Have you viewed the docuentary film "2000 Mules" yet
Have a notepad nearby.
We look forward to a robust discussion between you and bugenhagen.
Here's a link for you guys...
Dinesh D'Souza's 2000 Mules full movie (free, and no registration required):
https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=2000+Mules
Have not viewed it yet. Not a priority for me right now. Neither is social media, but I'll give an other-than-quick summary of what I'm working on.
I'm exploring the idea of looking at people, philosophy, science (Human interpretation of natural laws), and natural laws as "Systems". Any system that appears to have some order is considered predictable. Any system that is predictable is exploitable. I use the word "Exploitable" broadly, to include situations where the exploitation of a system does not necessarily harm or result in a cost to that system. The goal here is to understand systems in order to develop, change, or exploit systems of various kinds for my and our community's benefit.
People are involved in many systems. For example, Joe Biden is a person, a politician, a Democrat, a prominent Democrat Party policy influencer, and the President of a major world power, for a partial list of systems Joe Biden is part of by choice. There are other systems Joe Biden is a member of which he may not be consciously aware.
Many systems have relationships with one another. These relationships include "Supportive", "Corroborative", "Competitive", and "Adversarial". An example of a supportive system is a parent-child relationship where the parent's investment of time and money on the child is not expected or required to be repaid. Most other relationship types fundamentally expect compensation in some form for entering and maintaining a particular relationship with a particular system.
Another example of a system is religion. Religion was created ostensibly to create a system that encouraged other systems (People) to consider how their actions affected the community (A larger system), which in turn, ultimately benefitted most participants. For example, certain behaviors, some instinctual, had been shown to predictably cause harm to members of the community, ultimately hurting many members of the community. The resulted in the creation of rules. Some of these rules also considered the concept of working hard was a virtue that benefitted the community, not just oneself, especially during times of stress, such as Winter or adverse events. Some political systems are in great conflict over religion, seemingly over how much influence religion should have over policy.
In politics, a political system seeks to gain influence and resources by convincing other systems, such as voters and businesses their system is a corroborative effort that benefits those who participate in that political system. The effort to convince others includes systems that are fundamentally competitive or even adversarial. In other words, promises are made that cannot be delivered, as many Progressives are currently loudly complaining about.
"The Democrat Party, especially the Progressives/Socialists rely heavily on the harmful exploitation of other systems to advance their political agenda. For example, the Democrats sell their system by promising free stuff furnished by the productive. To get needed votes from the productive, Democrats attempt to use identity politics to create a call to action that can override a potential voter's concern how Democrats can harm their financial situation. Democrats have been attempting to 'Codify' or otherwise put political pressure on businesses to publicly support their agenda, with some success involving media influence (Another system). Donald Trump's popularity among the productive is an example of backlash against these Democrat practices. Democrat policies creates risk for the productive. Risk can be considered expectation times estimated cost of potential regulations, taxes, fees, fines, forced purchases involving politically aligned entities, and legislative imposed operational constraints. In other words, many of the productive become disincentivized from being productive by Democrat policies. Lower productivity means less goods to go around for each unit of effort, often meaning increased inflation and shortages. In addition, the incentive for the productive to invest is diminished, resulting in reduced job creation over time, less demand for buildings and equipment, and likely creating weaker capital formation and equities market, leading to stagnation of innovation, resulting in competitive disadvantages for the United States in the world marketplace, further dimming long term prospects of our community for both the productive and the unproductive". The preceding was an argument supporting the adoption of the Conservative political system. while the Democrat political system have there's.
Systems can be efficient or robust, stable or unstable. An efficient system is often a process oriented system that attempts to maximize efficient production of a tangible good. A robust system anticipates an attack from another system and attempts to "harden" easy access to its resources. Conservative systems tend to be efficient from a linear perspective, but very exploitable, while Liberal systems are more likely to involve the intangible, be hardened, and harder to exploit. A stable system benefits the other systems it is involved with in some meaningful way. A unstable system does not sufficiently benefit the systems it is involved in. Arguably, Russia's political system is at odds with her people, resulting in seeming military underperformance in Ukraine, in spite of successfully delivering a substantial first strike. In addition, Russia's productivity historically has lagged developed countries, in spite of plentiful resources, including land.
I have been searching for a unification of economic systems that reflect the benefits of Socialism as well as Capitalism, while minimizing their respective shortcomings. While I was on a construction site in Nashville, TN and observed how frequent conflicts among the ethnically, gender, and socio-ethnic status diverse contractors, superintendent, salespeople, and other visitors were resolved, I noted each person had a sense of urgency (Capitalism) that was being interfered with by another person also with a sense of urgency. The resolution to these conflicts was a pecking order. This was not a pecking order defined by position or tenure, but by need (Socialism). In most cases, relative need was either evident or communicated and negotiated. The deferring party would often either find another area to work or do something else productive. Sometimes conflicts resulted in multiple parties needing access to the same place at the same time, with reputation and customer service expectations on the line should either party fail to deliver on that day. Here, too, a Socialistic answer resulted in an acceptable result for the contesting parties. The answer involved each party allocating more resources (Time and money) than initially anticipated, but allowing them all to ultimately meet their commitments that day. Yes, discussion about better planning and coordination among participants belongs here as well. In other words, a fairly efficient system developed over time through the trial and error of each system over time. Now imagine a political or overbearing enforcement system entering the example above. It is not hard to imagine this system breaking down to the dissatisfaction of most, especially the customer.
The analysis of systems and relationships between systems has applications in science and innovation, intelligence and counter-intelligence, politics, relationships, trading, poker, and just about everything else.
There are specific methodologies involved in developing, changing, and or exploiting systems, something I may cover in a future post in this thread. In the meantime, try to think for yourself and realize most all systems seek to exploit your own system in some way.
