<div>This is an interesting discussion, touching upon the limitations of knowledge and discussion themselves -- the rationality of science (or art) and measurement, (do we measure what we find, or find what we measure?) what is hard-wired, and where do emotions, biases and evolution meet rational thought, philosophy and politics? Quite a range... So I found this Blog post from Jovan Kurbalija this week, "What do black swans, CERN, Voltaire, Rousseau and Borges have in common?" (he calls it "a Geneva epistemological journey") to be an appropriate aside... I think you will enjoy it.</div>
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<div> <a href="http://deepdip.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/what-do-black-swans-cern-voltaire-rousseau-and-borges-have-in-common/">http://deepdip.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/what-do-black-swans-cern-voltaire-rousseau-and-borges-have-in-common/</a></div>
<div><br clear="all">Ginger </div><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 1 September 2011 07:18, Daniel Kalchev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:daniel@digsys.bg">daniel@digsys.bg</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div class="im"><br><br>On 31.08.11 23:07, Milton L Mueller wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">If you can think of some simple way around this problem, more power to you. You'll get the Nobel prize. But please don't trivialize the difficulty of this problem, or attribute it to a conspiracy of evil neoliberals. (In fact, Chinese and Soviet Marxists are famous for putting the most emphasis on the production of physical goods and touting such statistics as proof of the superiority of socialism).<br>
</blockquote><br></div>This one reserved response, although some of the other points you debated are important. Take it however you like, that will not change history.<br><br>But... believe it or not "they produce more so they claim to be superior" is what that (most call it "comunist" although it never ever claimed to have reached the 'communism' level) -- is exactly what was attributed to the "other side", that is "The Imperialism".<br>
<br>So you see, both parties in that cold war pointed fingers at each other and claimed that the other side is practicing what the other side was accusing them of. Funny world.<br><br>In reality however (having lived in the last decades of that system and the 'new' system thereafter), I can definitely claim that you are wrong. That system, possibly not a motivation but as a side effect (we will never know) has assigned lower priority to greed and production/consumption - it had significantly more focus on non-monetary benefits. Such as education and social benefits. Also, production was much, much lower.<br>
I do remember well our grandparent's opinion on this --- they have lived before/during WW2 and could compare the quality of life before/during/after that system --- and their opinion was very strong on this. So strong, that for decades now we have the situation that the primary voters for the former Communist (now, Socialist) Party were the so called "red grandmothers" -- who still lived in the past and their good memories were abused.<br>
<br>That system was far from perfect, of course. But your assertion about focus on production is plain wrong. This all however is quite off-topic.<br><br>Except, by the way, we started our work on Internet in Bulgaria during that system. Without the government even knowing it. Or the next few governments.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>Daniel</font>
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