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Guest Post: Pimp My Conspiracy Theory
Submitted by JM
Pimp My Conspiracy Theory
Evidence suggests that there never was a ruling class in England.
How can one know? Well, every society has a sort of “Who’s who” list, created for tax purposes or to establish ownership transfer rights (through birth and death) over time, or to signal that a family had arrived on the scene. Such lists are preserved going all the way to the 11th century in England. There is wild volatility in the names that appear on them. Within a few generations, these lists pretty much reset with a whole new set of names.
Further, tracking the fortunes of surnames over time also shows that the richest Brits throughout the centuries overwhelmingly descended from poor or immigrant families, not the elites of just three generations prior. The ruling class concept is a fiction statistically speaking: persons with incomes in England’s top 10th wealth percentile seldom trace their origins to some ruling class of England.
Conversely, surnames show that most persons with incomes in the bottom 10th percentile did not trace their origins to extremely poor families three generations before, much less the landless serfs of a medieval manor. The poorest families don’t stay that way forever. This seems to say that only a small part of wealth is an inheritance; the rest is hard work and fate. It is difficult to determine whether effort or luck dominates. Being wrong in all the right ways or providence, however you choose to look at it, luck plays its role in every life.
Sure, there was and always will be genetic and inheritance dis/advantages. But elite society was and is not closed to new entrants. Certainly the underclass isn’t either. Of course there are exceptions: but the story is clear: this is just how it is. But there are also mechanisms that reinforce social mobility beyond blind luck.
Economic success (measured as wealth) has three components:
- Genetically transmitted talent which always involves regression to the mean. The genius blond is attracted to the dumb redhead. Happy ever after in the marketplace. One of their twins running in the yard is bright, but the other rather dull.
- Parents expend effort to make a better life for their kids, precisely so that their income (among other things) doesn’t revert to the mean. The educated can ensure that their children have just as much, or more, experiential opportunities that they have. This is a persistence factor, but the data says it fades in time.
- There is chance. Chance makes kings of slaves and slaves of kings.
Can there be an underclass? Sure, but its permanence lasts only as far as transfer payments create perverse incentives to not work. I suppose that this creates effects that work in the other direction too: the richest stay that way, because they make others sated enough to stay underneath them. This hints at a type of social immobility fostered by democratic, freedom-loving global culture.
There is something more fundamental than low taxes and gold standards and minimum wages and healthcare for all of few. What makes societies work is the eradication of all privilege and entitlement from the top to the bottom. Social mobility makes possible the rise of talent at the expense of the incompetent. Suppressing it ensures the crash of the dead society run by rubes.
A Conspiracy Theory You Can Believe In
About the time that the Federal Reserve was created, H.G. Wells proposed a conspiracy theory. It wasn’t a cabal of small and secretive group of people. His goal was to drive the progress of mankind: the Open Conspiracy. Anyone could join, in the words of Nancy Zimmerman, if they:
- Endorse the aim of the Open Conspiracy—the betterment of the human race.
- Strive to understand the world, to determine the institutions and practices that work and those that don't—what things contribute to human progress, and what things did not.
- Communicate what they learn to others.
- Listen to what others have to say independent of who they are: “no one has a monopoly on truth or on insight, and good judgments can only be arrived at by close and open-minded scrutiny of evidence and opinions.”
The point of this Open Conspiracy is to understand and maybe domesticate risk; to turn the future into something we don’t fear. The very attempt is itself the stuff that contests all the change and adversity that feed fear and insecurity.
Even in an unpredictable, always morphing universe there is value in problem solving. And one can find the human instinct for problem solving in virtually all institutions, even the dreaded credit default swap.
Open conspiracies are nothing new. Truly international research communities exist for virtually all scientific fields. Useful ideas are taken wherever they are found: Teichmuller may have been a Nazi, but the spaces that bear his name are accepted without reservation. It’s not about control: no one knows the future with certainty and one must just go along for the ride. Call it domesticating risk, problem solving, whatever. The point is overcoming challenges.
We are good at it. The history of ideas shows this. But overcoming is a slow process of incremental clarification punctuated by revolutions. Here’s an example with the main points are italicized bullets so one doesn’t have to churn through the whole thing if it is painful.
The History of an Idea: A Three Century+ Quest
In 1607 Petrus Roth in Arithmetica Philosophica asserted that “a polynomial equation of degree n (with real coefficients) may have n solutions.” Gauss took Roth’s assertion in 1815 and generalized it in the following way: “A polynomial of degree n has n complex roots.” Then he more or less proved it. This statement is the fundamental theorem of algebra (FTA). A few years later, Niels Abel proved that polynomials of order five or higher have no general method of solution. A result:
- It may take longer than a lifetime just to find out that sought-for answers are there, but then those answers cannot always be found.
Even if one has not all the answers, it is immensely valuable to expand the class of problems that can be answered. Intensive effort can then be invested in those special cases where a solution can be found. This approach resulted in a mental shift away from determining the existence of roots into investigating the computation of solutions: “Given a monic polynomial with integer coefficients, there is a valid way to compute with its roots.” Note the restatement of the formal theorem to make work on a special case easier (equations with integer coefficients). This is an important human strategy for ascending intellectual mountaintops:
- If one can’t get to the top of a mountain, climb nearby peaks.
It was nearly 300 years before a constructive proof of the FTA was given by Herman Weyl (some say it was Hellmuth Kneser). It took 300 years, but this slow-fast dynamic in human problem-solving is the way.
Progress or Regress is Unclear
“I promised Hermite I would not bring up again the circumstance that made me so angry last year. … I have newly worked out a great deal of the material, and beyond this I have put the foundations of algebra in an entirely new form.”
--Leopold Kronecker, correspondence to Mittag-Leffler, 1886
Kronecker was a big-time adventurer in ideas, and was by many accounts a stubborn little jerk. But his persistence reshaped algebra in an original way. His idea remained focusing on the system of root computation and not on the roots per se. But the machinery he developed for this system is given substance by his constructive version of the FTA:
“Given a monic polynomial f(x) with coefficients in the ring Z[c1, c2, … , cn], a monic irreducible polynomial construction g(y) with coefficients in the same ring such that adjunction of one root of g to the field of rational functions in c1, c2, … , cn gives a field over which f(x) factors into linear factors.”
In one sense, this formulation trail-blazes terrain that even today has far-reaching implications. Kronecker’s ideas led him to recommend limiting the scope of mathematical inquiry to a subject of the concrete: only numbers that are either reducible to products of arithmetic operations on integers. Numbers that do not resolve into a finite combination of these operations are approximate values that evolve. The limit is an approximation method built as infinite sequences of approximations, and infinite things are always in a state of becoming, not of being. Kronecker’s extreme view calls into question the concept of the limit, frankly one of the most useful mathematical constructions ever devised. Ideas sometimes serve the purpose of regression and not progression.
- It is sometimes unclear whether revolutionary “progress” is a leap forward or a jump off of a cliff. The future is driven by the balance between choosing a break with established ways and making small incremental advance with well-worn tools that stand the test of time.
The Problems Never End
Kronecker’s “different” foundation for algebra was in a sense nothing especially new. Folks followed a path of this sort this path in Ur thousands of years ago by developing a number system of base 60 (as opposed to our base 10). It reduced the incidences of irrational numbers in their arithmetic, but it was inadequate to do so from the beginning. Increasing societal complexity necessarily incorporated irrational numbers.
However, times are different now. Fembots handle computational complexity in ways that the brain can’t. Mankind mitigated his computational limitations by creating algebraic irrationals and limiting arguments of all stripes, on and on. Given a master programmer and machine adequate to the problems posed, robots have less need for such mitigation.
- Ideas can come back into favor because the times are favorable. The future is driven by the balance of choosing a break with established ways against making small incremental advance with well-worn tools that stand the test of time.
This is just one example among hundreds, thousands even. Even if all the creations of man are just termite mounds on a grander, more imaginary scale, the failure of these creations is nothing but an opening of interesting problems to solve. Failure is an integral part of a universe that makes most look in turn like fools and then heroes. Given the epic fails of today, an Open Conspiracy has never been needed more.
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I would not be surprised...I never explored the financial side of it, however, it was a widely held & practiced belief system across the "civilised" world.
Carried to it's natural conclusion, it was on full display at Auschwitz & elsewhere. Once a worker/prisoner had no more worth to the state they were "disposed" of.
Cost/benefit analysis taken to the inth degree.
Successful promoting has usually as a goal to generalize something.
All you mentioned is that the US was successful in their attempt in promoting eugenics.
Eugenics is nothing new. It existed before the US existed. But one has to admit that while it was counter-balanced by other ideologies, the US really helped to promote eugenics as a first class ideology. Before, eugenics was reviled. Thanks to the US, it became a noble and gentle idea. One helping humanity to progress.
My point is, of course, that eugenics never completely died off anywhere. It is a thing without borders.
I'll make the further point that eugenics is unique to one group of people.
Socialists & communists of any country.
those on high could deign to tell the people what to eat, in what quantities, what to drink, in what quantities, how much to exercise, what type of exercise
None of those things have anything to do with eugenics. Eugenics is about controlling genetic characteristics through selective breeding, not about encouraging different behaviors.
i think subliminal conditioning to marry for the DNA. or something like that. i know, i was raised pretty soundly, but i definitely fell down the rabbit hole, when i knew what i wanted in my man. i think men do the same thing when choosing what type of mate they were conditioned to choose. horrible selection guidelines. i certainly didn't marry for money. but can tell you just about every other female i grew up with was conditioned to look for money in the DNA line. money is so fucked up, especially the people that have lots of money. i have been around these types my whole life and really never fathomed i was surrounded by them, like Indians were. females have different perspectives on this scenario.
That's more likely to be a biological issue than societal conditioning, but either way, it's not eugenics.
"None of those things have anything to do with eugenics. Eugenics is about controlling genetic characteristics through selective breeding, not about encouraging different behaviors."
The binding characteristic of eugenics is intervention (I would say interference) with individual choice.
Just the language one has to use to describe what it is...says what it is.
Fining people for what they choose is not encouraging anything. It is punishment.
Are you really taking the position that the government is not trying to improve the nations breeding stock with these actions?
If not, you must be saying it's just another source of revenue they are trying to extract...which puts a lie to what they say in public is the purpose they are doing it for.
Please expand...
Are you really taking the position that the government is not trying to improve the nations breeding stock with these actions?
Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying.
I understand the impulse, too--you're upset by all these behavioral "suggestions" and want to associate them with them something that everyone already knows is really bad, so you use the word "eugenics."
I'm just pointing out that the word you're using really doesn't apply to the examples you gave.
Changing people's diet/exercise behavior can have a dramatic impact on their quality of life, but it will not work to make the "undesirable" people less fertile.
"I understand the impulse, too--you're upset..."
Well, I'm not "upset"...I eat what I want when I want & excercise when I want & where I want.
"...by all these behavioral "suggestions"
Behavioral suggestions?...LOL. Fining restaurants (and if they refuse to pay?) is a suggestion?It seems to rise just a tad above suggestion status when cohersion is involved.
"...and want to associate them with them something that everyone already knows is really bad, so you use the word "eugenics."
Because it is.
These actions are being forced on the public of a major city (and across the country) by it's government...it's impossible to then turn around and say that no, the government is not desirous of a certain result of this activity.
"Changing people's diet/exercise behavior can have a dramatic impact on their quality of life, but it will not work to make the "undesirable" people less fertile."
Cohersion & forceto change peoples diet/excercise is not the way to do it. And I'm not sure we would even want to do it as a society. If anything, we should have learned that this generation is no smarter than any previous generation.
Cholesteral was going to kill us...then not. Aspirin was going to kill us...then not. Wine was going to kill us...then not. Eggs were going to kill us...then not...coffee...cheese, add to the list at your leisure...point being...the longer we exist the more we find the expression "this changes everything we thought we knew about X" applied to every field of science.
Eugenics is not just about breeding superhuman races...it's about control. As for myself, I will keep control & maintain my body thank you very much.
We do not agree...simple as that.
Make up your own definitions, sure.
Speaking a common tongue is just a system of control. Be free, yo.
"Make up your own definitions, sure."
We can quibble about definitions forever...what cannot be quibbled with is the brute force applied by government on their own people to achieve it's desired goal.
Perhaps you would prefer tyranny as the definition...yo?
"Tyranny" definitely.
But I don't see the things you mentioned as something to worry about. Private business has been heavily regulated for some time, and while I personally don't like "menu laws" for restaurants, I think if that's the biggest concern about how oppressed we are as a people, we're doing pretty well. I hate government controls on individual behavior and would gladly tear them all down.
The thing is--we'd never really agree on anything, because I oppose government tyranny supporting property rights, too. That's where the whole libertarian/anarchist schism comes into play.
Well for myself, a little tyranny is like being a little pregnant...I also have the annoying habit of calling ugly people ugly...LOL.
"The thing is--we'd never really agree on anything, because I oppose government tyranny supporting property rights, too. That's where the whole libertarian/anarchist schism comes into play."
There is a point to be made here...I support property rights as it was intended...that is, if I buy property I own it all, mineral rights, water rights everything. Clearly this is not the case now.
As I say above, a little tyranny left unchecked does not usually go away by itself...it will grow..just like pregnancy ;-)
Take care.
Eugenics became widely popular during the first half of the 20th century because an agrarian soceity was becoming industrialized and had mass media at its disposal.
In other words, even a farm boy, due to his first hand experience, can understand the "pick of the litter" theory.
You propose that euginics did not die out after WWII, I say the modern food supply has killed eugenics more than anything.
Funny how the Greatest Generation's refrigerator was their back yard where a few chickens and hogs were kept for home slaughter.
No wonder the biggest bleeding heart generation, "the Boomers", had a signifcant distance placed between the blood in their mouths and the blood on their hands.
Got involved up top and didn't see this...good point;
"No wonder the biggest bleeding heart generation, "the Boomers", had a signifcant distance placed between the blood in their mouths and the blood on their hands."
And the city Boomers (of which I'm sometimes saddened to admit) have passed on their accumulated knowledge of square chicken sandwiches coming from square chickens to their children...the Xer's & Yer's.
One of the reasons I moved from the city...my kids were born & are being raised in the country, in a small town...closer to the reality's of life.
.
I believe the conspiracy that Tyler Durden is Ben Shalome Bernanke aka Bernank himself on ZH!
I vote for number 6.
... and I vote for number 9!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5c3d0fwk2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X114df65hgY
TD
This is about the lamest piece you have posted recently.
No ruling class in 'England' Has the author ever BEEN there? Then it degenerates through specious conspiracy to a questionable history of algebra.
Why for forks sake??
Whatever this person is smoking, I'm doubly glad that I do not.
The guy equates rotation of money with rotation of power.
He ignores that a an hereditary title brings power prerogatives no matter how rich one is.
The King does not rule because he is the King. The King is not the King because his father is the King. He is the King because he is rich. Money accounts for power.
Absolute non sense.
It is cheap. Pretty cheap. It shows though as certain promises can not be delivered on, well, some people engaged in basic denial of reality to try to make believe the promises were delivered on.
Abolition of a ruling class was a promise. Abolition of a ruling class has not been delivered on. So solution: there has never been a ruling class therefore abolishing it is useless.
+1
The article is revisionist and highly flawedin its exercise of 'logic'.
I am reminded Steven P Ambrose spouting off as a learned historian in The World at War (1973 part 25 'Reckoning') where his opening premise was that WW2 was the continuation of "A European Civil War".
He seemed unable to distinguish the reality that Europe has NEVER been united (until recently (sic)) and that this is a necessary precursor for Civil War to occur.
Since his barely lamented passing, his "work" as a historian appears to have been questioned in terms of validity.
In the article above, it seems that we have more revisionist claptrap designed to suppor the author's pet pseudotheory. Just the part about families all being traceable back to the 11th century (presumably to Domesday) is facile in the highest degree. Has he ANY idea how murky genealogy searches become after a mere 300 years of regression?
Clearly not.
But that wouldn't fit "theory" and 'premice' - would it?
Who the hell is Stephen Ambrose?
Where did civil war come into any of this?
Can you say "revisionist" anymore in one windbaggery post?
These are the questions that no one gives two cents about.
Regarding the geneology searches, sure it is murky. The people on top have a larger footprint than others, both in their presense and absence.
Your snark would be more entertaining if it weren't so wussy all around.
.
So why did you bother to take issue?
It was another example of US sourced BS wrt history. I even provided a reference.
That's the same problem that the article above suffers from.
(PS no idea who junked you.)
I addressed the only issue of substance in your post.
Seriously, if I'm wrong, fine. But being on the receiving end of variations of "You're wrong. Period." Is no argument.
Your rant was the pissiest and most pretentious of the bunch, and I pointed it out.
You call my comment a rant!! That's rich!
I called you to task because your opening argument regarding genealogical traceability to the 11th century was flawed. You hedged but seemed to accept that it was 'murky'. Fine.
Plese note that you have accepted that your opening argument is faulty. Sadly, this undermines your whole theory that rests on this assertion.
Let's see now... 'pissiest' , 'most pretentious' , wussy' and 'windbaggery' awww c'mon! you can do better than this JM!
I provided the Ambrose ref for the reasons stated earlier - comparison.
Incidentally, I may have missed it but did anyone comment about the effect that several European plagues would have had upon genealogy? One wiped out about 25% of the population and was no great respector of how large or small anyone's footprint was.
(double post)
Here is my radical theory...
http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm
Convection. It works in weather, geology, astronomy and it describes economic and social cycles as well. Those at the bottom are under pressure and shoot jets of heat upward. Those at the top are not under pressure, so they cool off and settle back down.
That kicks ass.
+1
Thermodynamics, hydrodynamics=sociodynamics.
attack of the zombie bloggers!
what's the opposite of a lobotomy?
Bullsh*t. I've done my geneology research. I know for a fact that my family comes from poor farmer after poor farmer going all the way back to the 16th Century. No exceptions. So this guy's premise is wrong from the start.
Probably 95% of all society was classified as poor during this time period. It doesn't mean that the richest stayed that way, and it doesn't violate the idea of social mobility.
Not everyone can be rich, but the rich don't stay that way over time. In fact, most lineages never attain it.
And yet...the poor farmers son can afford a computer, electricity and an internet connection?
My family has traced its geneolgy all the way back to the Great Flood, that's right, to Noah. Can you dig that? I'm a direct descendant of Noah bitches, ... wait a minute, what the hell, this means that I'm related to everyone ... argh.
.
So that's your measure of being wealthy? Having a computer and an internet connection?
In that case almost everyone in this country is wealthy. It sorts of makes your defintion of words less than meaningless.
Yeah, that's the trick.
"Wealth" has pretty much always been defined as your own personal ability to get other people to do what you want them to do.
Once you've had that realization, the whole crux of the human dilemma comes into pretty sharp focus.
"So that's your measure of being wealthy? Having a computer and an internet connection?"
LOL...you were making a point of your families humble beginnings...I was pointing out that you are better off than your parents...and they probably better off than theirs...which is what I believe JM is saying...wealth moves up & down.
Because one of my ancestors was an indentured servant (yes, true) doesn't make me a slave...wealth is not static.
"In that case almost everyone in this country is wealthy."
We have some of the fattest poor people on the planet living right here in the US...I know that seems rather blunt to you...but it doesn't make it any less true.
"It sorts of makes your defintion of words less than meaningless."
They also have cell phones and flat screen TV's...meaningless you say? I can dig out the report comparing disposable income of welfare families vs. one making 60k a year if you like ;-)
So, DNA is destiny? How sad....for you.
I'm goin' out to buy me some Lottery tickets with the following numbers:
First ticket: 05, 08, 13, 21, 34, 55 Powerball = 89
Second ticket: Random (I'll let the computer decide)
I will buy the tickets every 3.1459 months.
This will combine a Fibonacci sequence with the value of the square of Fermat's theorem (2) which defines the elliptical curve where the rectangle (square) meets the curve.
Therefore, the randomness of chaos will meet the golden ratio and I will be rich.
Anything else is a finite elitist conspiracy.
JM, thanks for reminding me about generations. it was never directly said to me that my father's side of the family was well off or anything. but i have a lot of pictures of my family. they had portraits of them and their children taken way back to 1820's. now i am supposing, if you dressed all up and seated in a velvet chair or similar and hired a photographer, you probably were well off to afford this. we have a historic red barn built on his family farm in 1873. this red barn was moved piece by piece to another site, and is called a historic building with a park. that is pretty neat to think about.
Free floating (against all currencies) physical gold, freely available to everyone (Freegold) will perform such an eradication perfectly.
This will happen organically as a natural consequence of the market price in currency of paper gold and physical gold diverging.
Is it purely coincidence that the internet has thrown the Open Conspiracy parabolic at just this time?
Problem, meet solution.
The conspiracy may be open to newcomers but once your in you never leave, like intelligence agencies and Royston Vasey. You don't see Rockerfellers and Royalty drinking night train out of a paper bag in the gutter. Hanging from the ceiling or stuck to the interior in a crushed Mercedes maybe...
Maybe the richer you are the slower the convergence to the mean. Or maybe there is a top 99.9999 percentile where convergence doesn't happen.
Thanks JM, good to see a post from you again. And well done to you and AnAnonymous for exchanging opposing viewpoints.
For myself, having been an actor in the money game for more decades than I should (and still under 55!) your article provoked some blue sky thinking on the evolution of man (and woman I suppose when they find one good enough to run the largest banks, be a president etc etc! <stit shirring>.
Anyway, time to declare my interest and get personal as ome others have done before. (Though I am late to this post and probably no-one will read it!)
My father (RIP) traced his family tree back to the 12the century , when apparently we were lectors in Ireland. I know that the family was active as professional rioters in London in the 16th to 18th centuries and my grandfather was evicted from several thousand acres in Ireland by the IRA for signing up with the British Army in the 1920's. I know very little of my German side, agriculture and fighting on the (right or wrong side) on the russian front in exchange for a limb or two. Your article was indeed provocative in the sense of the unfolding of life's tapestry rich or otherwise.
The attitude of striving for a better solution or at least contributing to a better life for others is one that is commonly laughed at and scorned by most as, at best, quaint and at worst, limp wristed, but providing service because of ability of self, is one that I hold dear. This is not a religious belief and I do not aspire to polotical office, it is common sense.
I hold religion to be well intentioned and hold to the view that it at least attempts to explain the inevitability of items such as zero hedges motto. Ashes to ashes, perpetual big bangs that explode and then contract ad finitum, are the way of things and our purpose is to enjoy life while we are here, rather than be dictated to by others who either do not have the ability (track record, potential, tell the truth etc) or the intent to help.
This leads to a couple of thoughts for you.
One is that when the majority of people act for the common good, there is less crime and government required.
The second is that acting for the common good is a weakness when governments and their agents have no purpose other than to perpetuate their existence. Those in government can only be criminal since there is no legitimate purpose for their decisions. Since the leadership is criminal, society at large is criminal and those who act for the common good can only ever be victims to varying degrees.
This leaves the level of crime the key measurement of success of a civilisation.
Thirdly (as with Belgium) the "system" eventually overtakes a failing democracy and becomes more powerful than the process. As with Belgium which is now in its tenth month without an elected government.
The status quo is maintained by the system and Belhium does not appear to be doing any worse than the other PIIGS (and France, UK with Cuba in between).
Lastly, and perhaps depressingly (if crime doesn’t provoke huge leaps in technology – think laundered drug/racketeering/prostitution and other vice money eventually finding its way into R&D) chaos can’t exist without all elements, including crime and corruption.
Anyway, I am now going to finish the other half pint of my JD and I hope I haven’t bored other bloggers and that this finds you and yours in good health J
Long time no talk, bro. Hope things are going well with you.
Good thoughts indeed. Most religious statements cannot be proven nor disproven, so anybody may be right on those issues IMHO. I think most of it has its heart in the right place... keeping people out of troubles by right-doing and such.
I think of civilization as having its own vol just like other assets that have value. But I'm biased to the view of course.
Civilization is a carry trade... crime is a floating funding cost. Beware the funding mismatches when crime goes up.
beautiful story, you enjoy the rest of your evening.
A marxist and his banker friend passed a blind beggar on the road with a tin cup full of money.
The marxist very quietly and expertly takes all the money from the beggar's cup as they go by, and they continue on down the road.
The banker: "I do believe I'll take that," and he calmly reaches over and takes all the money from the marxist.
The marxist: "But, but, it should be --- to each according to his needs --- and I will be hungry soon"
The banker: "No, no, it's --- from each according to his ability --- and clearly, the beggars fortunes have greatly improved and he can now begin to pay me back. I've been very kind, and very patient. The fact is, he should be thanking me. That cup would've remained empty had I not thought of poking out his eyes."
We're all going to be rich when the Dow is at 27 000 and a loaf of bread is 77 usds.
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Those who rule the world are unworthy of incite. It should always be witfheld from them. Let them choke on their vomit and die or arrogance.
At best, this is carelessly worded. At worst, it undercuts the rest of the argument.
The concert pianist does not rise because I cannot tickle the ivories. The 2 talent sets and the rise (or not) therefrom are, in fact, orthogonal to each other.
If I'm missing you point in what I say below, sorry.
If you parameterize all skill sets in terms of the expected cash flows they generate, then there are two drivers. Talent and luck/fate (whatever you want to call it) may or may not be orthogonal.
EDIT:
Take for example someone who has a musical gift but focusses it on playing jazz flute compared to the one who focusses a lesser musical gift on the electric guitar. who makes more? Luck and talent both play a role
The example of Paris Hilton seems to show that luck can dominate totally.
How can one know? Well, for starters, LaRouche has shown the light on the fascist H.G. Wells (who espoused Aristottle BULLSHIT). There was an answer, always has been. They lost, and didn't want to admint it. H.G. Wells was a British Monetarist. Like Obama and Ron Paul. (FACT: Keynes and Austrians are MONETARISTS...deal with it)
This first one is a video
"A Page From History: H.G. Wells and the Bomb"
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/10133
"THE SIXTH SENSE"http://www.larouchepac.com/node/17156
"Comment on James Galbraith Paper: Good Progress, But More Is Needed"http://www.larouchepac.com/node/10022/footnotes/5/popup
“THE DESTRUCTION OF THEDESTRUCTION OF THE
DESTRUCTION”
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/16527
"The Case of Hitler's Children: George Soros and His ICC"
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/9424
Why do We Call Susan Rice a Racist Anglophile? Because She is One.
http://www.larouchepac.com/node/12826
Today's Brutish Imperialism (Oct 18, 2008)http://www.larouchepac.com/node/7134
Beautiful.Thank you