IntenseDebate - patadave

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Random Sitcom Idea · 0 replies · +1 points

In my dream version, the opening credits are an homage to the Planet of the Apes (with the date dial spinning out of control), David Cross is a semi-regular as one of the Alabama rednecks, and a besotted Dave Foley plays the loopy commander back at home.

Hmmmm, maybe all the actors should be named Dave... And, it would be written by Dave Eggers!

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Life by Francis Bacon · 0 replies · +1 points

Bacon is making that connection. Tho, he was also critical of Plato. Bacon isn't a fan of speculating on first causes, nor on Plato's postulation of perfect forms. But he did like that allegory of the cave.

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Net Neutrality · 0 replies · +1 points

Evolution and free market ideas are alike in that they were created to address specific questions and are often misapplied to different questions. Darwin's theory of evolution is about species variation, and Spencer misapplied the theory to comparing cultures and ethics.

Similarly, applying free market ideas to telecoms (which get special breaks from the government and are in some ways stewards of limited public resources) distorts the purpose and value of free markets.

That said, it does seem like this is a situation where freedom for one side leads to unfair constraints on the other. I'm not sure what the solution might be. Perhaps if common carrier laws were applied to the infrastructure, but the ISPs were allowed to do what they want? So, Verizon could throttle your bandwidth all they wanted, but you could use your local independent ISP who promised net neutrality.

But whatever happened to all the independent ISPs? Way back in the Internet stone age I used to get my service from a small start-up that I visited monthly to pay my bill in cash. Do Verizon, AT&T, Brighthouse, and the other giant ISPs even have small, local, independent competitors anymore?

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Random Sitcom Idea · 0 replies · +1 points

of course! (and are there any other kind?)

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Does progress imply a ... · 0 replies · +1 points

OK, what about software iterations? They progress from one version to the next, but are they measured against an idealized standard?

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Does progress imply a ... · 0 replies · +1 points

(Oh, I'm not beating myself up. The progress question is separate from my busy-ness comments.)

I'm trying to parse out the conservative argument against Obama and progressivism, etc. This conflation of progressivism and socialism goes back at least to Hayek. It seems like most popular conservatives "know" this but don't articulate it well.

Plus, some conservatives (like Disraeli and Russell Kirk) accept that there can be a balance between progress and tradition.

However, I'm still not sure if progress must be teleological. Popper argues that progress doesn't have to be a part of an overarching plan, and I think that's right, but reducing the idea of progress to its most discrete, situational elements strikes me as a little weird.

So, I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of an abderitic progress.

(Abderitic is Kant's term for a historical trajectory that is neither the lot of humanity improving, nor the lot of humanity getting worse, but is rather a chaotic combination of things getting better and worse. Kant argued that this was the most ridiculous way to portray history, and that historians have a moral responsibility to demonstrate that things are getting better; i.e. progressing.)

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Debunking Health Care ... · 0 replies · +1 points

CL - I think that's right, and I think there are a lot of important debates to have about federal/state governance. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to 10th amendment arguments. Unfortunately, I don't hear many principled arguments about the role the 10th amendment should take. Some folks simply use it to advocate for their pet positions, rather than making a principled argument for its use.

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Ze Frank at Time Magazine · 0 replies · +1 points

I should have mentioned this in the post, but it seemed so obvious I forgot. Ze Frank is awesome.

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Sustainable Past, Sust... · 0 replies · +1 points

Uh oh, not so excellent.

16 years ago @ Re/Creating Tampa - Is it a cold or a flu? · 0 replies · +1 points

A productive cough gets a job and helps cover the cost of lozenges. An unproductive cough just lies around the house all day watching Sports Center.

Um, no, wait. A productive cough is when you are able to produce some phlegm and clear out your lungs a little, and an unproductive cough is when none of that phlegm moves. A productive cough can actually be a bad thing if the secretion you're producing is blood (for example). But, for the garden variety cold, I can testify that unproductive coughs are maddening.

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