ParanoiA

I don't usually bump threads, but I'm surprised no one has responded to this. This is a very damning paper that is empowering the anti-AGW crowd to declare victory. I'm not sure how to check for peer reviewed results, rebuttals or whatever.

Any ideas if the paper mentioned in the post above has been reviewed and critiqued?

Gauge theories arise from branes when you consider coincident branes and string attached to them. Three branes can lead to supersymmetric version of QCD. So, I guess we can build worlds with gauge theories.

I really like the potential for this gauge theory, as you describe it here. So, I looked it up on Wiki to read more about it:

In physics, a gauge theory is a type of field theory in which the Lagrangian is invariant under a continuous group of local transformations.

 

The transformations (called gauge transformations) must form a Lie group which is referred to as the symmetry group or the gauge group of the theory. Associated with any Lie group is the Lie algebra of group generators. For each group generator there necessarily arises a corresponding vector field called the gauge field. Gauge fields are included in the Lagrangian to ensure its invariance under the local group transformations (called gauge invariance). When such a theory is quantized, the quanta of the gauge fields are called gauge bosons. If the symmetry group is non-commutative, the gauge theory is referred to as non-abelian, the most usual example of which being the Yang–Mills theory.

 

Gauge theories are important as the successful field theories explaining the dynamics of elementary particles. Quantum electrodynamics is an abelian gauge theory with the symmetry group U(1) and has one gauge field, the electromagnetic field, with the photon being the gauge boson. The Standard Model is a non-abelian gauge theory with the symmetry group U(1)×SU(2)×SU(3) and has a total of twelve gauge bosons: the photon, three weak bosons and eight gluons.

But man..I can't begin to get my head around any of that, at least not with that level of nomenclature. You physics folks really impress me. Must take a lot of time and effort to learn and absorb this science.

I like the idea of colliding branes as compared to sheets hanging on a clothes line, the sheets are branes in a 5 or more dimensional bulk. Gravity between the two branes attracts them to each other as they collide you get a universe wide big bang. The energy released causes them to spread apart, energy condenses back to matter the same way as what we think of as the big bang.

 

Wrinkles in the branes might cause pin point "big bangs" all through our space/time but the result of the collision would still be the same and gravity eventually draws the branes back together for a repeat performance.

 

From our point of view the universe is expanding from each collision but most of the colliding branes are forever out side our experience because of the infinite size of the branes in our view of space time but from the stand point of the bulk they would still be finite.

Sounds like that works with the cyclic model - the big bang/crunch cycle.

I like it too, because it's easier for me to visualize, even though I can't help but to wonder how much I'm missing by treating higher order (?) dimensions as extended lower order ones by thinking of 5th dimensional bulk as space between the sheets or containment for bubbles.

This reminds me..I thought I asked this before on a previous thread, but I don't think I ever got a good response: Is there any reason to believe the laws of physics as we know them in our universe would remain the same or change at some point throughout the process of a big crunch?

Being a layman, I would expect to see a more compact universe.

There are brane cosmologies that people study. The ekpyrotic model suggests that our universe originated from the collision of two branes. It has been suggested as an alternative to the big bang model, but I think as the cosmology evolves the same as the FRW cosmologies it is better viewed as an explanation of the initial "explosion" of the big bang.

That's an interesting model. I followed that link and noticed toward the bottom of the article they talked about how colliding branes are still not understood by string theorists. That's the perfect hole for what I'm doing. I wonder then, if branes could simply merge, effecting time, space and mixing the laws of physics of the two branes.

Do you know if there are any theories or suspicions about the nature of the physics in these other branes? It would be interesting if their physics were different...like 5 fundamental forces...or maybe there are more types of particles...or less...or maybe matter is arranged differently...maybe the nuclear forces do not exist and matter and energy is just not built the same...

W. Perkins considered a model in which our world is a spherically symmetric bubble wall in 5-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. (This is a particular brane world scenario.) He then suggests that our world will undergo many collisions with similar bubbles pre-existing in the anti-de Sitter bulk. He shows that the collision rate is independent of the age of our universe. If his model is accurate then we could be colliding all the time. Collisions with these other bubbles would be seen as a inflow of energy to our universe. Larger bubbles could be catastrophic!

 

(This inflow of energy could be used as a test of this model. In essence there would be a random injections of energy into our universe due to each collision.)

 

Perkins also shows that the late time evolution of the scale factor is governed by the Friedmann equations and so does look like a more standard cosmology theory.

 

Colliding Bubble Worlds W. Perkins arXiv:gr-qc/0010053v1

That's a pretty interesting theory too. I tried to follow the link, but I guess you have to pay to play? Fair enough. I tried to look up anti-de Sitter spacetime, and that's thick with concepts I'm not even remotely familiar with. The larger bubble catastrophe sounds like an interesting focal point to use in a fictional application. Very neat. I just wish I understood it.

Ok, so last I heard most of science suspects multiple universes. My gee wiz questions for the day are, what would happen when two universes collide? How would we experience that? Is there such a thing as trajectory when analyzing the collision of universes, and thus a range of impact intensity or even more of a merge than a collision?

Oh, another one that's always bugged me, is it assumed the laws of physics would be the same within other universes? If not, I wonder how that would effect the outcome of an impact with each other...

What do you mean by "the military should not interfere with that?" The military is sworn to uphold the Constitution (which doesn't provide for violent overthrow of itself, whatever the founders might have intended). And who is the "we" that's shooting them in the face? At what point does the will of one assassin or group of assassins become the will of "we the people?"

If a republic gets its power from the people, which is part of definition of a republic, then he's merely pointing out the reality of that consequence. The points you bring up, the questions you are asking, are the dilemma of the breakdown of a government.

Otherwise, they're not a republic, they are subjects ruled by aristrocracy (which, to some, is the de facto arrangement in the first place).

The military should not interfere, on principle, because the "boss" has spoken in that case. They should not turn on their own people. Obviously, this may conflict with their constitutional charge.

I guess what I'm saying is, there is no qualifying prerequisite formula for navigating this dilemma. But to subordinate yourself without condition is no solution to the dilemma either.

Now are you saying that if Congress implemented a law' date=' the Supreme Court must deny it at exactly the moment such law's about to be implemented by Congress....and if they somehow missed doing so, then we're forever stuck with the unconstitutional law?

 

Anyway, is there much difference in challenging by wisdom that a law's interpretation would be unconstitutional, and in challenging a law that's not in Congress's power to implement as it's unconstitutional? [/quote']

 

No, the court rejected interpretive expansion, for the first 150 years - until there was a crisis. Then, they interpreted it differently. I see that as a piece of supporting evidence for judicial activism.

 

Also, I don't understand where your second question is coming from. Let me frame my statement this way: The court is not to judge whether they think a law is a good idea, but rather if the law is in conflict with the powers afforded in the constitution. This means they have to first consider what the law proposes to do - what does the law say and what are its boundaries, and then reconcile that with the constitutional authority. Nowhere in this process are they to consider if it's a good law for america or not.

 

Maybe it's yet another practice "conservatives" began and later tried to shift blame on liberals?

 

I don't know if they're blaming liberals or not. I know I am blaming them for using the depression crisis to expand federal power by judicial activism. The unintended consequences being that the word "commerce" becomes any thing that humans adore, and the operative "interstate" becomes any thing that humans do. Well, american humans that is.

 

All of your examples are correct interpretations of the document. Take Dred Scott for instance:

 

The Court held that Scott was not a "citizen of a state" within the meaning of the United States Constitution, as that term was understood at the time the Constitution was adopted, and therefore not able to bring suit in federal court. Furthermore, whether a person is a citizen of a state, for Article III purposes, was question to be decided by the federal courts irrespective of any state's definition of "citizen" under its own law.

 

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons[/i'].

 

Disgusting and shameful as it is, slaves were labeled as "other persons", not citizens. So the ruling was correct. They were never protected by the document. This is an example of the court ruling on authority, as it should, not on whether it was fair or not, or a good idea.

 

That's why we had amendments passed to correct it. That's how you change the constitution, with amendments, not "hey, let's just read it different".

 

This is also how you protect the static advantage, the whole purpose of a constitution in the first place. You freeze principles into place, that can only be overridden when a society has evolved to the point that a super majority has changed its collective mind. That way, a simple majority cannot be tyrannical and violate basic human rights and decency afforded in those principles.

 

This is also why I don't like subjective, whimsical applications of law that don't rely on any formula of rights negotiation - to keep from "freezing" intended or unintended bigotry into law like we did with slavery.

 

And while I agree that emergencies are when the powers like to exert their abuse, it's mostly a concern when everything's done in secrecy and no expiration date. Also, what steps have you taken to ensure the critics of regulation aren't making stories up for their benefit to screw you? It goes both ways, and so...could it be possible that it's you who -- from reading their hysteria -- shat your pants?

 

I disagree that secrecy and no expiration date is to be most concerning - GWB didn't hide anything and look how the right romanticized the whole thing. Without secrecy, using propaganda and overt fear mongering, you can actually generate a greater momentum for even more sweeping expansion that you otherwise could in secret. Look at how Obama just picked up the rolling ball and ran with it. GWB established the fear necessary for war and economics, both, and then Obama ran with the economic one. We stole from the people and saved failing enterprises. We have established unprecedented federal intervention due to the fear of economic apocolypse, right out in the open.

 

If everyone did it, avoiding 100% taxes, we'd have a big problem. Could be the farmer was a scapegoat for a wider problem. I'd like to see the other variables first. Do we even know the related factors to that case?

 

They don't matter to the scope of what "commerce" meant, by the framers. It doesn't matter if the farmer was completely ripping off the american public for millions of dollars. It matters what "commerce" is to mean. The details matter for other downstream consequences, but not for this insulative parameter of "commerce".

 

You're doing what they were doing. You think that interpretation of a document depends on 3rd party behavior. That's activism.

 

And did your wheat get paid for by tax money? It's the key here. Not something I'd approve of government doing' date=' but they can play the dirty game of luring farmers into taking money for crops, so government has them sign over a bit of control. Didn't you notice it happen with the bailouts? Moral of the story: watch for the lure.

 

Otherwise, please show me when the government's tried anything like forbidding wheat grown for your own use, minus emergency cases? (i.e. any relatively harmless stuff)[/quote']

 

It doesn't matter. I don't accept the idea that one can create the imperative with their own voluntary actions, and then hold that my rights are now trimmed because of their gesture.

 

That's like passing law that says I must be rewarded tomatoes by the government, and then concluding that because I'm now dependent on government for tomatoes, I can no longer grow my own. If the farmer was subsidized by the government, then the only correct application would be that only those farmers who accept the subsidy should be judged for circumventing their intents. The Agricultural Adjustement Act was not limited to some qualifying parameter other than agriculture, it was a blanket authority.

 

Sounds like your name

 

Also' date=' why hasn't it occured to you that maybe government doesn't have such power, and the ones telling you otherwise have the agenda? [/quote']

 

Uh...because I can read? This is a matter of record - not a matter of voices in my head telling me uncle sam wants to regulate my toilet paper.

 

The historical record is unambiguous. NLRB v Jones and Laughlin Steel expanded the meaning of "commerce", and Wickard v Filburn expanded the meaning of "interstate". Commerce includes anything produced or grown, regardless of intent for sale or personal consumption, and "interstate" includes those things within the borders of the US. That's fact, not opinion.

 

Also, do you characterize the framer's reasons for distribution of power in the design of our government as paranoia? It's the same philosophical foundation. If Madison and Hamilton are paranoid, then yes, so am I.

 

However' date=' you simply haven't considered what regulation is, at least not to a full/mature extent.

 

Do you think the forefathers were masters of future-telling and innovation who took into account the slew of technological breakthroughs and changes in business operations, the great migrations from countryside to city, and mass production?

 

No, the Constitution and Bill of Rights evolved from past works. And to the present day, things have continued to evolve.

 

The idea is to keep the spirit of what the Constitution intended alive, in a manner that practically guarantees the new changes from abuse. Without overriding the Constitution, i.e. staying to the tradition of what the Forefathers did.[/quote']

 

Our technological advances have not changed what a product is. Nothing we've evolved to has changed the nature of trade between people. This is a common argument and is based on some outlandish notion that because we make really cool gadgets and infrastructure that our framers would be surprised to see, that somehow the balance of power between the fed and the states needs to be tilted entirely to the fed.

 

Your argument above carries a strange ignorance to state governments. It's almost as if you've forgotten we have them, which only reinforces my point about overly expanded federal power. It's to the point that the only government we seem to realize is the federal one.

 

States are perfectly situated to regulate business, and they do, for what little power they have left. Nothing I've said implies regulation is bad. I like regulation. I think the federal government should regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations, like the framers intended (and not because they intended it, but rather I think it's the right boundary), and the states should be free to regulate commerce, production, manufacturing - all that - within their borders.

 

I don't think the state, nor the federal government should regulate production not intended for sale, though. I would need an amendment to stop states from doing that, if I wanted the feds to override them. I doubt I could have my way there, but then, I'm ok with that. Unlike conservatives and liberals, I actually respect the document and its purpose.

 

Future scenario: if one day it happens that aliens visit the world, and suddenly the Earth is but a pebble in a vast galactic system, do you think it'd be wise for the U.S. to remain isolated from our world's decisions if every nation decided to join up and pool resources? So that the newcomers supply the rest of Earth with superior advances gained by trade, and the U.S. gets ignored because they said F.U.? Or do you think it'd be wiser for the U.S to take the initiative, agree to joining forces of military and government, therefore having an early influence on the type of government the world is to have? That's part of engineering society, my good friend.

 

No, it's not. That's a pragmatic international maneuver in the interest of national security that doesn't, in itself, imply any social engineering. Maybe that's where I screwed up - I should have said social engineering. Does that make more sense now? That's what I meant.

 

Let's not keep stagnant' date=' change is made by advances. The kinds of changes are often unforeseen when they happen quickly, so it's then we need to be most vigilant: the scoundrels are likely to wanna pass their selfish deeds into law while things are changing quickly.

 

And because such changes often involve big players, one variable's more important than ever before in history: the individual. Each person's worth is more than any company, institution, or group. The only exception might be government, as it's a representation of us all -- plus so long as it remains that way.

 

But it also means the individual has limits. If you build a company, that's not considered part of your individualism. Let's highlight the problem with a scifi-ish -- thus a little overblown -- example. Say you construct an eight foot tall mech body suit and walk around, no problem -- the government shouldn't get involved unless you armed it as well (so potentially it can blast the neighborhood to ashes in a few tries). Now say you, a multi-billionaire, had the resources and capability to build a colossal-size mech that nearly reached outer space, so it leaves footprints the size of large towns. Also if the mech falls... Yet what right does the government have in forbidding you to construct -- or even walk in -- such a thing? Or does it have the right to say that such a device -- or articifial extension of yourself -- is not viewed by government as being an individual part of you?

 

Or how about if your neighbor crafts weaponized deadly virsuses just for observation, no intention to use?

 

 

Tyranny of the majority is another usual fear being spread. However if you believe in people overall, the root of the problem isn't a majority. It's the small group who orhestrates that majority's panic, likely in secrecy. So instead, today, we distrust a majority with handling our important decisions -- yet so easily trust a minority of people we'll never see and/or know for sure how they're working out the important decisions.

 

Unravel that contradiction, and perhaps I'll believe tyranny of the majority is the worse.

 

But until then, to me the real culprit is the secrecy in handling those decisions. At least with the majority, we're able to directly keep an eye on their actions.

 

Not so with the minority in power. [/quote']

 

Another argument that appears to be ignorant of the amendment process. There is nothing unchangable about the constitution. The framers were well aware that the future is unpredictable and that's why the machinations are there for update.

 

I don't share your reverance for democracy. I used to. But tyrannical majorities have a historical record. Again, look at slavery when judging the value of majority opinion. I don't believe in the people overall, it's merely our only option. I think it was Jefferson, not sure, that said something to the effect that majority rule is not good, it's only better than the alternative. I have come to respect that sentiment.

 

Our framers understood that. So the majority rule concept was synthesized with distributed applications and hierarchies of power and authority so at the very least, simple majorities couldn't enslave major minorities, and cancel the rules of decency and ethics we determined were humane.

 

The constitution is a crucial part of that hierarchy. For one, it establishes all of it, and then includes the process to even make exceptions to itself. So that, at least, a super majority, with a consistent balance across the nation, will be required to change our princples. There is nothing written in stone, rather it's written in ice.

 

You forget that our government was designed in the context of the historical record of the governments in the world up to that time. They were not ignorant to the abuses of majorities and despots - that's why they didn't copy and paste the Roman Republic, but rather overhauled that idea with the lessons learned from their demise. It's worked brilliantly. It's only threatened by not following the design, which is what I believe we have been, and are, incrementally doing.

So to summarize, it is Constitutional because the Supreme Court decided that they get to decide whether something is Constitutional or not, and because they haven't deemed it Unconstitutional.

No, I think it's constitutional because they said it was, since that's their call. And since we are not subjects, but rather citizens, we can disagree with their reasoning.

Hell, they can decide that the first amendment only applies to corporations, so citizens are to sit down and shut up. If that's how they want to interpret it and at least 5 of them think so...

Or have I missed your point entirely?

A few things...

 

1. Livestock eat way more than a farmer' date=' and will end up traded in commerce.

 

[/quote']

 

Not from anything that I've read, and note, I didn't get my information from Wikipedia - I just used wiki for the links for any that are interested.

 

Number is 1 is a joke. Feeding livestock that will be used for trade means the feed qualifies for regulation? What about building the structure that houses the livestock? How about the land the livestock lives on? You seriously believe that everything that remotely touches that livestock automatically becomes commerce? That's exactly what the New Deal justices believed, so you're not alone.

 

Though, you should note, that the supreme court did not see it that way until in 1938, during implementation of the New Deal. The commerce clause was limited to actual objects of trade only, and only where they are traded across state lines and with other foreign nations for 150 years.

 

It is telling that the court totally changed its collective mind during the New Deal expansion - that's Judicial activism. They changed their mind because they ruled on matters of "wisdom" rather than matters of "power". That's activism by the judiciary. The supreme court is not to judge the wisdom of a law and its constitutionality, it is to judge the authoritative power of the congress to implement a given law per the constitution.

 

Just like the financial crisis, excuses were made for expansion of federal power, and instead of writing amendments to increase their power, or writing laws that didn't depend on that power, they instead just re-interpreted the language of the constitution. Government always uses crises to increase their power. War and economics are the most popular of those excuses. The people always shit their pants and give it to them - fear is a great motivator to subordinate groups.

 

2. Again' date=' where the crops subsidized by our tax money? [/quote']

 

Number 2 could be true, I'm not sure. But again, if its not commerce (though I acknowledge that you disagree on the scope of that word) then it wouldn't matter. Subsidy would have applied to the commerce lost as a result of reducing the amount of wheat to be allowed to grow. And since he didn't sell this wheat, it shouldn't be commerce that he's lost, so he gains nothing unfairly by the subsidy.

 

3. Was the court possibly fixing an existing loophole of interstate commerce?

 

Is it a loophole to take advantage of tax breaks in the code? Don't we try to walk the lines of the code to our best benefit?

 

Was it a loophole to grow and manufacture your own materials to then reassemble to create a product? I don't think so. I don't think the federal government was given the right to regulate growing wheat for myself that I may use to bake bread for sale' date=' or bread for my own consumption. They can regulate bread that I sell across state lines only - but every activity up to that point is under [i']state[/i] discretion, not the federal government. Well, until we rationalized around it with the depression crisis.

 

The history of the imperative for interstate commerce regulation is important to determine the scope of its power allocated in the constitution as well. The framers were extremely determined to resolve the problems with trade between states; it was a nasty game of tarriffs and gridlock. They had no interest in intrastate activity nor the activities that preceded the exercise of trade - that was not the imperative. That's history. And that's also why for 150 years they were limited for that very reason. States took that role. It wasn't ignored and left to chaos as proponents for this expansion would have you believe. State government is government.

 

The other thing that should be noted...the framers were well aware of farming, manufacturing, producing- obviously - and yet you never see that language. 'Commerce' is the act of buying and selling things. One has to stretch the logic, pursposely with the passion of agenda, to include activities that precede buying and selling, (further without regard to buying and selling). The word 'commerce' was never defined anywhere in the constitution, as is customary in legal language when an idea is more inclusive than it's strict definition would suggest. Another reason why it stood just that way for 150 years.

 

Let's be realistic. Consider something: when's the last time you couldn't sell on eBay or Amazon because it had an effect on interstate commerce? Power sellers go through a huge volume of trade on eBay. And plenty of websites hook people up to directly trade with China businesses.

 

I don't think it's wise to analyze the checks and balances of power using current behavior. How many presidents used a preemptive strike excuse before GWB? Yes, let's be realistic. The federal government may be a fair master today, but a tyrannical dictatorship the next. We didn't design our government based on the notion that everybody will be nice and fair forever and ever - we designed it with limits because we cannot know the extent of its benevolence and its potential for malice over the course of time and incrementalism.

 

The federal government has the power to ban gardens, home workshops, sewing, every example of production of a good, not intended for sale at all, for every american - including the hermit that lives in the woods in isolation. That they haven't exercised this power, is not an argument, but rather a report on current discretion. The federal government has the power to force you into the market. If you can't grow your own food to eat, or sew your own clothes, or build your own furniture, and any number of other things to sustain yourself - then you're forced into the market in order to live. That 99% of us do this by choice, is not an excuse to dismiss it.

 

I'm not comfortable with the federal government having that kind of power. And neither is the majority of americans, which is why they don't pass and amendment to grant that power - it's easier to bypass the majority imperative and just infer the verbiage of the constitution to mean what we'd like it mean. And now, after years and years of this incremental exercise of that power (since most americans had no idea what just happened with that SC ruling), we are well conditioned for subordination.

 

 

This is not an issue for you, because you have a collective, communal mindset and this logic is very comfortable for you. You seem to admire government intervention to engineer proper behaviors, and regulate fairness. This is not a disparagement, as it may sound, I'm basing this off of previous conversations in the past and seems a valid point. We will never see eye to eye on individual liberty.

 

As for marijuana' date=' isn't that a prohibition by conservatives -- the very ones "protesting" the reach of the Commerce Clause? Again, though, if you trace back the history, you'll see the little ol' marijuana plant was in an unfair fight up against 3-4 titans of industry.

 

So if you truly want to go after the root of the problem, that's where it's at -- majorly. [/quote']

 

I'm not the least bit interested in the cant by conservatives. The ideologies of liberals and conservatives to squirm their value systems into law, skirting the principle of a broad based ethical system that accomodates all moral codes limited only by harm to others and their stuff, as originally codified in our founding language, has always left me chafed.

 

What you bring up here is the classic blame dilemma: Is it the fault of the regulator or the regulated? Typically, I blame the regulator. Mainly because that title and control claims the expertise to maintain that function and because they enumerate the rules for everyone to negotiate. But the regulated are also to blame, because we should not be proud of acting hypocritical and exploiting coercive forces to get our way. Since both bussiness and consumer, employer and employee, rich and poor - all do this, none of them get my sympathy and all of them get my scorn.

 

You're right. The conservatives are sons of bitches for exploiting the power they shouldn't have had. And so are the liberal democrats of the New Deal era for establishing that power they shouldn't have had.

I'd have to see a reliable source for that' date=' could be a lot more to the story, as in a manner we're dealing with an extraordinary claim: a bunch of justices make a huge deal about a farmer growing edible crops for home use.

 

What's the context?

 

Did the farmer grow more and tried the "personal use" excuse when caught? Had the laws/regulations specified no one could grow extra for personal use, or did they specify an exception where farmers could do so -- but they just had to claim it ahead of time? More importantly, were the crops subsidized in any way by the public's tax money? If so, wouldn't it be a valid reason to place limits on the crops?

 

I agree that yes, it'd be utterly asinine if the Supreme Court justices had decided it's bad if a farmer on private land grows their own food. But I must see all the other details, like if the farmer had acted in a disingenuous manner. Who knows?[/quote']

 

The context is the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. Designed to mitigate the effects of the depression by raising wheat prices through regulated production. The federal government would regulate how much wheat could be produced, and fines would be imposed for over-production. The Department of Agriculture Secretary Claude C Wickard set Filburn's wheat allotment at 11.1 acres/ 20 bushels per acre. However Filburn used over 20 acres for it since he consumed most of it himself, between his livestock and personal consumption. Only a small portion was actually sold on the market, well under the 20 bushels per acre maximum.

 

In his view, only marketed wheat should be considered commerce. Prior to the New Deal justice appointments by Roosevelt, that view was pluralized by the supreme court. Justice Owen J Roberts was the fifth vote reversal of that view in National Labor Relations Board v Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. That ruling is what expanded "commerce" to include agriculture, manufacturing and production - anything that substantially effected commerce.

 

That's the first expansion of the clause. The second is Wickard v Filburn which held that those activities, however local and regardless of commercial intent, that effected interstate commerce could also be regulated by congress.

 

And so that's how you get from interstate commerce only to intra/interstate production/manufacturing/sale/agriculture and etc... Merely making stuff in your garage, growing things in your yard - all for your own use can be regulated because you can effect the market of such things.

 

The courts have also declined to establish any formula for measuring constitutionality of the commerce clause because, writes Justice Robert Jackson, "...that questions of the power of congress are not to be decided by reference to any formula which would give controlling force to nomenclature, such as 'production'...and foreclose consideration of the actual effects of the activity in question upon interstate commerce".

 

I think Jackson was trying to be practical, actually. But nomenclature is exactly what was needed to check this expansion.

 

 

I don't understand your position, are you against this simply because you find it unconstitutional, on what grounds is this. Plus I get confused by your wording because you take on an extremely libertarian position I think most will never agree to. Allowing people to become crack addicts will impact individual liberty on a social level outside of just the individual. Then again we do seem to be dominated by automobiles, but those happen to be of benefit to enough people as to be a null issue outside of gas prices.

 

Yes, I'm well aware that freedom scares the shit out of everyone. I'm not compelled by that majority. In fact, after observing group behavior in my lifetime, majorities alert me to look deeper as something is likely wrong.

Just ran across this case, Wickard v Filburn (1942), in this book I'm reading which apparently upheld the power of congress to regulate activity which is used for personal consumption and never sold. This is the case that established the scope of congressional reach using the commerce clause that inhibits personal cultivation of marijuana. And anything else they decide to take from us...

Roscoe Filburn was a farmer who produced wheat in excess of the amount permitted. Filburn however, argued that because the excess wheat was produced for his private consumption on his own farm, it never entered commerce at all, much less interstate commerce[/i'], and therefore was not a proper subject of federal regulation under the Commerce Clause.

But his argument did not win out:

The issue was not how one characterized the activity as local' date=' but rather whether the activity "exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce":

[/quote']

 

The Supreme Court subsequently held that' date=' as with the home grown wheat at issue in the present case, home grown marijuana is a legitimate subject of federal regulation because it competes with marijuana that moves in interstate commerce. As the Court explained in Gonzalez:

 

[i']Wickard thus establishes that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity that is not itself “commercial,” in that it is not produced for sale, if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity.

 

Anyway, I remembered this discussion and felt compelled to share it. Wickard v Filburn..what a bitch.

White guilt fantasy is a good name for it. It's certainly a common theme these days.

 

That was interesting how he saw it as just another way for white people to make the story about them.

Funny, this is exactly how I've seen this my whole life. It's dimmed enlightenment. The gloriously foolish display of pretending as if we are no longer prejudice as we explore how our violence was wrong, and then completely miss our own point as we reaffirm our apparent superiority by condescendingly assuming leadership roles and saving them.

The message has always been clear to me: We were wrong for oppressing you with violence, but we weren't wrong about how stupid we think you are - we just know it's not your fault. You are equally morally relevent, but we're still obviously much smarter and more capable and will now handle you with care. Follow me, please.

That's what we've been saying with film and literature for as long as I can remember. Well, the mainstream stuff anyway...

I was going to trash Avatar for its utter lack of depth in every category except color, but that's already been done from what I can tell. A visually astonishing experience, I've seen it twice now. With an actual story, with actual characters it could be a great movie too.

Hey thanks for the response fellas. I've checked the links and there's some good stuff there for sure.

What I meant was more like a specific example of how one would calibrate...for instance I have this old piece of pottery I think was crafted 10,000 years ago. I carbon date it to about that time. Now, how do I calibrate with tree rings? Do I carbon date the tree ring sample itself - while knowing the tree ring sample is from 5,000 years ago, and then compare the two? Or what?

I'm not understanding the actual process of calibrating. What is being compared?

I think Swansont was answering that, here:

Tree rings overlap from present back many thousands of years, through different samples. You might have a tree that is several hundred years old and it will have a pattern of growth rings that vary in a recognizable pattern. You can find the same pattern in an older tree that had died some time in the past, and is older. This then matches up with an even older sample, etc. etc.

So, if I understand correctly, the older tree sample could be matched up with the living tree sample due to the signature patter of growth rings and simply doing the math given the difference in total rings on the living tree. So would you then carbon date the older sample to see if it matches the date obtained by comparing tree rings? That sounds like calibration to me. And that's an example I could easily recite if I needed to. Is that sound?

These are people whom I have to trust and respect on work-related projects, mind you. How can I reasonably take instruction from someone who thinks that way, or trust them to make quality decisions based on the data available? In short, I cannot. They've lost my respect, and I'm like a lone wolf in the office right now... the only one who doesn't reject or deny basic science or empiricism. It's quite disheartening and sad, really.

Same here. The thing I keep running into, and it's entirely fascinating actually if not so aggrivating, is that they base their "belief" in GW on perceived political consequences, not on evidence or reality.

I always ask them, if the democrats proposed a 90% tax rate during the day time, are you going to say the sun never rises? Or are you going to take issue with the tax rate? So why deny GW, science, based on what "socialists" are going to do, politics? As usual, I'm stuck in an odd position - on one hand, arguing with socialistic efforts to resolve global warming and on the other hand, arguing with skeptics for denying science based on political response.

It's so obvious to me. Why is it so hard to separate the two? Politics, media and science have been purposely fused together to create this. I haven't run into a skeptic yet that didn't use all three to deny the one - science.

Necromancer alert. Well, aren't we supposed to search before we open new threads?

Why would you need a tree with a billion rings? C-14 dating doesn't go back that far. There is dendochronology evidence dating back more than 10,000 years. And varves. And ice cores. And coral rings. And speleotherms. C-A-L-I-B-R-A-T-I-O-N. C-O-R-R-O-B-O-R-A-T-I-O-N. Any of this sinking in? If the decay rate changed, then you wouldn't get all of the methods to agree at all.

Can you give an example of a calibration scenario that I might understand? I understand the concept, but I always like an example to fall back on. In this case, I'm not understanding exactly how you'd use say, dendochronology...I mean, if I understand correctly, things have to be dead in order to lose equilibrium and thus a C-14 date, and tree rings wouldn't keep forming either, so how do you know when the tree rings were formed without C-14 dating also?

In case it isn't clear, I'm not questioning the logic from skepticism, I'm questioning the logic from ignorance.

This kind of stuff has been coming up because I've become the official defender of science here at work - which is scary because I'm not a scientist of any stretch, nor do I really know much of any detail on anything. There is a lot of scientific denialism here, particularly with the laughable "climategate", mostly based on incomplete knowledge and an entirely perverted view of the method. Nothing you all haven't fielded for years here.

Anyway, carbon dating is the latest topic. Examples help to anchor concepts, and I'd like to be able to provide at least a passing example of how one uses dendochronology to calibrate carbon dating.

Thanks, anyone.

I don't really know the answer to that' date=' but I am prompted to ask how complexity is being defined. What would count as "more complex?" A parrot is more complex than an amoeba, presumably, but according to what quantifiable criteria? (A potentially easy one - size of genome - is problematic, since an amoeba's genome is actually dozens to hundreds of times larger.) More pertinently, how would it be defined on the smallest scales, i.e. in the timeframes of direct observation? You wouldn't expect viruses to necessarily evolve into something else in that timeframe (and possibly not at all - evolution tends towards more success at passing on genes, not more "complexity," and viruses are damn good at that, which is why not only are there still viruses but there are more than ever).

 

So anyway, we're stuck with "complexity" in a subjective sense, which makes it difficult to judge incrementally. And we're stuck with an extremely short timeframe for direct observation, which means we're limited to mostly incremental changes, and mostly in organisms that have the capacity to evolve very quickly and have very short generations, like microorganisms.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I realized that once I found this page on talkorgins.org about "adding information". They question the premise similarly. I think, ultimately, the "Eye" is being questioned. I wish I understood enough about biology to translate that into what kind of "complexity", or added information, that would then suggest. Such as "increased genetic material" or "novel genetic material" or "novel genetically-regulated abilities".

 

When you walk through the proposed steps of how the eye evolved, and if we assume this is an increase in complexity, then what would those fractional steps in-between be? Increased genetic material? Novel genetic material?

 

In other words when we go from a "photosensitive cell" to "aggregates of pigment cells without a nerve" - would we call that "Increased genetic material?" Or is "increased information" even relevant?

 

I'm really out of my element, but it sure is interesting.

 

Things like new metabolic systems in bacteria seems like something that could be subjectively called an increase in complexity. And though it might not be that dramatic, it's probably the most you would expect to see directly, given observational limitations.

 

I think that's a good demonstration though. If we've observed it, then I think it qualifies. I would never expect much beyond that. In fact, I was surprised we've observed speciation.

 

Thanks for the piece on Morphological Change. I do find it hard to understand, lots of terminology I'm not familiar with, but it will keep me occupied for a while.

 

Have you already read this?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_complexity

 

No I haven't and that looks terrific. Thanks.

Surprisingly, I can't find an answer to this question. My search skills are horrid, I admit, but I can't quite find anything on Talkorigins and Google searches keep bringing up other forums that I'm not familiar with.

I'd rather just ask you fellas...

In discussing the complexity of the Eye, it was said that while we have observed microevolution, we have never observed something becoming more complex or sophisticated.

Subtending that remark came the follow up that viruses never become anything more, and yadda yadda - after all this time we evolved into the most impressive life form, yet viruses are still...viruses.

Would someone mind pointing me in the right direction where I could read a bit about it?

I know we've observed evolution and even speciation with micro-organisms, so I find it hard to believe that none of our observations suggested an increase in complexity. And I have no idea where to go with the follow up...

But wouldn't this only be applicable to cases where the "controlled substances" were crossing state lines?

No. If you notice there are 3 different places in that section alone that establish authority on Intrastate commerce:

Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because—

(5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate.

(6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.

The commerce clause itself is also argued to establish regulatory authority over intrastate commerce based on the notion it has an effect on interstate commerce. The SCOTUS has ruled on this a few times, I think.

And check this out. We're apparently not the only ones in awe of this overreach when it comes to mary jane. And note this is Clarence Thomas seemingly siding with us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_clause

The Commerce Clause has been the most widely interpreted clause in the Constitution' date=' making way for many laws which, some argue, contradict the original intended meaning of the Constitution. The Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has gone so far as to state in his dissent to Gonzales v. Raich,

 

[i']“ Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything – and the federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.[6][/i]

Virtually anything. So I guess Clarence isn't a "poseur" huh? That surprised me...

With a gashing hole like the commerce clause, at least how it's interpreted, who needs a constitution? What does it really do?

But then again...how would you find the authority for this health bill either?

Most of the language that establishes the constitutionality of the CSA can be found in the Congressonal findings and declarations in 21 U.S.C. § 801. I think this section is making its case for qualification under the Commerce Clause.

The Congress makes the following findings and declarations:

 

(1) Many of the drugs included within this subchapter have a useful and legitimate medical purpose and are necessary to maintain the health and general welfare of the American people.

 

(2) The illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American people.

 

(3) A major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through interstate and foreign commerce. Incidents of the traffic which are not an integral part of the interstate or foreign flow, such as manufacture, local distribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect upon interstate commerce because—

 

• (A) after manufacture, many controlled substances are transported in interstate commerce,
• (B) controlled substances distributed locally usually have been transported in interstate commerce immediately before their distribution, and
  
• © controlled substances possessed commonly flow through interstate commerce immediately prior to such possession.
  

 

(4) Local distribution and possession of controlled substances contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances.

 

(5) Controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate cannot be differentiated from controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate. Thus, it is not feasible to distinguish, in terms of controls, between controlled substances manufactured and distributed interstate and controlled substances manufactured and distributed intrastate.

 

(6) Federal control of the intrastate incidents of the traffic in controlled substances is essential to the effective control of the interstate incidents of such traffic.

 

(7) The United States is a party to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, and other international conventions designed to establish effective control over international and domestic traffic in controlled substances. Search this title:

The Commerce Clause, which is regularly exploited to expand federal power and will continue to until we revolt, is used in conjuction with the Necessary and Proper Clause to circumvent the absence of an enumerated power to regulate what we produce and ingest on our own.

Looking at the language of this code, it appears that they have rationalized regulating Bascule's right to grow a damn fine marijuana plant and smoke it all for himself (Bogart).

Per #3-A, it seems Bascule can't be trusted to manufacture the substance since other people will then turn it into commerce. Since he cannot be distinguished from traders, he is prohibited. Per #4, I may be stretching it a bit, but it sounds like they're saying that if Bascule merely possesses such a thing, that swells the general market demand, and thus interstate and intrastate commerce.

This kind of application of the Commerce Clause nullifies a bulk of the entire constitution. By the logic above, if I build my own car I can affect the commerce of the car market and could be restricted from it.

Anything you do or possess that can be indirectly tied to some kind of commerce, somewhere, can be regulated. Building furniture for myself will effect the furniture market. I will not buy furniture that I built so those sales will not happen AND, that I even own furniture contributes to the demand of furniture.

This is not the only documentation arrangement that establishes or justifies constitutional authority I'm sure, but it's a major piece of the CSA. Also note the "general welfare" comment on #2.

And note to pseudolibertarian teabaggers: if you do not stand behind the right of a person to do something within the comforts of their own home which does not have a direct effect on any other individuals, you are not a libertarian. You are a poseur.

Here, here.

You [/i']asked for opinions about the petition. It's not as if it were brought up by someone else as a distraction from other discussion.

I asked for opinions about the petition, not some left field, entirely irrelevant association to some other junk science routine about creationist tactics.

Really Swansont? You're really going to pretend as if that disingenuous pathetically weak appeal to ridicule AND false association by the most relaxed of intellectual standards was a valid response to my overt request for scientific comment?

BS. If someone tried to disparage the conclusions of the IPCC citing ACORN corruption you'd be up in arms, pasting a wiki link to a every fallacy you could think of. But when some lefty friend of yours uses creationist babble to comment on a Global Warming petition, then it's something I asked for? Come on man...

My intent was very clear that I was requesting a scientific/logical reply to these two issues that I have no academic grounds to refute.

Again, don't ever wonder why politics find it's way into these discussions. You do understand this, first hand.

You also seem to have understood my intent just fine here:

http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=OISM

Thank you. That's precisely what I was looking for. This serves as a terrific example of how a technical article can look impressive to us laymen, and be refutted just as impressively. Any idea on the paper from Lindzen and Choi?

You brought up the petition, and specifically asked what was to be made of it.

Yes, the GW petition that I linked. Not irrelevant, non-associated creationist drivel. That's utterly absurd.

Not to mention it's politicizing a scientific discussion. I thought we didn't like it when people conflated the GW scientific debate with politics and media spin. So why on earth would you support such a thing?

You guys know me, I'm not here to ridicule science with some secret denier agenda - I'm locked into debate with skeptics that like to cling to articles they find with text they want to hear and pretend as if it's a valid reason to counter consensus.

Both of these things were brought up to me, and I do find them of interest, and I am trying to query scientific minds as to their peer reviewed status. I'm trying to stick to the method and avoid the politics. A clinical, scientific refute is what I'm looking for. If you don't know, that's fine, I understand. I'm just hoping that someone here does.

So you're going to argue evolution in a GW thread and completely ignore the questions I asked?

I don't care what creationists are doing, I'm asking specifically about these two peer reviewed papers and what the feedback is on them thus far. I'm also asking about the detraction volume of signers of this petition. Your "speculations" are not interesting nor useful.

If you can't stay remotely on topic then please do not post. Go hijack some other thread.

Here's one that apparently has been submitted for peer review.

http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/Review_Article_HTML.php

I asked in another GW thread about Lindzen and Choi's paper submitted for peer review earlier this year and have seen no responses on it.

I also searched the site here for discussions on Lindzen's ERBE data conclusions as well as this Petition Project and found nothing. I don't know if I'm not searching correctly, or if no one is refuting their claims or simply ignoring them altogether.

My logic has always been that consensus is right more than it is wrong and that it is irrational to pick and choose when to reject scientific consensus unless you're an expert in that field. All us laymen can do is read articles by smart people and attempt to educate ourselves, but at the end of the day, we are not experts and any ole smart person can refute the claims of another and we wouldn't know which is correct. So, nodding to consensus is the only logical choice.

But this is only taking me so far. Several folks keep throwing up the issue about consensus itself. A weak consensus is not the same as a major one. There does appear to be a smaller consensus than on other empirically based theories, such as evolution and gravity.

So I come here to ask. What is to be made of the 31,478 signers of this petition?

The peer-reviewed summary, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide'' by A. B. Robinson, N. E. Robinson, and W. Soon includes 132 references to the scientific literature and was circulated with the petition.

 

Signers of this petition include 3,803 with specific training in atmospheric, earth, and environmental sciences. All 31,478 of the signers have the necessary training in physics, chemistry, and mathematics to understand and evaluate the scientific data relevant to the human-caused global warming hypothesis and to the effects of human activities upon environmental quality.

More importantly, what is the peer review conclusion on these papers? I'm talking about both Lindzen and Choi's radiation conclusions as well as this one posted on Petition Project by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

Wasn't sure where to put this...hopefully this is the right thread.

I caught a recent discussion about Richard Lindzen, of MIT, and some paper he and a fella named Yong-Sang Choi put together about climate sensitivity, particularly on the relationship of radiation and CO2. Normally this stuff puts me to sleep, and this is coming close, but I managed to stay awake and actually absorb some of it.

So I tried looking up some info on it and found a few articles. If I'm reading this one right, I think the essential summary is that as CO2 levels increase, so does radiation, which counters the conventional thought that radiation is blocked or whatever by increased levels of CO2. This comes from data generated by the ERBE (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment) satellite that measured outbound radiation over the course of like 15 years or so.

The latest findings to this effect by Lindzen and Choi add to the work that Roy Spencer and several other researchers have been doing for years in this arena. Instead of a climate sensitivity lying within the IPCC’s range of 2.0° to 4.5°C, Lindzen and Choi report it to be about 0.5°C—six times less than the IPCC’s “best estimate” of 3.0°C.

 

Lindzen and Choi make their determination by examining radiation data measured by instruments carried by satellites orbiting above the earth’s atmosphere and comparing the variation of incoming and outgoing radiation with the variations in the earth’s tropical ocean temperatures. Climate models seem to predict that when the ocean temperature increases, less radiation leaves the earth to space, which leads to additional warming—a positive feedback.

 

However, actual observations seem to show that warmer oceans results in more radiation lost to space, which acts to reverse the warming—in other words, a negative feedback. Changes in cloudcover are one possible mechanism involved. The data presented by Lindzen and Choi are shown in Figure 1. The red box surrounds the data from the observations and shows a positive relationship between sea surface temperature changes and the amount of radiation lost to space, while the climate models (the other 11 boxes in Figure 1) show the opposite—radiation lost to space declines as ocean temperatures rise.

In the discussion I caught on TV they made it sound like Richard Lindzen had quite the reputation and authority on climate science, but obviously I would have no earthly idea if he was a quack or a genius.

So what does the peer review on their paper look like? I'm curious what climate scientists think about this conclusion by Lindzen and Choi.

Interesting. So, maybe my question is really about abstract imagery. When I space off, and this happens a bit more nowadays, and imagine myself being chased by a big hairy monster creature, then am I really processing electrical impulses and chemicals which render a big hairy monster creature? How does the big hairy monster creature exist? It takes time to exist, to play out the mental imagery. So can we say it occupies that dimension?

Merged post follows:

I'm thinking ParanaiA's question is more about what is physically occuring when we experience a "thought." Which I'm assuming is something, unless "thoughts" as individual events are illusions. (I don't have a helpful answer, just trying to head off some unhelpful ones.)

Thanks for that. As evidenced, I rarely know exactly what I'm asking.

Some of us here on the forums have become a bit exasperated with the way certain economic ideologies keep hijacking every thread... frustrated with how frequently the topic under discussion gets completely derailed by these Austrian pet theories.

You've just said it all right there. You're tired of differing opinions and different depths of opinion. You don't want an academically diverse forum where you might have to support your base assumptions - like the notion of a republic, or the principle of the first amendment, or central fractional reserve banking...rather, you want to agree to the modern set of assumptions and work from there. Well honestly that's myopic and uninteresting.

I have no right to insist on what kind of forum you all should have. But this place used to be far more diverse in opinion and depth of political philosophy, and thus more valuable. Because it seemed to be less about pushing agendas and controlling the scope of political discussion and more about discovery and indulging in philosophies that may be obscure to some and educational nonetheless, no matter your ideology. A way to audit your belief system. Critical thinking is not just for your opponents.

I watched it turn into a typical pundit show. Blah. Now you're no more interesting than any cable news channel with wrinkly washington sellouts.

If that's the kind of forum you want, it's certainly your right. But don't be shocked when you lose so much diversity your posts just end up being high-fives and intellectual handjobs.

Too often lately someone will interject some assertion pertaining to free market ideals... about how we should not regulate... and how government should be completely hands off when it comes to economic policy, and also too often these people will continue interjecting the same assertions even after their premises have been shown to be flawed and non-representative.

And because you won't accept the depth of those free market arguments you keep missing the point that the "Austrian Pet Theories" don't support central banking and the fractional reserve banking system. That changes the dynamics of the free market arguments subtending that assumption, profoundly. And since you don't want to talk on that level of economics, and reject them, you conflate the arguments and pretend as if they were baseless with a flawed premise. Laughable since you refused to contextualize their premise in the first place.

It is our contention that fractional reserve banking creates false growth - which is why you have business cycles. The credit is a lie. It's based on money they don't actually have. Similar to religion, as long as everyone is drinking the kool-aid, and doesn't question and actually look for the capital, it works generally well...until some capitalist does something you didn't plan for, then poof! - it's all his fauilt. Right...

Oh, and Alan Greenspan loves the federal reserve and the fraudulent reserve system so his views on deregulation do not reconcile. You have to have regulation in this scam. Why it took him all these years to realize that, I'll never know...

Good luck with it guys. This time I really will stop crying about this place. It's just sad, I really learned alot here.

Because pointing out that insulting your opponents is a left/right issue? Zuh?

No. Because the phenomenon of the causually interested insulting studied experts is not unique. I thought you'd appreciate realizing the similarity when its practice in the GW debate was noted. I know that scientists get frustrated as hell when Rush Limbaugh flaunts his ignorance and challenges the whole of climate science with local observations - that's exactly what is taking place here with this economic discussion.

abskebabs is going to argue the nuts and bolts of economic theory because he understands them. Just like you're going to argue your particular field of expertise in a more thorough, deeper manner because you understand it.

Further his posts are going to indict the fractional reserve system. Try participating in a thrread about a country without a government where folks are asking how to stop the violent crime. You're going to respond "you need a damn government". And they respond "your views are myopic and fail to comprehend the reality". Ok, then...you still need a damn government. It's impossible to force yourself in such a box and pretend as if the pretense of anarchy is workable, and then join in as if...

The challenge was his arguments were not rooted in reality. His assumptions were non-representative. His premises flawed, and his conclusions suspect as a result.

No, his arguments are on a level of theory you don't care to debate. Fine. But stop pretending he's an idiot because he's comfortable with the philosophy of economics.

The reality is your banking solution in the US is only a little over a hundred years old. Previous solutions in the world thrived longer than that and still toppled down, replaced with something else. Talking about the fraudulent nature of fractional reserve banking and the false security and growth impaled on the psyche is not out of bounds. You may not want to discuss it, so don't. It's still fascinating and quite relevant on a science forum in the politics section.

Merged post follows:

abskebabs isn't an expert on economics, he's just read a lot about a single (fringe) point of view, and accepted its assertion of indisputable truth as license not to bother with any others. That's the impression I've gotten, anyway.

 

You should ask him then. If I remember correctly he's been studying up on this stuff for several years now, several different books and economic methodologies. I don't believe he's exclusively limited himself to Austrian theory, but I could be wrong.