>
<li><a href="https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=71F6BB22CAE01770!15802">PDF</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
Below are some quotes that I found illuminating:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the continuing spread of Taylorist and Fordist deskilling produced such an alienation of young workers from work that, by the 1960s, the desire to take over work and make it less alienating was being more and more replaced by its simple refusal. They didn’t want control; they wanted out.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For Marx, value was only understandable within the context of surplus value. It was not just a form, separable from its content. Value does have a form, exchange value, but it also has a content: imposed labor and the link between value and surplus value is that in the normal course of capital accumulation, the capitalists only impose labor when they can impose surplus labor.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The capitalists are capitalists, not when they consume the surplus, but when they invest it, i.e., when they impose more work. And this is exactly what the socialist critique of capitalist development fails to deal with. By focusing uniquely on the question of who owns or controls the surplus and demanding workers' control, it fails to come to grips with the substance of value and surplus value: endlessly imposed work. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why did Marx hate money so much? Because it is the quintessential distillation of homogenized labor, of the reduction of all of human life to labor. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rather than the usual Marxist image of the capitalist with a whip, better the image of would-be managers riding the tiger's back trying to coerce or cajole their mount along different lines of development, frequently coming within a hair's breath of falling off when the tiger rears or comes to a sudden halt, always in danger of the tiger turning around and ripping these upstarts from its back. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To the degree any group of people ruptures capitalist command and carves out their own space, capital responds by doing its best to isolate that space, to sever its connections with the rest of the system, to prevent it from drawing on the productivity of global social production and forcing it to rely on its own limited resources.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] the wage is not the only form through which the reduction of humans to abstract labor under capital is accomplished. Not in the Third World, not in the First. In all worlds where it holds sway the central problem for capital is the imposition of work, how it manages to do that is purely secondary.</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But what, some may ask, of the peasants who produce a surplus they sell on the market? Are these not petty bourgeois producers and outside the working class? The answer is that they are still very much part of the working class if the result of their work is only self-reproduction. It does not even matter if they hire waged labor, if they are only earning subsistence. These peasants are essentially piece workers for capital and the per-unit price they obtain for their agricultural products is their piece rate. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It quickly becomes apparent to anyone who has read Engels and Stalin that Althusser and friends have added almost nothing to the original discussions of historical materialism except a more obscure vocabulary and a deeper scientific gloss. We are still left with a lifeless sociological taxonomy of modes of production, the unresolvable problems of the interactions between the base/superstructure dualism, the mystery of the articulation of modes, the absence of class struggle, and a fetishism of production that justifies contemporary socialism. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] despite the originality and usefulness of their research into the mechanisms of capitalist domination in both the economic and cultural spheres, and indeed precisely in the formulation of those mechanisms as one-sidedly hegemonic, Critical Theorists have remained blind to the ability of working-class struggles to transform and threaten the very existence of capital. Their concept of domination is so complete that the "dominated" virtually disappears as an active historical subject. In consequence, these philosophers have failed to escape the framework of mere ideological critique of capitalist society. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As Tronti pointed out, under the conditions of the unskilled mass worker, work itself could only be seen as a means of social control to be abolished, not upgraded. This understanding led directly to the realization that the basic characteristic of working-class struggle in this period is not only an escape from capital but also an escape from existence as working class. The aim of the mass worker is to cease to be a worker, not to make a religion of work. </blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Quoting Marx:] "Bourgeois economy thus provides the key to the economy of antiquity, etc. But it is quite impossible [to gain this insight] in the manner of those economists who obliterate all historical differences and who see in all social phenomena only bourgeois phenomena. If one knows rent, it is possible to understand tribute, tithe, etc., but they do not have to be treated as identical."</blockquote>
</div>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-75591745469045261572012-11-15T21:46:00.001+11:002013-03-07T21:25:53.169+11:00Aufheben, Fortunati and Federici<br />
I read <a href="http://libcom.org/aufheben">Aufheben</a>'s <a href="http://libcom.org/library/aufheben/aufheben-13-2005/the-arcane-of-reproductive-production">review</a> of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arcane-Reproduction-Housework-Prostitution-Capital/dp/0936756144/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1352677069&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=arcane+of+reproduction">Arcane of Reproduction</a> (by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldina_Fortunati">Fortunati</a>) years ago. Even though I thought it was a generally correct analysis of a terrible book (or a terrible translation), I thought Aufheben's conclusions were false. I recently read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvia_Federici">Federici</a>'s latest book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Point-Zero-Housework-Reproduction/dp/1604863331/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352675366&sr=1-2">Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle</a>. I think I can now effectively say why Aufheben are incorrect.<br />
<br />
Aufheben's conclusion about value and housework is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So then, does housework create value, or not? We have seen in the previous sections that the answer is: no. Housework does not produce commodities, and the labour involved in it cannot be abstracted and measured as abstract labour, as a contribution to value. But we have also seen the value supposedly created by housework cannot be pinned down anywhere.<br />
[Aufheben, <a href="http://libcom.org/library/aufheben/aufheben-13-2005/the-arcane-of-reproductive-production">The arcane of reproductive production</a>]</blockquote>
I agree that without commodities <i>at some point in the production process</i>, it's impossible to have value. Nevertheless, housework <i>definitely </i>produces and reproduces labour-power. Labour-power can be sold as a commodity. The fact that Aufheben disputes this is ridiculous. Every new generation of worker for the factory, office or farm is created and maintained by house-work. What the hell do they think pregnancy, childbirth, feeding, clothing, caring for, teaching <i>is</i> if it isn't the production of labour-power? What is cooking, ironing, cleaning, washing, sex, etc., if it isn't the reproduction of existing labour-power? This work remains largely un-waged, mostly done by women. Is it relevant that it isn't <i>immediately </i>realised as a wage for it to contain value? It isn't relevant if you accept <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Tronti">Tronti</a>'s idea of the social factory, as expanded by Federici:<br />
<blockquote>
Work appears as just one compartment of our lives, taking
place only in certain times and spaces. The time we consume in the
“social factory,” preparing ourselves for work or going to work,
restoring our “muscles, nerves, bones and brains” with quick snacks,
quick sex, movies, all this appears as leisure, free time, individual
choice.<br />
[Federici, Silvia (2012-09-01). Revolution at Point Zero:
Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (Common Notions) (pp.
35-36). Independent Publishers Group. Kindle Edition.]</blockquote>
One way to think of house-work is to understand that the value of house-work is bound-up in the waged-worker and realised when they receive their pay. It's not some sort of secret/hidden extra thing like Fortunati would have you believe, but it's a realisation that people aren't atomic individuals that can be separated out like little units (like bourgeoisie ideology would have us believe).<br />
<br />
On the topic of commodity production and who produces them, Marx is clear that it doesn't matter who does it or how it is done once the world-market has been established.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No matter whether commodities are the output of production based on slavery, of peasants (Chinese, Indian ryots), of communes (Dutch East Indies), of state enterprise (such as existed in former epochs of Russian history on the basis of serfdom) or of half-savage hunting tribes, etc. — as commodities and money they come face to face with the money and commodities in which the industrial capital presents itself and enter as much into its circuit as into that of the surplus-value borne in the commodity-capital, provided the surplus-value is spent as revenue; hence they enter in both branches of circulation of commodity-capital. The character of the process of production from which they originate is immaterial. They function as commodities in the market, and as commodities they enter into the circuit of industrial capital as well as into the circulation of the surplus-value incorporated in it. It is therefore the universal character of the origin of the commodities, the existence of the market as world-market, which distinguishes the process of circulation of industrial capital.<br />
[Marx, <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch04.htm">Capital Volume 2, Chapter 4</a>, "The Three Formulas of the Circuit"]</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] a commodity produced by a capitalist does not differ in any
way from that produced by an independent labourer or by communities of
working-people or by slaves.<br />
[Marx, <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch19.htm">Capital Volume 2, Chapter 19</a>, "Former Presentations of the Subject"]</blockquote>
Once the world-market exists, pretty much everything becomes subject to its rules. A tribe of savages could collectively work together to produce a commodity. Why is a marriage not treated in the same way? The nuclear family expends the labour-power that is realised as exchange-value in the form of the waged-worker's pay cheque. It's a simple as that.<br />
<br />
The value of housework can be most clearly revealed through contemporary history. This is because housework is moving from being entirely hidden through the naturalised forms of love and marriage to the waged form.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As the participation of women in waged work has immensely increased, especially in the North, large quotas of housework have been taken out of the home and reorganized on a market basis through the virtual boom of the service industry, which now constitutes the dominant economic sector from the viewpoint of wage employment. This means that more meals are now eaten out of the home, more clothes are washed in laundromats or by dry-cleaners, and more food is bought already prepared for consumption.<br />
[Federici, Silvia (2012-09-01). Revolution at Point Zero:
Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (Common Notions) (pp. 107). Independent Publishers Group. Kindle Edition.]</blockquote>
Aufheben are incorrect. There is an immense secret being kept - even
with generations of feminism from the 1960s until the 2010s and <i>certainly </i>within
Marxism - that a huge proportion of the Earth's wealth is generated by
unwaged (generally women's) work. Does this work create value? In Fortunati's sense, no. In Marx' sense, definitely.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-43756738679942154982012-11-08T18:00:00.000+11:002013-01-30T14:05:01.788+11:00The Society of the SpectacleI recently re-read The Society of the Spectacle. I read the <a href="http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/index.htm">Knabb translation</a>.<br />
<br />
There is a pdf of the book online and physical copies are available. I needed it for my Kindle, however, so I downloaded the HTML, cleaned up the document and converted it to a mobi format.<br />
<br />
<b>UPDATE</b>: <a href="http://thesinisterquarter.wordpress.com/">Notes from the Sinister Quarter</a> has created a superior version of this book. Go and get it from <a href="http://thesinisterquarter.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/the-society-of-the-spectacle-for-ereaders/">their website</a>.<br />
<br />
<div>
Below are some interesting quotes I found during this reading:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Kennedy survived as an orator to the point of delivering his own funeral oration, since Theodore Sorenson continued to write speeches for his successor in the same style that had contributed so much toward the dead man’s public persona.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Wherever abundant consumption is established, one particular spectacular opposition is always in the forefront of illusory roles: the antagonism between youth and adults. But real adults — people who are masters of their own lives — are in fact nowhere to be found.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Like the old religious fetishism, with its convulsionary raptures and miraculous cures, the fetishism of commodities generates its own moments of fervent exaltation. All this is useful for only one purpose: producing habitual submission.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The plain facts of history, however, are that the “Asiatic mode of production” (as Marx himself acknowledged elsewhere) maintained its immobility despite all its class conflicts; that no serf uprising ever overthrew the feudal lords; and that none of the slave revolts in the ancient world ended the rule of the freemen. The linear schema loses sight of the fact that the bourgeoisie is the only revolutionary class that has ever won;</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Imprisoned in a flattened universe bounded by the screen of the spectacle that has enthralled him, the spectator knows no one but the fictitious speakers who subject him to a one-way monologue about their commodities and the politics of their commodities. The spectacle as a whole serves as his looking glass. What he sees there are dramatizations of illusory escapes from a universal autism.</blockquote>
</div>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-70716476719642627062012-10-30T14:23:00.002+11:002012-11-16T22:05:19.620+11:00The most annoying thing about Windows 7...is when your application goes off screen and is unreachable. How can that even be possible? I would have thought that Windows would have something to detect and prevent this occurring. I just found <a href="http://www.interworks.com/blogs/jvalente/2009/12/30/finding-your-screen-window-or-application-windows-7">a fix</a>, however, so it isn't too difficult to deal with.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-62978594176040101802012-08-30T17:08:00.000+10:002012-12-21T09:08:03.635+11:00VB.NET cheat sheetI've been doing quite a bit of programming in VB.NET recently. It's almost exactly the same as C# but a few things have caught me out. I've written up a small cheat sheet with the <i>noticeable </i>differences (plenty of websites will give you a huge list of irrelevant differences).<br />
<br />
<b>Keywords</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="150"><b>C#</b></td><td><b>VB.NET</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>this</td><td>Me</td></tr>
<tr><td>base</td><td>MyBase</td></tr>
<tr><td>abstract</td><td>MustOverride/MustInherit</td></tr>
<tr><td>virtual</td><td>Overridable</td></tr>
<tr><td>sealed</td><td>NotInheritable</td></tr>
<tr><td>class Class : Interface</td><td>Implements (statement)</td></tr>
<tr><td>internal</td><td>Friend</td></tr>
<tr><td>static</td><td>Shared</td></tr>
<tr><td>typeof()</td><td>GetType()</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
If you want a static class in VB.NET, you'll need to use the Module keyword.
<br />
<br />
(One thing to note here is how much more intelligible some of the VB.NET keywords are.)<br />
<br />
<b>Logic</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="150"><b>C#</b></td><td><b>VB.NET</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>&&</td><td>AndAlso</td></tr>
<tr><td>||</td><td>OrElse</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
There is no equivalent for And and Or in C#.<br />
<br />
<b>Numeric type suffixes</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="150"><b>C#</b></td><td><b>VB.NET</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>12.34M (for Money)</td><td>12.34D (for Decimal)</td></tr>
<tr><td>12.34D (for Double)</td><td>12.34R (for Real)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Lambdas</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="75">C#</td><td>apples.Single(x => x.Colour = "red")</td></tr>
<tr><td>VB.NET</td><td>apples.Single(Function(x) x.Colour = "red")</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Initialising lists and objects</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="75">C#</td><td>var apple = new Fruit { Colour = "green" };</td></tr>
<tr><td>VB.NET</td><td>Dim apple = New Fruit With {.Colour = "green"}</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="75">C#</td><td>var apples = new List<fruit> { new Fruit { Colour = "red" }, new Fruit { Colour = "green" } };</fruit></td></tr>
<tr><td>VB.NET</td><td>Dim apples = New List(Of Fruit) From {New Fruit With {.Colour = "red"}, New Fruit With {.Colour = "green"}}</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Anonymous types</b><br />
<br />
<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td width="75">C#</td><td>apples.Select(x => new { Colour = x.Colour });</td></tr>
<tr><td>VB.NET</td><td>apples.Select(Function(x) New With {.Colour = x.Colour})</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div>
<b>Nulls and Nothing</b></div>
<div>
<br />
If you're coming from C#, the Nothing keyword does not do what you'd expect. What would you expect the following code to do?<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<pre style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Consolas; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: blue;">Dim</span> value = <span style="color: #a31515;">""</span>
<span style="color: blue;">If</span> value = <span style="color: blue;">Nothing</span> <span style="color: blue;">OrElse</span> value <span style="color: blue;">Is</span> <span style="color: blue;">Nothing</span> <span style="color: blue;">Then</span>
<span style="color: blue;">Throw</span> <span style="color: blue;">New</span> <span style="color: #2b91af;">Exception</span>()
<span style="color: blue;">End</span> <span style="color: blue;">If</span></pre>
</div>
<div>
<br />
If you said "not throw an exception" you'd be wrong. Weirdly, the first condition is true but the second condition is false, so it throws. Compare with similar C# code:<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
<pre style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Consolas; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: blue;">var</span> value = <span style="color: #a31515;">""</span>;
<span style="color: blue;">if</span> (value == <span style="color: blue;">null</span>)
<span style="color: blue;">throw</span> <span style="color: blue;">new</span> <span style="color: #2b91af;">Exception</span>();</pre>
<pre style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Consolas; font-size: 13px;"></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Consolas; font-size: 13px;"></pre>
</div>
<br />
In this case, the exception doesn't get thrown.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-12013119849131398452012-08-27T18:00:00.000+10:002013-03-24T19:46:06.831+11:00Barrett is an idiotI spent 1.5 hours of my life last week listening to people talk about the "<a href="http://www.valuescentre.com/uploads/2010-07-06/From%20Maslow%20to%20Barrett.pdf">Seven Levels of Consciousness</a>".<br />
<br />
Richard Barrett, a man lacking wits but making up for it with entrepreneurial enthusiasm, has improved the old pyramid model of Maslow (the hierarchy of needs) by creating an hourglass model.<br />
<br />
<b>Old</b>:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3E8_jgAaG1wh9HLnaCmazkZuDlDjIL-p1d9dUXJmmqX3zrVJ2mq3CcDLRfONMytBYG3mVVCYOrXC-Bfym4-1dPSQIqsZILBFBk9vFRljWK5NMHg7LbV1duMjpWpKAOEZXaP8SX7jdRJnv/s1600/1000px-Maslow%2527s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg%5B1%5D.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3E8_jgAaG1wh9HLnaCmazkZuDlDjIL-p1d9dUXJmmqX3zrVJ2mq3CcDLRfONMytBYG3mVVCYOrXC-Bfym4-1dPSQIqsZILBFBk9vFRljWK5NMHg7LbV1duMjpWpKAOEZXaP8SX7jdRJnv/s400/1000px-Maslow%2527s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg%5B1%5D.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<b>Improved</b>:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxDhzx7-HB4SllKrQ0cSEub-hSA51neEJ5xFP5UCCOm3GWGCiySjyoYoa3Hi2Aen6bK343UOjjU6m25VYtyeJY0U2n9DYf6DNzED9DpkYVjjRmaIV0JtTaMwAEbY-DBBeIdY7nDZdIk8m/s1600/barretts-organizational-consciousness1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxDhzx7-HB4SllKrQ0cSEub-hSA51neEJ5xFP5UCCOm3GWGCiySjyoYoa3Hi2Aen6bK343UOjjU6m25VYtyeJY0U2n9DYf6DNzED9DpkYVjjRmaIV0JtTaMwAEbY-DBBeIdY7nDZdIk8m/s400/barretts-organizational-consciousness1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
One will instantly see the superiority of this new model. For one thing, it's symmetrical. And it has circles. If there is anything more scientific than pyramids, it's circles. And the number seven.<br />
<br />
I have to say how impressed I am. Barrett has taken a relatively meaningless concept, the hierarchy of needs - wholly unproven and unprovable - and improved it by extension and inversion via the science of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veda">Vedas</a>. If it's science you're after, an ancient holy text is the best place to look. He's melded religious myth and pseudo-science and made a business out of it, selling it to morons world-wide.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Vedic science specifies seven levels of consciousness. These are waking, sleeping, dreaming, soul consciousness, cosmic consciousness, God consciousness and unity consciousness. It appeared to me that the descriptions of the last four of these levels of consciousness described the underlying features of self-actualisation. (<a href="http://www.valuescentre.com/uploads/2010-07-06/From%20Maslow%20to%20Barrett.pdf">From Maslow to Barrett</a>)</blockquote>
One could wonder how this sort of garbage could become such a integral part of corporate consciousness, especially at the management level. But it's not an anomaly. Business is full of unproven ideas and myth. Modern myth may appear to be especially good targets of ridicule but old myths are no less absurd, merely more accepted because they've been around longer.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-17401718597135120522012-08-17T22:00:00.000+10:002012-08-17T22:06:21.670+10:00Euler problem 19I started writing this blog entry a year ago. It's about an <a href="http://projecteuler.net/">Euler</a> problem I solved in F#. The code makes more sense to me now than it did a year ago and I haven't touched F# since then. I guess I'm just way smarter now.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
Solving <a href="http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=19">Euler problem no. 19</a> is the solution I'm most proud of. It's the first problem that I solved in F# with no assistance by the 'net.<br />
<br />
The problem:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
How many Sundays fell on the first of the month during the twentieth century (1 Jan 1901 to 31 Dec 2000)?</blockquote>
It isn't an overly complex problem but there a couple of tricky aspects. The approach that I used was to start on the first Sunday of 1901 (6th Jan) and add seven days over and over (i.e., only counting Sundays) until the end of 2000. I could have used the .NET DateTime type to solve this problem very easily, but I decided to see if I could solve the problem using my own date type.<br />
<br />
I solved the problem by using a few F# features, namely:<br />
<ul>
<li>pattern matching</li>
<li>tuple</li>
<li>record</li>
<li>list</li>
</ul>
The first problem was February. February is a prickly month. <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd547125.aspx">Pattern matching</a> will solve it! The febDays function accepts a year as a parameter and returns the number of days that February has.<br />
<br />
let febDays y = match y with<br />
| y when y % 400 = 0 -> 29<br />
| y when y % 100 = 0 -> 28<br />
| y when y % 4 = 0 -> 29<br />
| _ -> 28<br />
<br />
After February was ready, I needed to know the number of days in any month, given the month (as a number) and the year. I used pattern matching again. Therefore,<br />
<br />
let daysInMonth (m, y) =<br />
match m with<br />
| 2 -> febDays y<br />
| 4 | 6 | 9 | 11 -> 30<br />
| _ -> 31<br />
<br />
The other interesting function was to be able to add a day to a date. I did:<br />
<br />
let addDay date =<br />
match date.day with<br />
| d when d < 1 || d > daysInMonth(date.month, date.year) -> failwith "Not a valid day of the month."<br />
| d when d = daysInMonth(date.month, date.year) -> match date.month with<br />
| m when m < 1 || m > 12 -> failwith "Not a valid month."<br />
| m when m = 12 -> { day = 1; month = 1; year = date.year + 1}<br />
| _ -> { day = 1; month = date.month + 1; year = date.year}<br />
| _ -> { day = date.day + 1; month = date.month; year = date.year}<br />
<br />
The code above isn't the whole solution, but it's the interesting parts. As you can see, I pretty much pattern matched the whole solution. It's a shame that C# doesn't have pattern matching because it's a really powerful language concept.<br />
<br />Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-49551241166601768352012-08-15T19:00:00.000+10:002012-08-15T19:00:05.959+10:00Flat Earth vs Climate ChangeThe following is an exchange between me and someone I'll call Matt. He has some interesting ideas about climate change... After his response, I didn't think I could take the discussion anywhere else. He's clearly a downer and therefore not amenable to reason.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
Well constructed and very much in line with what I think on the topic, particularly the part about
The vested interests and the role of the big ball of burning gas above our heads in global warming.
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-science-is-a-load-of-hot-air-and-warmists-are-wrong-20120801-23fdv.html">http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/climate-change-science-is-a-load-of-hot-air-and-warmists-are-wrong-20120801-23fdv.html</a>
<br />
<br />
Gee
I’m glad I get to give an extra 500 per year to the government though.
<br />
<br />
Matt<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
Matt, I think this debate is distracting you from a much
more significant dispute. The <i>real</i> controversy is between those that
believe in the <a href="http://theflatearthsociety.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Ice_Wall">Ice Wall</a> and the downers – those believing in the Waterfall. They both have
photographic evidence:
<br />
<br />
Ice Wall:<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygG9205VxBA0dZtTf7OHpAxk3V6GTNB0yd7G9l9Aci6wxnMrxEPP5rpl7esDYcmnCjMnfuodAznbkgRPMlAJrKacCJEOR7IpHSnRYlsmdWu3gPIYLc3cWndsdvv-xINAwTmkyKZMfqpjt/s1600/800px-Ice_Wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygG9205VxBA0dZtTf7OHpAxk3V6GTNB0yd7G9l9Aci6wxnMrxEPP5rpl7esDYcmnCjMnfuodAznbkgRPMlAJrKacCJEOR7IpHSnRYlsmdWu3gPIYLc3cWndsdvv-xINAwTmkyKZMfqpjt/s200/800px-Ice_Wall.jpg" width="200" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Waterfall:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYCDuhtdcK6eJGe2CIxgYX9KMT-Fk7xfqGYHlsdtrXMZG-2yamXd7hjV9YG8gRmKa3wKw9AsMAAehSTilAoOFv3Fl8EcI3uW-4wlzBAciuZweF_sRrWZIxzNFHjSU_zwCUJTFaO7LTeEQK/s1600/Waterfall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYCDuhtdcK6eJGe2CIxgYX9KMT-Fk7xfqGYHlsdtrXMZG-2yamXd7hjV9YG8gRmKa3wKw9AsMAAehSTilAoOFv3Fl8EcI3uW-4wlzBAciuZweF_sRrWZIxzNFHjSU_zwCUJTFaO7LTeEQK/s200/Waterfall.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
But
whose testimonial can we believe? Personally, I think <a href="http://theflatearthsociety.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Ice_Wall">a
British Naval Officer’s account</a> is very convincing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It would be impossible to conceive a more
solid-looking mass of ice; not the smallest appearance of any rent or fissure
could we discover throughout its whole extent, and the intensely bright sky
beyond it but too plainly indicated the great distance to which it reached
southward.
</blockquote>
This
debate is not simply an Antarctic concern, it has global ramifications that
also impacts on the “theory” of global warming. If warmists are correct, the
implications of an ice wall is <i><a href="http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=2081.0#.UBngO7Q_8pQ">extremely concerning</a></i>. I think downers are drawn
towards their “theory” more because of alarmist fear-mongering than they are by
empirical evidence.<br />
<br />
It’s
even possible that their photo could have been faked!<br />
<br />
Patrick<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
Hi
Partick,<br />
<br />
Agreed,
global warming in all of its various extremist incarnations is distracting
us all from much more significant debates and issues.<br />
<br />
It
is far more relevant deciding what to have for dinner tonight and we can
all really make a difference here.<br />
<br />
In
light of my own experimentation and investigation it is just not possible
for me to deny that the earth is warming. Just
this morning I had to take about 2mil of ice off my car windows. This time last
year, it was probably more like 3mil.<br />
<br />
My
position is more in line with that of the author of this article.<br />
<br />
The
question that seems to be supressed at every debate on the issue is:<br />
<br />
How
much is man kind contributing and how much is a natural cosmic or environmental
cycle? <br />
<br />
The
very idea that <strong>man kind
may not be directly responsible for global warming </strong>is
considered heresy! In science! According to
our politicians - the science of climate, the most chaotic system known to man,
is <strong style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">decided, </strong>and
we're all to blame.<br />
<br />
In
truth, what makes me most concerned is that people are <strong>tired of hearing about it </strong>and
cannot fathom the thought that
perhaps they have been misled to such a gargantuan degree the very world will
never be the same.<br />
<br />
It all just makes me so <span style="color: red;">H</span><span style="color: lime;">A</span><span style="color: blue;">P</span>ppy!<br />
<br />
This
article was all about the global ramifications of warmist theories and the
rampant misuse/misinterpretation of so called "empircal" data so I
very much agree
with you - individuals will use populist interpretations of statistics to prove
whatever wacky theory pops into their heads.<br />
<br />
84%
of all people know that.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprx-R4XKwly-V97qMnzjd5x_oRtCSwZ2oHl9TeXRB-B23bmdO9NnhLZPrKk2Rcpn-DwidT3Z48omqwh31NXxgzLV2nr45dTfeb4yuz5OjlO0WhRshvE_TeftvzxK4KU040_QMUQ6aJKdY/s1600/FSM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprx-R4XKwly-V97qMnzjd5x_oRtCSwZ2oHl9TeXRB-B23bmdO9NnhLZPrKk2Rcpn-DwidT3Z48omqwh31NXxgzLV2nr45dTfeb4yuz5OjlO0WhRshvE_TeftvzxK4KU040_QMUQ6aJKdY/s320/FSM.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6061820122133825065.post-48757866894643184682012-08-10T22:00:00.000+10:002012-08-12T11:47:55.146+10:00Computer Othello, Part 5: ResourcesThis post lists the best info I could find on how to write a computer version of Othello.<br />
<br />
<b>General</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi#Rules">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi#Rules</a><br />
Rules for Othello/Reversi<br />
<br />
<a href="http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Othello">http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Othello</a><br />
Details on bitboards, hashes, deep-first searches and transposition tables. Contains source code (generally in C or C++)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.radagast.se/othello/howto.html">http://www.radagast.se/othello/howto.html</a><br />
A description of what is required to implement a better than average computer player.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://skatgame.net/mburo/ps/compoth.pdf">https://skatgame.net/mburo/ps/compoth.pdf</a><br />
A paper that describes the best Othello computer players from the 80s and 90s (IAGO, BILL and LOGISTELLO)<br />
<br />
<b>Strategy (human and computer)</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://radagast.se/othello/Help/strategy.html">http://radagast.se/othello/Help/strategy.html</a><br />
<a href="http://www.samsoft.org.uk/reversi/strategy.htm">http://www.samsoft.org.uk/reversi/strategy.htm</a><br />
<br />
<b>Implementation</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://users.informatik.uni-halle.de/%7Ejopsi/dass4/">http://users.informatik.uni-halle.de/~jopsi/dass4/</a><br />
A break-down of the tasks involved in creating an Othello game. Has info on implementing the rules and how the minimax search works.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/%7Edaw/masters-projects/dissertations/Colquhoun.2008.pdf">http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~daw/masters-projects/dissertations/Colquhoun.2008.pdf</a>
<br />
Computer science student's paper.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.cs.kent.edu/%7Ejmelnyk/othello/">http://www.cs.kent.edu/~jmelnyk/othello/</a><br />
A description of someone's attempts to write-up Othello depth-first searches (alpha-beta, negascout, MTD(f), Multi-ProbCut, etc.)<br />
<br />
<b>Computer player</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://samsoft.org.uk/reversi/openings.htm">http://samsoft.org.uk/reversi/openings.htm</a><br />
A list of the standard Othello openings.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://xenon.stanford.edu/%7Elswartz/cs221/desdemona_writeup.pdf">http://xenon.stanford.edu/~lswartz/cs221/desdemona_writeup.pdf</a><br />
Description of various evaluation strategies.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://othello.dk/book/index.php/Thor_Database">http://othello.dk/book/index.php/Thor_Database</a><br />
The Thor database was the only archive of Othello games that I could find on the net.<br />
<br />
<b>Finally</b><br />
<br />
If you want to see what I did with this information, there is <a href="https://github.com/ledpup/Othello">my source code for Othello</a>. It's fairly well written, the UI looks okay and is easy to use and the computer player plays well. I implemented most things you'd do in a world-class computer player. However, you'd have to make it <i>a lot</i> more efficient, if you wanted to take on those players.<br />
<br />
It was interesting, frustrating and fun to try to write a decent Othello game. I learnt a huge amount too.Patrickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13435350278104289580noreply@blogger.com3