Exponentializing Orwell

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
Our Inner Party is rather more clever and possessed also of rather more technological options than Oceania's Inner Party was. Though not very good qua novel, Orwell's conceptual apparatus strikes me more and more as an indispensable element of political education. Of course that evil and incompetent faggot, Hoover, commenced this subterranean war against the American citizenry back in the 20s. And to this day the FBI is far better at tracking down petty domestic threats than guarding against real threats, like the espionage programs run by major powers. The Farewell Dossier, hand delivered to Reagan via a top Soviet KGB agent in 1981, demonstrated that the Soviets had such a vast and comprehensive spy program in the West--especially in America--that the technology thus acquired had kept their economy and military afloat throughout the Cold War. Of course, before the Cold War we had simply given them our technological riches. In other words, their entire economy and most of their military was founded on exogenous innovation. Outside of modest contributions to pure science and a few military advances, there was no innovation in the Soviet bloc. It was a gigantic, truculent parasite. But, the FBI had detected virtually none of this activity. Apparently catching bank robbers and destroying the John Birch Society was more important in their provincial minds. Now the Chinese are the principal threat, yet no signs of savvy FBI countermeasures appear. Though their economy is more efficiently organized than the Soviet's was, they've yet to demonstrate a capacity for innovation. They are quite good at technology theft though. The FBI's primary role is to manufacture consent domestically. I suspect the DIA/NSA/CIA/NGA/NRO/OICI/TFI/INR/etc. nexus does little more than manufacture consent abroad. The "democracy" part of our polity is strictly for purposes of public entertainment, like the circuses, indeed very like the circuses, in old Rome. Whether this odd configuration of national defense can last one wonders. Against the Soviets, some success may be claimed. But, then, their economic system was so outrageously inefficient, it made us look good in comparison. Their capacity to utilize all the tech their spies stole was badly constrained by their economic system. The Chinese have a better--probably a much better--set up. And, their demographics look much more formidable numerically, and somewhat better qualitatively. Confining American espionage to manufacturing consent at home and abroad will next be measured by its effects on the two remaining great powers. Which will suffer more damage from the firehose of egalitarian propaganda issuing from NYC, LA, and DC?

Die Uber-Chinese

http://www.edge.org/response-detail/23838

 

Leftism is the flight from reality.

Reality may take many forms.

 

China has undertaken to provide us with our mandatory reality dose in this century.

Imagine if Nazi Germany had been run by Heydrich (relatively sane and smart) instead of Hitler (who squandered his potential) and its natural ethnic territory had been the size of America. This approximates the threat China will pose within a generation.

 

Leftism only knows one direction and ever intensified leftism either collapses in on itself--or those powers still in possession of their will to power crush its hollowed-out carcass and institute a new dispensation.

Singapore's Path

http://foseti.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/review-of-from-third-world-to-first-by-lee-kuan-yew/

This is what a country can do today when it is run like a business, allows immigrants in selectively, and does not encourage failure--also, when it ignores America's ruling class and its politically correct advice. Lee Kuan Yew even urges eugenics upon Singaporeans, and they believe in its advantages (though I'm not sure they act on it). And China's leaders are well acquainted with this model of development and governance. If they're willing and able to replicate it closely, they will so far surpass us that we'll be relegated to the pile of second rate powers with Japan, Indonesia, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, and a few others.

An Ever Bigger Beast

The government is eating the economy. Notice, though, that people have not woken up yet. We will have to hit the wall first. For now, we're just borrowing to solve our problems. Massive tax increases are the wall, and they can only be delayed for so long. I expect the political atmosphere will then become decidedly ugly, uglier even than today because the reality of the situation will by uglier. How this may interplay with the demographic shift toward the Democrats will be interesting.
Eventually, China will stop funding us. Already their funding runs at the minimum level they calculate will prevent a crisis in our economy (and, by extension, in their export trade). There isn't another comparable source of funding. There isn't likely to be. That means interest rates on government debt will go up, making the fiscal situation even less sustainable. Also, the baby boomers are retiring into a socialist morass of vast handouts and bureaucratic entanglements. The population is Mexicanizing. Given these countercurrents, it will be a major challenge to increase productivity at a sufficient rate to maintain current median family income levels--which have not increased in 40 years, except for whatever improvements medicine has provided.

The Chinese are not Stupid, Americans are: part 3852

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/110403_anarcho.htm A parlor game: what new policy will the socialists introduce to further undermine this country, or rather to accelerate a process already well underway? In the grand scheme of history, Americans at large have not exprerienced a wake-up call since WWII. The requirements to achieve this are that it should be a major and dramatic threat--also, that its basic meaning should be comprehensible to the citizenry (the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, mustered ramifications beyond the common scope of mind). Maybe national bankruptcy will suffice--though higher taxes seem more likely to happen in the foreseeable future. The collapse of Pakistan is another possibility, or war with Iran. Short of the negative shock of proper scale, this nation will persist in squandering its patrimony and thus decline ever further into decadent self-indulgence.

Obama's Misdirections

One way to influence the political discourse is to frame the issues by not mentioning issues that are uncomfortable fits for your ideological commitments. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/01/michael-lind-v-sputnik-moment.html I do not agree that our education system is ideal. It ought to be privatized by means of vouchers and the students who are not college-bound ought to be steered into vocational training programs to suit their interests and abilities. This will not solve the black-hispanic low performance issue. That appears to be caused by a nexus of lower IQ and anti-education cultural bias, with a small contribution from poverty. The idea that we lag on innovation is a joke: America and Israel far surpass any competitors in that realm. The problem is the Chinese and others a quite adept at stealing or otherwise acquiring our inventions and robbing us of much of the benefit the patent system is intended to secure. In China IP is a joke. Even the Europeans refuse to pay the innovation premium built into the price Americans pay for new drugs. And American companies give away patents and trade secrets for the privilege of doing business in China. Our government handles these matters most weakly and lets the Chinese hold sway. The great risk of mishandling trade with China arises from our loss of strategic industries to them. There are two types of strategic industries. First, industries presently at the core of the economy or vital to military superiority need to be kept onshore by whatever means--and they're not hard to identify. Second, and of more conjectural identity, those industries with the greatest potential for future growth and innovation must be sparked and succoured. We have attended to the military needs so far as government can apply competence to anything. On present time economic vitality, we've lost a considerable portion of the infotech industry, which is large and growing. Future industries face pressure to move to nations with more strategic emphasis on their development, China in particular. Cleantech continues a rapid exodus that way and holds enormous growth potential. Perhaps the worst part of this is that if we do not have a solar industry or a microchip industry, we will ineluctably lose our capacity to innovate in those areas. Most innovation occurs incrementally, accomplished by those with the most intimate familiarity with the technology and the business paradigm. This kind of loss we cannot afford to take. In select industries, we must implement an industrial policy aimed at sustaining their presence onshore and augmenting their innovation-engendered competitiveness. That this program will slip into corruption and incompetence is foreknown, and worth suffering for the stakes involved. Perhaps it would be best to structure it as an independent, apolitical agency like the Federal Reserve.

Another Way to Play

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks_1 I think this approach comes from a culture that evolved in a country overpopulated and impoverished for millenia. These conditions create an acute form of ingrained social competitiveness. But, just as identical ingredients manifest different flavors in different climes, a social strategy normative in one place may appear a species of madness in another.

The Climate Summit

This "deal" is a disappointment and a major failure if there happen to be future generations of humans. I attribute this mainly to the current economic problems: no one wants to pay more than a nominal price to solve this right now.

 

As to the Chinese, they have good reasons to play hardball on this. They are relatively poor still, and have done relatively little to contribute to the underlying problem, even though they are now the largest annual contributors to it. On the other hand, in 2010 they will snatch from us our lead in wind power generation, currently the most viable alternative energy. Also, they are making a huge effort to become the world leader in solar energy. Thus, for reasons of pride and economic competitiveness, they are engaging on the climate change issue on their own terms just as we are. They despise international coercion about as much as we do since they consider themselves the other superpower.

Neutered

 http://www.us.mensa.org/Content/AML/NavigationMenu/Join/SubmitTestScores/QualifyingTestScores/QualifyingScores.htm

These are the qualifying scores for various tests to join MENSA, the "high IQ" society. Notice how the current versions of the SAT, ACT, and GRE are no longer considered representative of intelligence. This is because the socialists watered them down into feel-good tests. Result: admittance into college and grad school no longer takes intelligence directly into account. The calculation by the socialists is that if you don't measure intelligence, you shouldn't have to apply affirmative action preferences to stupid minorities since the stupid will be almost indistinguishable from the intelligent. Thus we arrive at the point the socialists have been pursuing all along: promotion by political connections and considerations instead of by merit.

If you look at the bottom of the page, the military has also dropped IQ measurement from its aptitude tests.

Stripping IQ measurements from society reduces economic efficiency by failing to sort people into different professions according to their abilities. Of course, it also deprives individuals of this form of self-knowledge, which may lead them to pursuits above or beneath their natural aptitudes; in other words, it impedes their paths to realizing their full potentials. But, it's like every other form of political correctness. It's a lie. This time the lie is in the form of concealing the truth. Lies lead to more lies, and to inefficiency, and to the corruption of societal morals.

I wonder how many people are even aware of this development or have any sense of its implications. I suspect few professional educators know of it. Consider: our prime geopolitical, economic, and military competitor, China, is heading in the opposite direction, raising standards in its educational system, requiring the demonstration of both effort and intelligence for admission into its professional programs. The U.S. is decadent, eaten away from inside by weakness of will evidenced in endless give-aways that encourage dependence, weakness, stupidity, irresponsibility--led by the socialists, but passively tolerated by the capitalists and the independents.

Our only hope geopolitically is that China will follow Japan and implode. This appears unlikely. China possesses a more primitive psychology which manifests in shameless, unthinking nationalism. It also remembers past imperial power and desperately seeks the high respect that imperial power once commanded. Nor is it a dependent nation, as Japan has been for two generations. Also, it believes it has won its last five wars (against Japan, the Kuomintang, the U.S./"U.N."/S. Korea, India, Vietnam).

Confrontation merely enkindles its self-confidence. The Chinese are engaged in a highly disciplined attempt to raise their nation to the first position--not just in the region (already achieved), but in the world. And they seem to understand that strength of will is as important as any other factor in the competition among nations. This is the decisive difference between the U.S. and the pretender to the throne: strength of will. Here the will is directed at the "end of suffering", physical, psychological, spiritual. In China, for its leaders at least, it is the will to power that trumps all other priorities. But, power can only be achieved through struggle, and struggle means pain. And it can only be sustained through struggle, and struggle means pain. "Therefore," say the socialists, "all struggle must be abolished, and all competition too." Nor would Mr. Hu object if America were to lose its place by forfeit.