Wisdom

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Because the workings of the economy show us that. The issue is that revolutions and major changes are unstable. The people who have run the world do so because they do not change things too much, they let people have the lives they are used to without bringing in massive changes.

Playing to human emotions does not create a stable movement though. Think about the French Revolution, that was a lot of emotions, but there was very little control The American revolution on the other hand tied itself to existing norms and that is a major reason why it likely remained stable. Manipulating people through emotions is not a valid reason to discount the traditionalist position, because the kind of control needed is actual stable control, something that passionate movements usually do not bring with them. Yes, social realities are completely understandable as complex patterns created by simple rules, but the issue is that these complex patterns can be very difficult to really keep under control.

The traditionalist position is usually juxtapositioned best with the technocratic position. Traditionalists argue that society cannot be as greatly manipulated as a technocrat would desire, and that unmeasurable elements of society are important for social order. Trying to understand traditionalism without the technocrat as the opponent is what is probably leading to problems in understanding the position. Traditionalism is also opposed to revolutionary concerns as well, so that is another useful juxtaposition that would be useful for analysis, as even though both may be emotional, conservatives want a stable world, but revolutionaries want to overthrow this, and the conservative counter-argument is that the desired change ignores social realities, and thus is likely to disintegrate into chaos for ignoring these important things.

I mean, I recognize that a lot of people here are cynical rationalists, but I do not think that they are refuting intelligent traditionalism so much as a strawman, as I think that intelligent traditionalism has a lot of validity to it, it just isn't entirely a matter where we should give up all social change or regress, just recognize that there are valid reasons to be suspicious of change away from working principles, and that society has a human element that depends upon stable patterns that cannot be thrown away at a whim.

Nobody's talking about whims. The takeover of the Nazis in Germany was basically a revolution and it pushed social norms in a totally insane way. There are all sorts of traditions in human society and the tradition of sadistic thuggishness strapped that society down pretty thoroughly until outside influence destroyed it. The Russian revolution likewise moved more or less in the same direction under the pretext of a social system that would guarantee equality to all (which it never accomplished) until the greed and brutality of its controlling thugs destroyed that system. The thugs that scammed the USA recently have damn near destroyed the general trust that is essential in a running society and it is a near thing as to whether current US society can recover. The thuggishness in US society has a long and dishonorable history so I suppose it can be considered a traditional norm but it is just as destructive. The huge constitutional violations that the Bush administration have put into operation have yet to be disassembled and Obama is rather slow in doing so. I'm watching and waiting.

First off lemme tell you that the fact that we are unable to accurately predict and do not fully understand the workings of economies Does NOT imply that there is sufficient nondeterminism, or even ANY at all, that makes such prediction impossible. Game theory and the theory of (deterministic finite)automata have made great progress at understanding and modelling economies. But for most of the uneducated proletariat,

I dont read the wall street journal
I aint no ph. D!
The trickle-down theory and the laffer curve
are all just greed to me!


Wisdom and tradition are ALL these people have to try to understand the world since most em arent rational thinkers by nature AND tradition functions as essentially a *security blanket* for those who just work all their lives, retire, and die. Traditionalism ulimately boils down to risk aversion. That is a very big part of social conservativism is living a risk-averse lifestyle. Now I personally have known people who BROKE with tradition and became very successful AND influential(like my late uncle for example).There are ALSO many examples of people like this, such as Charlie Wilson and Bill Clinton who despite populist resentment ended up with a lot of money and a lot of women. In order to be successful in our society, you HAVE to take risks! Thats why most conservatives who werent born into priviledge dont get very far in life, and the religious ones believe that if they suffer through this life they will be rewarded beyond their loftiest dreams in teh afterlife.Ever seen TOP GUN? That movie actually says a Hell of a lot about our culture. Traditions are established ultimately to maintain the status quo and often have elaborate mythologies(like religion)to pacify those on the bottom. But I have to say, neither I NOR YOU seem all that great at manipulating people or even undestanding them. But the thing about traditionalists you have to keep in mind is despite their populist ideals, like ALL of us they are ultimately hierarchical. BTW, I should like to mention that Organized Religion has proven to be the most powerful tool for manipulating people and if you dont believe me, just look at christianity which as managed to do JUST THAT for the last 2000 years!

So in conclusion, there really is nothing magical or mysterious about *The World* and the people who make it up that would make it permanently out of reach of rational analysis. But not everyone has the time, the ability, the educational training, or the incentive to figure these things out.

Conservatives want a stable world because such a world (would)give them a sense of security. The need for security is very imporant to people and is powerful drive that motivates their behaviour. But change is simply Inevitable! There really is NOTHING in the world of people that can truly last forever. A lot of this has to do with forces in this world that are simply BEYOND our control, EVEN IF the arent unpredictable. Change can only be resisted for so long. You can spend your whole life resisting change but you too will eventually Die. Entropy is something that is physically IMPOSSIBLE to stop and is pervades every aspect of our lives. Traditions outlive people, but they CANNOT ever hope to survive to eternity.

Haliphron, what you are saying about human behavior has been known since the days of Freud.
There have been many studies on this. For example, Edward Bernays used these findings to brainwash the people via the media. He even convinced the doctors to tell patients to eat bacon and eggs for breakfast every day because it was good for their health.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=4612464

It is not ethical to manipulate people though. People are easily swayed because they are social animals not because they are machines.

Well, the Nazis in Germany arguably would have pushed themselves into a collapse, and the Russian revolution eventually did. As for the the workings of the Bush administration, the failings of it are quite problematic from a standpoint of tradition as they did screw around with the Constitution. Heck, the fact that Obama is slow might actually be a good thing, as it shows that the pendulum didn't just swing it's way to hell in reaction to Bush but rather is seeking to restore the workings of society.

In any case, the existence of stupid movements only proves an intelligent traditionalist correct. Of course, a lot of traditionalists are rather stupid.

Actually, arguably it does. I am not arguing from non-determinism, I am merely arguing that there are a lot of things that go on in an economy that cannot be predicted be reasonably predicted. Game theory really cannot apply too strongly to the matter of which I am talking about either, as for one, people have different dispositions, and secondly innovations cannot be fully determined in advance, as nobody really knows all of the possible uses of a single innovation.

And yeah, I know about economics. The problems with predicting the future are relatively well-known, as simple statistics cannot do it as seen with the Lucas critique of macroeconomic predictions, and more advanced predictions might actually take more processing ability than exists, and that is even if we assume that the overly simple neoclassical models are valid, which some economists don't put as much weight into. Friedrich Hayek was actually in the camp that said the reason that the economy works is precisely because a superior order required knowing unquantifiable facts, as boiling creativity and cultural norms down to purely mathematical things is rather difficult.


Traditionalism is risk aversity on a cultural level, but given the high consequences of massive changes, and the oft-poor results of trying to enact massive changes on national levels according to these thinkers, risk aversion is a rational result. The issue is that traditionalism is not just against risks, but only cultural risks, as such it does not condemn entrepreneurial actions, only actions that disrupt necessary cultural values, and some traditionalist conservatives will laud the market because it can take necessary risks. Actually, I doubt that traditions are started just from the top down, and would really think that a lot of them are started from the bottom and emerge from trying to find answers to problems. For instance, early views of legal codes were not just considered imposed from the top, but rather just statements of the laws that were already known. In fact, if you look at the Christian religion, it actually started more at the bottom rungs of society than was created by the top. Actually, I do not think that organized religion has been that effective at systematically controlling society, power has often been somewhat split between religious authorities and secular authorities, and Christianity has been rather scattered for the last 400 years with varying branches of it and increasing secularization of governments since then.


Well, there are a lot of things mysterious about the world, so I disagree with you. This does not mean that logic is not applicable to the world, but this notion of making man into a perfect predictor of all events seems outright absurd. Not only that, but if ability and education and incentive were the matter of figuring things out, then I think we would see much more agreement about the workings of the world. We do not see this though, but rather long-standing disagreements about how human realities work.

Well, ok, change is inevitable, but that does not mean that changes should be rushed into, and that latter part is the question. If all forces are predictable, then how are they beyond control?

In any case, I think you are arguing against the strawman position "Change must never happen", rather than the real position which is "Changes should be distrusted and reversed if they threaten important social foundations".

Humans cannot be perfect predictors because there Is nondeterminism on the Quantum Level which has the potential to affect the classical level. A system is deterministic if its output depends ENTIRELY on its inputs! If you want an example of something that is Truly random and impossible to predict mathematically the best example of this is radioactive decay. If there is non-determinism in market dynamics it is because there are forces which affect these markets that we humans CANNOT control. Afterall Randomness==without a pattern. Markets are chaotic systems but that does NOT make them completely random and totally unpredictable.
Also, did Friedrich Hayek come up with any sort of mathematical/ formal logic based arguments that economies can ONLY work through the intervention of a Superior autonomous being with knowlege of noncomputable information??? If so I'd love to see it.

Last edited by Haliphron on 07 Mar 2009, 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The solar cycle and the seasons are predictable to some extent, but HOW can you control something like that? Do you see what I mean by things that cannot be controlled? We cannot control the weather but we can still predict it with a high degree of accuracy.
I personally am not concerned with the preservation of social foundations because such foundations DO NOT cater to the interests of outlying individuals like me! Since I dont have much in common with other people and have some very uncommon needs, its not rational for me to subscribe to ideologies that favor the group over the individual.

I basically agree with this, machines usually have simpler algorithms at the very least. Human beings are much more flexible and have many more odd quirks, that can create something very complex on a large scale.

So humans are essentially highly complex, sentient machines who still have a long way to go before creating machines as complex as themselves.

Well, it is more likely that there is just too much information to try to put together to allow for perfect prediction. Quantum mechanics only affects larger affairs in a very limited set of circumstances.

Friedrich Hayek actually eschewed mathematical argumentation to base his work upon philosophical, sociological, and psychological elements of human beings, and argued that economies can only work through laissez-faire policies that allow for spontaneous orders to emerge, and that societies can only work if they are evolve naturally rather than being changed at governmental whim. So, no, he was not a religious conservative, but rather just an opponent to scientism in the social sciences, and the notion that societies are consciously constructed.

You control the effects to a great extent by planning around them, or even learning how to act in spite of them. I mean, crops are grown regularly without regard to seasons. In any case, I was talking more about social phenomena.

Well, the issue is that just reorganizing social foundations can be problematic. In any case, I do not see rational ideologies given that mankind is just a flawed thing. No rationalization could ever make people happy or work together in an ideal manner, but I see some of the reason for your notion. It is just that a lot of people hold to ideologies because that is how they see the world as working.

You can probably predict human behavior the same way a primatologist can predict a chimp's behavior. I don't think machines are more complex than most animals, especially humans. To try to put us in that robot category is just wishful thinking that stems from a desire to control something about humans, or at least know some absolute truth about human behavior. Animals can be unpredictable and humans do have a free will despite all of our instincts.

So machines can NEVER become as complex as human or animals? Even if they're controlled by quantum computers for which quantum nondeterminism CAN factor into the state of the machine? Why is this impossible?