The Knowledge Illusion

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
Which one of them is actual, in your view?
In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.
 

Mockingbird

Well-known member
When we get new information, we accept some bits, and reject other bits. Why?

I think Hubbard might have actually had a nugget of useful observation when he talked about "stable data".

Each of us has a bunch of "stable data", which we accept as true, and which we use to evaluate incoming information. Information which aligns with the stable data is accepted, and may even be added to the body of stable data if it is seen as a refinement of the existing stable data. Information which violates the stable data is rejected.

Hence, when you have somebody who is a true-believer Scientologist, who has as a stable datum that LRH is always right, it's very hard to talk to them about the shortcomings of Scientology.

From time to time, we get into situations where we cannot avoid seeing that something we accepted as a stable datum is obviously false. This results in cognitive dissonance.
I think Hubbard plagiarized ideas, and didn't conduct the research he claimed, certainly not in the way he claimed. Psychologists and linguists have long claimed we operate on assumptions, many unexamined. We also operate on values and use guiding associations to frame and define our perception of the world.

George Lakoff has extensively researched language and written many books. He believes we operate with metaphors, stories largely on an automatic and subconscious level, and his book Moral Politics takes on this topic.

Leon Festinger wrote A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance and described how we have associations of ideas, behaviors and emotions that are linked in our minds on an unconscious basis. These associations in psychology have even been described by Aristotle and many, many philosophers and psychologists.

I believe Hubbard wanted to get followers to accept his ideas as stable data and to devalue and reject their old stable data from other sources.
 

Mockingbird

Well-known member
@Mockingbird

It seems like you are trying to reform the pieces of your worldview after leaving your involvement in Scientology (i.e. "the tech").

Just pick a few items that are important to you in your everyday life then make a short list of those items on this thread.
But here's the thing. My opinion of what is important and what is actually important can be completely different. I might not even know about subjects I need to know. Looking at my failure in understanding the threat of Scientology I was not even aware of the subjects of psychology ( in depth) or behavioral economics, or logical fallacies, or cognitive biases or rhetoric or hypnosis or propaganda analysis or critical thinking or the true scientific method.

A decent education of reading and discussing and writing about say, three or four good books on each of those subjects and a few other books to fill in gaps between them would have hopefully been enough that I would have known to stay away from Scientology and even understood how it is really a fraud and effectively persuades tens of thousands of people who may be sane, intelligent and generally well educated and sensible people.

But I didn't know what was important that I was missing out and so I blindly fell for Scientology. Now, I really hope I won't fall for Scientology again, but cannot rule out falling for something else, because I could again not even know what subjects I need to know to protect myself.

There could even be very different threats or issues I need to know about but don't.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
I think Hubbard plagiarized ideas, and didn't conduct the research he claimed, certainly not in the way he claimed. Psychologists and linguists have long claimed we operate on assumptions, many unexamined. We also operate on values and use guiding associations to frame and define our perception of the world.

George Lakoff has extensively researched language and written many books. He believes we operate with metaphors, stories largely on an automatic and subconscious level, and his book Moral Politics takes on this topic.

Leon Festinger wrote A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance and described how we have associations of ideas, behaviors and emotions that are linked in our minds on an unconscious basis. These associations in psychology have even been described by Aristotle and many, many philosophers and psychologists.

I believe Hubbard wanted to get followers to accept his ideas as stable data and to devalue and reject their old stable data from other sources.
I agree that Hubbard appears to have plagiarized most of what seemed useful in Scientology. Still, the idea of stable data seems useful.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
But I didn't know what was important that I was missing out and so I blindly fell for Scientology. Now, I really hope I won't fall for Scientology again, but cannot rule out falling for something else, because I could again not even know what subjects I need to know to protect myself.
One of the original purposes of a "liberal arts" education was to produce someone thoroughly grounded in the areas of logic and rhetoric. Such a person is hard to con.

The very phrase "liberal arts" means those things which a free person needs to know, partly in order to stay free.

Sadly, the area of liberal arts seems mostly lost these days, with college turning into indoctrination into political correctness, the complete opposite of the original purpose.
 

Mockingbird

Well-known member
One of the original purposes of a "liberal arts" education was to produce someone thoroughly grounded in the areas of logic and rhetoric. Such a person is hard to con.

The very phrase "liberal arts" means those things which a free person needs to know, partly in order to stay free.

Sadly, the area of liberal arts seems mostly lost these days, with college turning into indoctrination into political correctness, the complete opposite of the original purpose.
I never went to college, so any gains from any college education were unavailable to me.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
I never went to college, so any gains from any college education were unavailable to me.
My point is that you probably didn't miss much, as true classical liberal arts started going away around the 1960's.

I home schooled my kids in their elementary school years.
 

Mockingbird

Well-known member
I agree that Hubbard appears to have plagiarized most of what seemed useful in Scientology. Still, the idea of stable data seems useful.
Another thing found by the authors of The Knowledge Illusion and Jonathon Haidt is guiding principles as Haidt calls it in his book The Righteous Mind and in The Knowledge Illusion it is called sacred values and values. The authors found that people are resistant to evidence and arguments regarding their sacred values.

I have long claimed that anything that cannot be doubted, questioned or even criticized or ridiculed because it is too sacred leaves it outside of critical thinking. Something else may occur but not critical thinking.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
The classical early stages of learning was called the Trivium. As the name implies, there were three stages:

The first stage: "grammar": the young kid learns facts. Young kids can memorize data very well, so this is a good stage to toss data at them. The end-product of the grammar stage is that they know things.

The second stage: "logic": As the child matures a bit, he is ready to use logical reasoning against the data he's been given. The end-product of the logic stage is he's able to form rational opinions.

The third stage: "rhetoric": the kid knows some things, and is able to form sound, well-reasoned opinions. Now is the time to teach the kid how to communicate those opinions and evaluations in a way which will be well-received by recipients. The end-product of the rhetoric stage is to be able to communicate your viewpoints in a convincing manner.

The "Valuable Final Product" of this education is a human being who is capable of applying logic and reasoning in order to evaluate what he should be doing with his life, and be able to affect society in a positive manner.

 

Mockingbird

Well-known member
In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.
As Orwell pointed out words can be used to mean such broad concepts that they lose their original meaning.

From Politics and the English Language (1946)

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable". The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.
By George Orwell

Socialism has dozens of definitions now.

I won't even try to lay them out. The Wikipedia page lists lots and lots of them.
The topic is worth a thread of its own.
 
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Mockingbird

Well-known member
The classical early stages of learning was called the Trivium. As the name implies, there were three stages:

The first stage: "grammar": the young kid learns facts. Young kids can memorize data very well, so this is a good stage to toss data at them. The end-product of the grammar stage is that they know things.

The second stage: "logic": As the child matures a bit, he is ready to use logical reasoning against the data he's been given. The end-product of the logic stage is he's able to form rational opinions.

The third stage: "rhetoric": the kid knows some things, and is able to form sound, well-reasoned opinions. Now is the time to teach the kid how to communicate those opinions and evaluations in a way which will be well-received by recipients. The end-product of the rhetoric stage is to be able to communicate your viewpoints in a convincing manner.

The "Valuable Final Product" of this education is a human being who is capable of applying logic and reasoning in order to evaluate what he should be doing with his life, and be able to affect society in a positive manner.

This is obviously not the way modern education works.
 

La La Lou Lou

Well-known member
In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.
So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.

It also means that a publicly owned national health service in the USA would not be socialism, and that Barack Obama was not a socialist either.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.

It also means that a publicly owned national health service in the USA would not be socialism, and that Barack Obama was not a socialist either.
You can be a socialist without living in socialism.

Being a socialist means you believe in a direction.

You believe that society would be best off if government controlled the economy, and are in favor of whichever measure might currently come up to expand government control over business.

I'm the opposite. I would support laying off about half the US government, and de-funding lots of programs, and letting the private sector, including private charities, pick up the functions.

And then next year coming back and cutting more.
 

La La Lou Lou

Well-known member
You can be a socialist without living in socialism.

Being a socialist means you believe in a direction.

You believe that society would be best off if government controlled the economy, and are in favor of whichever measure might currently come up to expand government control over business.

I'm the opposite. I would support laying off about half the US government, and de-funding lots of programs, and letting the private sector, including private charities, pick up the functions.

And then next year coming back and cutting more.
So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.

I am very happy to live in a semi-socialist universe where there is social housing and private if you can afford it, where we pay into a pot and get our health insured by the state, where roads and bridges get repaired and where I feel safe. I want the government to fund programs that greed orientated commercial organisations would never do.

You stay over that side of the pond and I'll stay on this side hoping that the Tory party never get back in and that no deal happens with President Trump.
 

Bill

Well-known member
So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.

It also means that a publicly owned national health service in the USA would not be socialism, and that Barack Obama was not a socialist either.
Publicly ownership (meaning government ownership) - or, more importantly, government control - of the means of production is the definition and the goal of socialism. If the government comes to control the health industry in the USA, that is, who can deliver what services, at what price, to whom, when --- that is socialism of the health care industry. That is not socialism of the steel industry or any other industry (yet).

But, just because it isn't government control of every means of production (yet) doesn't mean it isn't, of itself, socialism of the health care industry.

It isn't all or nothing, and that isn't how it works in a democracy. "Democratic socialism" means that, step by step, voters "voluntarily" give control and/or ownership of the means of production to the government.

The good side of democratic socialism is that, once the voters realize what a disaster socialism is, they can vote it back out -- like they have in Denmark and other countries.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.

I am very happy to live in a semi-socialist universe where there is social housing and private if you can afford it, where we pay into a pot and get our health insured by the state, where roads and bridges get repaired and where I feel safe. I want the government to fund programs that greed orientated commercial organisations would never do.

You stay over that side of the pond and I'll stay on this side hoping that the Tory party never get back in and that no deal happens with President Trump.
The problem with socialism is that it self destructs after a while.

In socialism, the "safety net" has to be constructed with funds taken from higher income people. This creates an incentive for them to go elsewhere, unless (like the USSR and East Germany did) you put up walls to keep them in.

Meanwhile, the unproductive people of the world will be trying to migrate to the places with the best benefits, unless you take measures to keep them out (like Trump is trying to do).

Eventually you have more consumers than producers, and things collapse. Like Venezuela.
 

Enthetan

Veteran of the Psychic Wars
So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.
You assume that old pensioners would be the people whose benefits I would cut, because that is the scare tactic the Left uses.

Although I would tell the poor: "I'm sorry you are poor. Don't compound the issue by having kids you cannot feed without needing me bail you out. The way you get out of poverty is to stay in school, don't have kids you can't feed, get a job, find a good guy to marry, THEN think about having kids".

I would also tell college students "How about you either study something that you can actually make a living at, or finance your own education without putting taxpayers on the hook?"
 
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