“blinding yourself to clear context” comment

Commenting on my previous post “Levels of Wealth” Part 1, Alan said in part:
“... You: An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments follows: Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock in his press release ...
    I would prefer you not so honor me. I find this drivel repulsive as do you. I hope you did not seriously relate this crap to any of my IP arguments. ...
”
    Excuse me. My above quoted lead-in was not intended to honor anyone per se (as another's sentiment could be honored while the person himself is not). I was merely interested in dissecting an example of authoritarian political blather. The type of rhetoric emitted by the dear Australian Attorney-General is hardly anything special and equally precious statements could have been readily gleaned in just about any page of any newspaper. I just focused in on an IP related instance because that theme had merited your defense. There was no interest in implying that you two were particularly in agreement. That being said however, I was taken back by your vehement reaction against Ruddock. He was providing no defense of IP at all, but was merely dutifully reporting a change to the statutes in a pathetic yet wholly typical newspeak manner.

Alan continued:
“... I do find your arguments against Ruddock's statements to be rather poor logic. While the context of the included quotes ... are clearly in reference to the changes in Australian law, you misinterpret them to reference technological capabilities and ignore the certainty that they refer only to reduction in legal prohibitions. That is a strawman argument which is way beneath your capability for logical argument.”
    What I believe I did (and as clearly as I could) was merely to demonstrate how they announce changes in the statutes by choosing vocabulary that is literally consistent only with technological issues ruled by the laws of physics. I even went through the exercise of rewording his statement to read accurate and semantically correct. So it is intriguing to imagine that anyone could honestly believe that I literally misinterpreted Ruddock. To argue that I misrepresented him might be a more legitimate attack.

Alan:
“On the other hand, I agree with you that people should speak with more clarity and less need to reword for context. However, when it comes to politicians, that is simply asking for the near impossible. There are better battles to fight!”
    No, I'm not asking, nor expecting, or even thinking it is possible for politicians to talk sense. My real objective far accedes and short-cuts (how's that for an oxymoron?) all this by seeking a moral evolution of our species to where current politicians fade into the past along with their witch burning brethren. As to the “better battles”, I'd greatly appreciate you sharing your short list on the top most worthy things to fight (for or against).

Alan:
“... Well, I would not call you delusional, but I do believe you are blinding yourself to clear context which most people do understand. I would prefer, like you, that contextual implications be explicit, but that is just not how most people talk or write, and it is a property of the language to permit this to a great extent. On this issue of understanding what was said and meant per reasonable use of the English language, you get the foul. On the issue of IP law, Ruddock gets the foul. Such are the calls of this referee!”
    I'll refrain from expounding on delusion here. However, the above lends yet more weight to the possibility that you actually believe that I am blind to what the newspeak persons expect to imply. If that were the case then I'd have nothing worth writing about. No, the rub comes from seeing what is happening and realizing how unthinking absorption of such slop corrupts the (public) mind. {Note: It now appears that you honestly consider my translation of Ruddock's lead statement blind. On what particular(s), pray tell, do you disagree?}

On the bright side, it finally looks like we may have a valid instance of veritable disagreement (how refreshing!). I refer to my foul for not understanding reasonable use of the English language as qualified by how most people talk or write. Actually, I suspect it would be rather unlikely for someone to fully suspect just how deep this foul runs. For now I'll simply insert two notes. First, while I'm often impressed with the profundity of the various vague concurrences embraced by the populace at large (such as the popularity and acceptance of Hitler's Mein Kampf, Christianity, Socialism, coercive Democracy, etc.); that is never construed as a reasonable basis for personal incorporation/acceptance. Second, I'm impelled to acknowledge Eric Arthur Blair (a.k.a. George Orwell) for his extensive development of this important insight. While I concur with a lot of his perspectives, there are possibly two interesting differences.  A: I might evaluate the significance and negative effect of newspeak tendencies even more grimly than Orwell.  B: On the other hand Orwell seems to deem potentates as more actively evil and plotting than I. While no known entity does a better job of enslaving and killing off a country's own population than the state itself; I still recognize the fear based phobias of its subjects/citizens as the root reason for their submitting to... no encouraging... no insisting upon state control and the resulting deadly inversions of power.

Responding more specifically to the “… clear context which most people do understand.”, I energetically doubt both the lucidity of the ‘clear context’ and also the degree of any real understanding (especially for such fanciful notions as duty, rights & ‘law’). Well drafted surveys designed to measure 1) the degree of variance in such lore and 2) the largely unrecognized yet inherently hideous ambiguities they embody could prove quite enlightening. For another angle on the same problem – I've repeatedly noticed how good friends can argue inanely over an issue and accomplish nothing more than heightened frustrations and some emotional venting. An hour or more of sincere honest mutual effort is often required just to identify the real crux of any differences of opinion (it's even likely that no valid disagreement actually exists). Conversely, persons can feel as though they mutually concur regarding some fragmented inchoate ideology when no real consistency is even individually possible. For example, politicians must proffer various plastic platitudes in order to create a quasi plausible vote fetching facade, yet their sloppy premises assure logically incompatible positions. If there is a real gist to Alan's objections then it appears to principally rest in our difference concerning just how seriously one should react to the repercussions of human non-sense.

Incidentally, Alan's last round of comments were almost ignored. Unlike his defense of IP which desperately merits examination and expounding on my part; his “blinding yourself to clear context” comments hold little utility for developing moral support for this blog's theme. If it were merely a case of defending myself against accusations of bad logical form then I would have elected not to respond (since I'd like to believe that my case for monetary freedom can stand on it's own without too much damage from the writer's reputation). I mainly responded to add weight to my insistence that the problems inherent in less than rigorous discourse should not be underestimated. In other words, the comments earned by my previous post forcefully attest to this very problem. Because I see a lot more evidence of purposeless misunderstanding here than any real disagreement that can be productively pursued. Either my best efforts to clearly communicate were a failure or the reader was not disposed to apprehending my intended points or both. In any event, I sincerely hope that Alan will continue his comments even if I can't pay due attention to all of them. I do however hope to adequately pound and praise any on-point comments (as will be well demonstrated once I tear into Alan's IP defense).

Z:  “An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments follows: Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock in his press release …”
A reply:  “I would prefer you not so honor me. I find this drivel repulsive as do you. I hope you did not seriously relate this crap to any of my IP arguments. …”
Z follow-on reply:  “Excuse me. My above quoted lead-in was not intended to honor anyone per se (as another's sentiment could be honored while the person himself is not). I was merely interested in dissecting an example of authoritarian political blather.”

Let me see if I got this right: You say “An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments. …”, to which I say, “I would prefer you not so honor me...”, to which you respond, “Excuse me. My above quoted lead-in was not intended to honor anyone...” Exactly what part of “An example in honor of” means “not intended to honor anyone?”

If you are going to criticize ambiguous drivel typical of nonsensical newspeak and political spin, I suggest you do so without committing the same illogical nits in the process (and then go on in excruciating detail how important to avoid such, and insure discussion stays focused on useful thought development and not on nit picking for the sake of collecting nits.

In general I am adverse to both “excruciating detail” and “nits”. However, when I've failed to properly convey my point the first time around, I'm then compelled to elaborate to correct any confusion. In this instance “… Alan's IP sentiments …” was (and still is) confused to mean the person and not simply his sentiments. Perhaps “sentiments” was not the best word to employ here and “interest” or some other term would have been a better choice. But then I'm getting lured into nit nuttiness.

The most significant point I see you make in this post boils down to a single sentence: “While no known entity does a better job of enslaving and killing off a country's own population than the state itself; I still recognize fear based phobias of its subjects/citizens as the root reason for their submitting to… no encouraging… no insisting upon state control and the resulting deadly inversions of power.”

On the other hand, you also expressed a clear desire to stay on-point, and I am confused what is and is not on-point in your blog, and where the proper place for discussion is. Perhaps you may want to keep discussions of specific topics within comments attached to a topic, rather than respond to my comments in separate threads that appear to be changing the topic.

The point of this blog is to promote the channeling of monetary power and control away from long standing authoritarian institutions and direct it to the producers-consumers at all levels. The natural consequences of 1) disabling money as a proprietary tool for global political manipulations and 2) using it instead to further empower the real sources of wealth as a free/open thief-proof vehicle are truly staggering. Hence to the extent that a train of thought advances this objective it's “on point” and to the extent it moves in other directions it is not. As it turns out, some of the biggest factors maintaining the status quo are merely psychological (i.e. amongst the hugest known social forces). Since I look to logic as the best antidote to weak habitual mental reactions, valid instances of poorly formed reasoning on my part are taken seriously (so non-divisive criticisms are emphatically welcomed). Likewise, what is and is not optimal to include in any given post is something that receives my mindful consideration. This writer's ability, however, to find an agreeable middle path between excruciating nit picking detail and wildly inappropriate divergences is evidently a fine art in dire need of perfecting.

I should add that I did try to make sense out of this rationalization: “not intended to honor anyone per se (as another's sentiment could be honored while the person himself is not)”, but it really doesn't have value. All “honor” for something is an honor for the responsible person, or is not an honor at all. -- Alan

Thank you! This serves as an excellent example of how difficult it can be to find the real crux of a difference of opinion. Because a clear (and likely opposite) distinction between the honor due persons and the utterances they make is not only extremely natural, but wholly necessary for me. For example, I can remember like yesterday a young girl bemoaning the notion that due to excessive human population, the poor animals suffer greatly from both lack of natural habitats and exploitation. She felt that the world would be a better place with a massive reduction in the human population. While I consider that concept horrifying (especially once it comes to determining those who are to be eliminated for the animals' sake), my regard for the youngster per se was still not particularly diminished. An opposite example would be some powerfully worded truth saturated honorable insight emitted from either the most accomplished & noble actor or the sleaziest political of disrepute. In this case any personal honor harbored for the sentiment expressed would be independent of the admiration or disgust felt for any particular delivery/performance involved. We must not, however, overlooked Alan's “responsible person” specification. So in the girl's case maybe her school teacher was responsible for her sentiments and in the case of an actor perhaps credit should be given to the director - oh sorry, that can't be right, it must be one of the writers, unless she in turn got the idea from Plato or some other recognized authority (not to mention the possibility that the officially accredited personality may actually have been enlightened by some no-name prostitute etc.). So no, I not only reject the notion that “All "honor" for something is an honor for the responsible person ...”, but additionally find any compulsion to attribute every honorable virtue to some responsible person as not only Polyanish but perversely ludicrous. What could drive a propensity to bind or equate an idea/sentiment to just one instance of some imagined unique author (when potentially millions share the same idea/belief)? One readily recognized reason would clearly lie in a vested interest/need to defend the parallel notions involved with untenable IP rights -- BING0!
Oddly enough, the parenthetical part of my senseless rationalization cited by Alan above was the very last thing to be inserted in to the post concerned. It was an after thought that I almost rejected for being too trite and obvious to justify the space it consumed. Ironically that blurb has become the main point of contention.

When put in the context as used, your statement “An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments follows” implies you are adding something that follows from my expressed viewpoints on IP issues. You can twist the what you said all you want, but this is what you clearly meant. You most clearly implied that Ruddock's garbage on IP law was somehow in line with my own (“an example in honor of”). I objected. You reacted by stating my objection was nonsense because you were not saying Ruddock's nonsense was in line with ME, but, rather, with MY SENTIMENTS. This issue is not whether you can honor the expression of someone's beliefs independent of the person expressing them (I don't think you can, you do), but that you are rationalizing away your attempt to derail how you misunderstood my beliefs.

To make sure this is abundantly clear, this argument is not over the definition of honor, and the proper usage of the word, but is over my beliefs on IP issues, and your confusion that my beliefs on IP issues are in similar to Ruddock's, which they are NOT.

I object to a) your connecting my beliefs to Ruddock's, which I clearly stated are not connected, b) your attempt to steer around responsibility for making that erroneous connections, and c) extracting beyond reasonable levels of discussion the points in this discussion that are divorced from your own stated goals of money, and more immediately the connection with this monetary subject to intellectual property, even to the point that you claim this diversion is somehow the main point of contention, when, at best, it is but a nit.

One additional request: please reply to comments with a new comment, and not in-line with prior comments. I just about missed these comments because the comment counter on the main page did not change when you added your in-line comments. I would rather not have to drill down to each comment section of each thread to try to determine if anything has been added, when the comment counter should give me that information all from the top level of the blog. If you did this in other comments sections, they have been completely missed by me so far...

-- Alan

Funny how you seem to so misgauge my emotional temperament while criticizing me for assuming non-stated beliefs of yours and Roddock's. Oh, well! I would rather not respond directly to this last post beyond saying you have convinced me that you do now see what I was trying to say before. Thank you!

However, you missed the most important point to me: this was supposed to be about IP. I would prefer to reduce the noise about these peripheral issues and move on to the important ones. Since neither you nor I give a damn about what Roddock says or believes, why keep talking about him? Also, I prefer not to play word games, as that is something I find much more enjoyable in person (as you well know!), and very tiresome in writing.

I made a very clear claim about why IP has meaningful analogy to real property in practical ways, and I am waiting on you to say why you think I am wrong.

-- Alan

One month and still waiting for the promised decimation of my IP position. Your last post ended with a ton of chest pounding, unbefitting a month of silence. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Methinks the lady doth poundeth his chest too much!”

-- Alan

Regarding Alan's non-comment of February 24th, I continue to be thoroughly dumbfounded by his amazing talents for invention. Ignoring and/or misreading the record of what has transpired here is the only chance such tactics have of prevailing. However regarding his March 26th remarks, I find Alan's bearing and observations to be well on track, if not generous and understated.

Alan's criticism of my tardiness hits the mark on a most serious failure of mine. Regardless of how much I continue to embarrass myself on this score, however, I'm intent on not letting a pathetically poor performance on my part serve as a basis for abandoning the mission this blog represents. I believe in the objectives of this blog a thousand times more than I believe in my ability to effectively advance said objectives. If I believed in myself half as much as I believe in the concepts I'm trying to promote here, I'd logically have to abandon even my family responsibilities in order to dedicate a full time plus effort advancing YeNom principles.

When it comes to Alan's well intentioned demand for me to bring on my promised all out IP attack, I'm afraid there will be some delay on that. This is largely due to Alan's own startling comments made back on January 12th, 2008 at 2:02 pm. There are various issues here that merit addressing especially to the extent that the perspectives Alan rises are broadly held. Subsequent to this, the IP thing is important enough that it merits a separate introductory post to put its significance into perspective with the main theme of this blog.

My writing skills are regrettably inadequate to convey just how dumbfounding Alan's above comment proved to be. I was so flabbergasted initially that any hope of even deciding if a response should be make dissolved into an oblivion of distress. So I gave it a rest, yet when attempting to wrangle with this some days later, the disconcerting effect was only intensified. I'm now obliged however to accommodate a tangent to help explain why Alan's posture was so totally bewildering. As it turns out Alan is not a chance reader of this blog. Instead he'd have to be counted as one of my four real friends (although it's been well over 121 moons since I've seen him). More significantly, I can think of no one who would be better equipped to apprehend the concepts introduced here.

So here is my targeted recounting of a simple matter that I never though could possibly require such a rehash. In the interest of finding an example to demonstrate “common crowd consensuses” and our habitual failure to recognize “insanities that are habitually spewed about”, I admittedly used “[a]n example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments”. When Alan protested, “I would prefer you not so honor me.”, I casually surmised that he was being more whimsical than not. Nevertheless, I excused myself and made the good faith effort to precisely and honestly explain the full nature and intent of my “in honor” comment. Next I was truly ‘blown away’ by 1) Alan's total rejection of my explanation (which for me was sincere at the very least if not obvious on its face), and 2) a new unbending insistence that this “... is over [his] beliefs on IP issues ...” So either my Ruddock quote was indeed 1) not “an example of authoritarian political blather” (a child of “common crowd consensuses”) as plainly purported; or 2) it was just used as a shameful sly cover to cowardly and unfairly defame Alan. This succinct accounting however is made after gaining the benefit of a major illumination that saved me from drowning in a whirlpool of weirdness.

Recalling my initial problem, I was intensely perplexed over how to handle this, even to the extent of being unsure about responding at all. Here's the dilemma. On the one hand, any response considered would decisively defy self imposed criteria against doing so. Because I saw no way to reply without it breaking down to being a mere self-defense, and that doesn't justify occupying blog space. Even worse, my best supporting arguments had already been presented as effectively as I could, so repetition with updated versions was hardly merited. On the other hand however, the several incredible irregularities I perceived had been emitted from a most esteemed source and the last person expected to misconstrue me so profoundly. While Alan's comments often beg to serve the part of a classic straight man, this latest round went way beyond excessive. And although it seemed quite doubtful that a third party could agree with Alan, the possibility of this happening less than rarely loomed heavy. So I decided to analyze and dissect his comments to uncover any obscure clues that might shed some light on this bizarre quagmire. Lo and behold -- my scrutiny finally pay off! There it was coyly couched in that sentence beginning with, “To make sure this is abundantly clear ....” So yes, it finally did get through to me smashingly clear. Alan actually did ‘believe’ (truly & rawly) in his own following statements. His unrelenting perspective had impelled Alan to construe that the whole Ruddock thing was really about himself! This was all it took to break the mind twisting spell, and the method of the madness was at last laid naked and vulnerable. (Notably, I was guilty of the exact same thing that had caused me so much frustration -- the failure to comprehend and believe the other's clearly stated position).

But OK -- fine, for the sake of argument, let's concur that basic literates will always agree that, “‘An example in honor of Alan's IP sentiments follows’ implies [I was] adding something that follows from [Alan's] expressed viewpoints on IP issues.” Moreover we'll agree that I “attempt[ed] to steer around responsibility for making ... erroneous connections ...” And finally let's even say that Alan some how does ‘know’ what I clearly meant (despite my testimony and other evidence to the contrary). These are perhaps all plausible positions on his part without over stretching credibility limits. (Pssts: next we'll give Alan a second opportunity to again ignore a precious point.) We then unfortunately run into a show stopper that cannot be brushed aside even with the most generous benefit of the doubt. Namely that Ruddock (as the Australian minister with formal control of Public Prosecutions for the Crown) merely performed his duty to report changes in the statutes. Speaking as an apologist for IP in any way, or merely expressing some IP beliefs (personal or not) would have been wholly uncalled for. True to course, Ruddock was politically astute enough not to utter a single word in that regard. So how could I have possibly connected Alan's beliefs to Ruddock's (an unknown)? If Alan disagrees then he needs to kindly cite any verbiage quoted from Ruddock that expresses some belief(s) (in fact, it would be interesting if Alan can uncover any instance where Ruddock actually does express or defend any IP doctrine, dictum or credo whatsoever). Now Alan could, of course, presume to know what Ruddock's intent or beliefs clearly are (as he's done for me), but that's a ploy I always hope to avoid. There are two reasons for this: 1st, an assumption about another's opinions based on their title could likely be wrong (for instance, I'd definitely avoid second guessing someone like Alan Greenspan too much) and 2nd, the beliefs of people in authoritarian positions are generally not a big concern since I persist to perceive the victims' own bearing (fears) as holding the keys to freedom.

Yes, Alan and I do both talk about Ruddock's nonsense. But for me it's not an IP issue what-so-ever, and instead is solely about Ruddock's newspeak delivery. For Alan however, this can't be so and must clearly be about IP and comparisons involving himself and/or his sentiments.

So where does all this leave us? Well for one thing, Alan's desire to characterize me as blind is certainly justified in this instance. I never really saw this for what it was until he punched me squarely between the eyes with it (and even then I almost missed it)! Admittedly, I've always been incredibly obtuse when it comes to recognizing a weakness in someone else. It is like I innately take the “your OK&lrquo; assumption to naive extremes (or perhaps any critical aptitudes tend to get focused more on meta issues). In any event, this curse does have an upside. Because by the time that even my selfish eyes can perceive a problem it has to be patently blatant (dare I say ‘patently’ was used in honor of ...). Hence I can be pretty darn confident that such belated insights are on target. What does this mean? It means I've picked up on the scent and now know the score. It was even noted previously that Alan's poignant efforts to distance himself from Ruddock's non-expressed beliefs seemed overly reactive (I simply failed to see how deep this ran).

Thus yes, if Alan has to insist that I'm connecting his IP sentiments with Ruddock then great. But it now behooves Alan to 1) cite just one lousy instance/example of such a comparison, 2) specify what Ruddock believes (or even what (he thinks) I think Ruddock believes - if that helps), and 3) how his (Alan's) beliefs differ.

Look, these post are nothing easy for me to put together, and I was really dreading the need to attack this IP thing. But now I smell blood! I honestly wasn't looking to get Alan's goat, but how I realize I've got it in a strangle hold. Alan's reactions are those of fear. Fear of seeing a large part of his world blown to bits. And mercy is the last thing provoked in this case. Alan can, however, spare himself the tension of anticipating an attack staged under the cover of another subject, or approached in some mealy mouth pussy-foot manner, or employing nonsensical nuances. If the Ruddock thing was disconcerting then he's not seen anything yet. Since what's about to come down shall be akin to a bullet blast to the brain, or a stake in the heart delivered straight through the chess. If my analogies aren't all that comforting then perhaps it will help to know that my upcoming IP destroying endeavor is particularly necessary as it represents a debt that I owe Alan. Over a decade ago Alan sliced my world asunder with some of his cold cutting pet premises. Godless despicable notions that proved to be immensely more beautiful than the countless angles (fallen or faithful) they destroyed. My adoption of his vile insights disintegrated various bonds and set me on a no return path to wondrous realms of freedom. My progression however seems to have detoured from the master's -- resulting in a transformation that has consequently run awry — and Alan now has a classic Frankenstein to contend with.