The Weekly Commercial Paper versus Dow and S&P 500 has been updated.

I’m currently reading “For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization” by Charles Adams and I happened to come across this quote, which seems rather appropriate for the times.

Thomas Jefferson, an Anti-federalist, believed that (tax) rebellions every twenty years or so were “good medicine” for government. He further believed that rebels ought not be punished too harshly. To this end he referred to a Latin maxim which might come in handy when you need to dazzle naive fools.

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem
(“Rather a dangerious liberty than a peaceful servitude”)

Be sure always to repeat it in Latin. Fools won’t understand it anyway. Those who are simply ignorant will look it up.

I love this one from Infowars:

She makes a great point, actually…. buuuuut… science by definition must be falsifiable – i.e., you have to be able to disprove it.

So what exactly WOULD disprove “Global Warming”?

Well… NOTHING WOULD!

And that’s why, Rachel, “Global Warming” is NOT science!

The concepts of rights is confusing to a lot of people. You can’t see them, you can’t feel them, and they are very often violated. As far as most people are concerned they simply don’t exist. Or, if they do, they are only something that the government “grants” and as such they can be “taken away” whenever that same government sees fit. But the writers of the Declaration of Independence thought that rights were “endowed by [Man's] Creator” and “inalienable”. What did they mean? Who is this Creator? And what does “inalienable” mean?

Now, when it comes to the laws of physics, there is no debate that they are “God-given” or “Nature-given”. It is clear to everyone that something much more powerful than Man determined what those laws would be. Those laws are the work of whatever it is that created the universe, whether you want to call that thing God, or Nature, or Truth, or whatever other name you might apply. And they are beyond the power of Man to change. Man can certainly disregard them. But what he can’t do is avoid the consequences of disregarding them. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Rights are Creator-given in just the same way. Yes, a man can disregard them, just as he can disregard the laws of physics. But, just as with the laws of physics, he cannot avoid the consequences of doing so. But what are the consequences of doing so? We’ll get to that in a minute.

Now, what does it mean that rights are “inalienable”? Inalienable (or unalienable as it is also written, both words have precisely the same meaning) means simply something which you cannot give away. It does not mean that the senators have legislated that they will not allow you to transfer them to someone else, like a non-transferable coupon. It means that it is a priori impossible to do so, i.e., to talk of transferring them would be to contradict yourself.

In order to understand why this is true let’s consider the nature of consciousness. Consciousness certainly is “inalienable” isn’t it? It is beyond your power to give it away to someone else. And this has nothing to do with any man made law. It’s simply a given. You could say it is “God-given” or “nature-given” or you could say that you’re “endowed by your Creator”, however you state it, the fact remains, try as you might, you simply cannot give it away.

This certainly does not mean that you can’t kill yourself. What it means is that as long as the particular consciousness that is you exists, it is you and not someone else. It is inalienable.

Looking at this from a slightly different perspective brings us to the concept of responsibility. The word responsibility is used here to mean that you are the one who suffers whatever consequences come with your actions. It has nothing to do with blame which is an entirely different concept. For example, if the plane you are traveling in crashes, you are responsible in that the consequences of having gotten on the plane are suffered by you, but you are not necessarily to blame for the crash. When responsibility is defined in this manner, it’s easy to see that it’s inalienable, right? It is inalienable because consciousness is. Wherever you go, that’s where you are, so to speak.

Now, when we talk of rights being inalienable, we are discussing a political ideal. That means that we have a particular goal in mind. If we are to achieve that goal, then we have no choice but to follow the laws laid down by nature (or God), hence you may have heard that the concept of rights comes from an ideal called Natural Law. Natural Law is no less natural and no less law then are the laws of physics. Again, you can disregard the laws of physics if you like, but in no way can you avoid the consequences of doing so. The responsibility for doing so is yours, i.e., the consequences are suffered by you.

The purpose of the political ideal which the Founders espoused was to create a civilized society, i.e., one in which each man had the maximum potential to further his own life. They recognized that each man was ultimately responsible for his own life that this responsibility was inalienable. Hence, rights, which are simply those responsibilities restated from the perspective of a third party, a government, must be inalienable, too. For example, you are responsible for your life in that it is you who experiences it, so any society that you are a part of, if it is to be a civilized society, must recognize this fact. This recognition is the right to life.

So, to come back to our question previously asked, what are the consequences of disregarding rights? As we have seen, rights are the foundation of a civilized society, that is, one in which each man’s potential is maximized. The consequence, then, of violating rights – Natural (or Creator-given) Law – is the loss of a civilized society. This loss is suffered by everyone. It is suffered by you. Hence, the responsibility for ensuring that rights, your neighbor’s as well as your own, are not violated, rests firmly with you. And that responsibility is, of course, inalienable.

And, it is with this article that I attempt, with what little power I have, to convince my fellow man not to give up his rights, the consequences of which I find devastating. May God, Nature, and the Universe, help me to do that!

There are quite a few so-called “libertarian” groups touting so-called “anarcho-capitalism”. To my mind this term is nothing but an oxymoron that serves to confuse people who have otherwise correct instincts. This might be because one of the apparent proponents of the idea was none other than Murray Rothbard. It’s possible, then, that this is just a case of guru-worship. At any rate, these are my views on the subject.

Before getting into a debate about complex philosophical topics like this, it is always a good idea to carefully define terms, so here are my definitions. Keep in mind that, as I will be discussing an ideal, I am using terms in the normative sense, that is, for example, law as it should be not law as it currently legislated. In other words, we are discussing theory and not practice.

• Politics – the study of the proper structure of a collective such that each individual within that collective has the maximum freedom to act ethically[1]
• Law – the body of ideas which delimit the manner in which individuals may act within society such that the political goal is achieved
• Government – the organized enforcement of law. A proper government is, in essence, a collective form of self-defense (and self-defense is the only lawful use of force.[2])
• Anarchy – the absence of organized law enforcement
• Capitalism – the economic ideal under which anyone may aspire to ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is the natural development of a proper political system.

Now, it should be clear from the above definitions that anarchy and capitalism are incompatible. Capitalism is the result of a proper system of government – i.e., it develops from a political (collective) system under which the individual’s rights to property are respected and the recognition of those rights is enforced. Without such enforcement, there is no means of dealing with criminals other than for each individual to engage in war each time he encounters one.

Now the so-called “agency-theorist” will argue that through freedom of association individuals are “free” to band together to protect themselves. This is true, however, the moment they do, organized law enforcement is born, at least within the collective, and there is no longer a state of anarchy. Everything external to that collective, however, is still potentially in a state of war – only now it is war between tribes.

Now, the same anarchist may argue that these “small” governments are preferable to the large centralized one. Again, this depends upon the state of the “small” government. If it is a criminal government, the same problem exists – the potential for tribal warfare. If they are not criminal then of course there is a consistency of law and so which “tribe” you belong to is largely irrelevant. It is for precisely this reason that there will always be a natural tendency towards centralization. Any proper government which encounters a criminal one is justified in removing the criminal government if it is within its power to do so. In fact, if it were possible to ensure that criminals could never gain control of the machinery of government, a world government would be ideal. Yet of course, this is impossible – the very thing that makes a proper government necessary is the very thing that threatens it – the existence of criminals.

It is because of this fact that government can only ever approach the ideal, it can never reach it. This is not a defect specific to Man – it is a defect of life itself. All living things are subject to ignorance and uncertainty and it is ignorance and uncertainty which breed crime, on the parts of both the perpetrator and the victim. Only a state of perfect knowledge would allow for a perfect government – but of course in a state of perfect knowledge no government would be needed.

That life is subject to ignorance is a priori true and from this it follows that there is no such thing as Utopia. The “agency theorists” make the same error that the socialists and globalists make. They assume that a “fool proof” government is possible. But fools make excellent criminals and even better victims. For this reason, neither world government nor anarchy will ever prevent tyranny, injustice or war. As many wise men have pointed out, liberty requires constant vigilance. This is not idle talk. There is no short cut.

The belief that a short cut exists and talk of the means to achieve it serve only to facilitate the eventual decline of a proper government. The populace becomes complacent, believing they cannot be victimized, and greater and greater ignorance of political matters becomes the norm. It is this ignorance that eventually leads to the criminal takeover of the machinery of government and so governments, like the population, have a life cycle with a difference only in the relative length of time they persist.

Does this mean that Man should not strive for ideals? After all, they are only approachable, and never fully realizable. This is a little like saying that one should not attempt to prolong his life because he must inevitably die. As with the question of life and death, recognizing these truths can only help us to better approach the ideals.

Some means of preserving a proper government do exist and are generally attempted. Democracy, for example, minimizes the ignorance of any one man, federation, i.e., the maintenance of local governments, checks the power of the central government, separation of powers limits the effects of any one arm of government, representation sets up a system of local responsibility, etc. Even so, these ideas can only maintain a proper government when the people are vigilant. None of them is “fool-proof” and none of them ever can be.

It should now be clear that our personal values are inextricably linked with and dependent upon the knowledge and vigilance of our fellow man. It is of this fact that criminals are least aware. They imagine that slaves can approach the productivity of free men. They confuse relative wealth with absolute wealth and imagine that there will always be a supply of able men to plunder, even as they murder all the able men. All man can hope for is to stamp out such ignorance whenever he encounters it. No one wants to hear this. But burying one’s head in the sand is exactly what needs to be avoided. Anarchy, which is essentially the return to a primitive existence, is certainly not the answer.

Notes:

[1] a discussion of this is a bit outside the scope of my article, but I will try to make this a little clearer for those who are new to the subject. Because knowledge remains unalterably dispersed among individuals, no man or group of men will ever be in a position to determine what action is for another man the ethical action. This determination must always be made by the acting individual alone and therefore he must always be as free as possible to make that determination – even if he may ultimately err. It is to ensure this freedom that laws are instituted which prohibit to men those acts which interfere with his neighbor’s identical freedoms. This is the basis for the ideal known as Natural Law.

[2] Please note that government is NOT defined as a “monopoly on the use of force”. This idea contains within it the notion that government rightfully exercises some power that is forbidden to the people. Under a proper government the citizens retain the individual right to self-defense and the only purpose of government is the defense of the collective. A proper government might under certain conditions err and imprison an individual who has exercised this right because it is often difficult determine that an act was performed in defense. It is for this reason that citizen are generally expected to leave law enforcement to the government. Nevertheless, I think it’s important not to confuse this with a “monopoly” on force.

One of the virtues of being a generalist is the ease with which one can often detect a con. While the specialist examines the bark of a single tree, the generalist sees the forest for the trees. The generalist’s overall knowledge of surrounding area often gives him vital clues, even before any specialized investigation begins. For that very reason the con man often attempts to envelop his intended victim in a specialized and intimidating language where the victim will no longer be able to identify contradictions on his own. Once the victim’s reasoning is crippled, there will be no choice but to rely on the opinions of the “experts”.

Enter Mr. Karl Denninger, a financial writer who has written several articles that attempt to undermine the case for “hard” money. In Sound Banking A Capitalist Imperative Mr. Denninger invokes the specialized field of accounting hoping to convince the reader that fractional reserve banking is not fraudulent and creates no new money. To the generalist, who can already place “fractional reserve banking” in its proper historical geopolitical context sans accounting, Denninger’s assertion is preposterous on its face.

Nevertheless, there remains good reason to proceed with a full investigation of Denninger’s “accounting” claim. If the generalist is able to decode the specialist language, he will not only deepen his own understanding but he will also be able to more easily communicate his argument to others. Let us put aside Mr. Denninger’s complex and incorrect accounting example for the moment and start from the beginning, with a much simpler example, a pawn shop with one item pawned in exchange for a 20 dollar loan:

Liabilities and Assets balance because the ring is in possession of the pawn shop. The balance sheet indicates that there has been no fraud or theft because liabilities and assets balance to zero. Indeed this is the philosophy and very reason for the existence of the accounting field. “Accounting” for things is merely the objective operation of ensuring that nothing has been lost or stolen, assets and liabilities must balance out. Despite the taxman’s best efforts to corrupt the accounting field with a myriad of endless depreciation schedules, accounting will never be able to determine wealth or value. Measuring wealth will always depend upon an individual’s particular context and situation. Accounting can certainly be a useful tool for clarifying and presenting data but it will never be able to objectively decide a hierarchy of values — that always requires the individual. The science of accounting will never replace the art of business.

Now that we understand the purpose of accounting and why the numbers are supposed to balance out, let’s attempt the same accounting example with a bank:

Again the numbers seem to balance out. Could Denninger be right?! But what happens once we try to physically verify where the entries are? Everything is verified except of course the depositor’s cash which is nowhere to be found! It appears only as an electronic blip worth as much as the numbers in front of you now.

Classical accounting fraud – the reason for audits

In the pawn shop example, if you discovered that the ring was missing from the shop’s inventory you would realize the pawn shop accounting numbers that seemed to balance out as electronic blips were actually a fraud. The same accounting logic that applies to pawn shops must apply to banks as well. Classical accounting fraud involves having false entries that do not correspond to physical reality, the numbers still seem to balance out, however one of the entries is a lie.

The auditing process – verifying each accounting entry is similar to verifying each syllogism of a mathematical proof. Only if each link in the chain of reasoning is correct can one proceed to validate the bottom line. In our example, our auditor discovers that not only is the Depositor’s Cash line a fraud but the $20,000 of reserve labeled as a bank asset mysteriously has the same identification numbers as some of the missing cash originally deposited by the bank’s customer!

How it is even worse than that because of the reserve multiplier

If the depositor hired an investigator to trace where the rest of the cash went he would find it residing in other banks as their cash reserves. If this bank was the only one in town the balance sheet might eventually look like this:

Obviously this process could continue until all $200,000 of the original depositor’s cash is listed as Bank Reserves. The overall deposits for customers would total 2 million dollars. Each of the deposit entries has no physical cash and is manifested only as an electronic bank credit. Nevertheless, Denninger concludes that his definitions are correct:

Ok, having settled on definitions, we will now turn to the fundamental reality of fractional reserve banking. Many people claim that banks “create money” or “print money.” This is not true; a bank recycles money, that is, it increases the velocity of a given amount of money in circulation, but an ordinary bank (not a Central Bank) never creates new money.

The sheer absurdity of Denninger’s claim is now exposed – regular banks must create new money out of electronic blips or they must commit fraud. Only because the electronic blips presented by banks are considered to have unique and magical properties is criminal prosecution avoided – namely that the electronic blips of banks are the creation of entirely new money.

Cash (paper) and Bank Credit (electronic blips in banks only) is the modern analogy to the gold and paper receipts of the past. Banks create credit and by doing so expand the money supply, nothing less than a euphemism for legalized counterfeiting. The accounting example above also explains why every electronic blip of bank credit (money creation) leaves a legacy of debt on the other side of the ledger. Is it any wonder why so much debt exists in the World today?

In another article Mish “Hard Money” Goes Off The Rails Mr. Denninger takes a completely different tack in trying to undermine the excellent case for hard money made by Mike Shedlock. This time Mr. Denninger attempts to provide a metaphysical justification for expanding the money supply as both natural and inevitable:

I walk into the forest (grow) and cut down trees (mine) which I then process into lumber (manufacture.) I dig up some iron ore (mine) and turn it into steel nails (manufacture.) With these two items I now construct a house (manufacture.) That house (and all the products that I used to make it) are in fact money. They were the product of mining, growing, and/or manufacturing. Each of these acts is in fact the creation of money.

Yet who decides to create the money from the house?! If Mr. Denninger constructs his own $500,000 house can I print myself $500,000 dollars (or even easier just enter the amount electronically into my bank account)? Can I then proceed to buy the house with my newly minted money? Can Mr. Denninger who built it? Apparently neither of us, somebody else has that privilege. A naive person might say “society”, those who suspect something is wrong would probably say “government”, while those who are in the know will tell you “the private banking cartel” of course!

In any case, Denninger’s concrete example is ultimately founded upon his own flawed definition of money, a definition that has conveniently confused the terms “money” and “wealth”:

Money: The product of either growing something, mining something or manufacturing something. “Money” is actual wealth, and comes into being only through creation. Ultimately, all money is traced to the only “free lunch” that exists in this solar system, that is, the power of The Sun, although in many cases (e.g. mining) the activity is in fact discovery of previously-created wealth (by the actions of The Sun) levered through human endeavor.

“Wealth” depends not only upon the individual person’s own definition but upon their particular location in time! “Money”, on the other hand, has an objective definition that can be easily quantified and agreed upon. Everyone agrees on how much “money” is needed to make 100 dollars, not everyone agrees on how much “wealth” they would personally ascribe to it. Should your organs be considered a new addition to society’s money supply?

Indeed, there is no way for banks to objectively grow money based upon “wealth” creation. Nor is there any reason to do so. Despite this fact banks create new money everyday with the most common excuse given to the public being the need to “stabilize” prices. Promoting themselves as defender of “stability”, they will never warn you that the “stability” they offer is the stability of a feudal system. For only a feudal lord seeks to “stabilize” prices – workers seek either an increase of their own wages or a decrease of their cost of living. Under a stable, fixed money regime the quality and quantity of goods is allowed to increase relative to the fixed quantity of money. The counterfeiter who instead “stabilizes” prices by destabilizing the quantity of money hinders the market process from producing an ever increasing prosperity. The ideal that people intuitively seek has never been stable prices but stable money.

All prices transmit important information to market participants and only when the quantity of money remains absolutely fixed in quantity is the price information of supply and demand transmitted “noise free”. The phenomena of boom and bust would disappear. Only with all counterfeiters removed, can the market operate as efficiently as possible.

Historical quest for the perfect money and cons perpetrated to profit from it

The desire to establish a fixed quantity of money has historically led to commodities such as gold and silver serving as money because such metals are the only commodities that can approach the abstract ideal of a stable money — readily fixed in quantity (new mines add little to the overall pre-existing quantity), easily portable, and difficult to counterfeit. Not surpisingly, Mr. Denninger also rails against such a fixed money supply based upon metal:

Mish and others like him are wrong because they have their premise incorrect. This incorrect base premise leads to shrill calls for that which will not work (hard currency) and in fact has a thousand-year plus history of not working to stop depressions and other serious economic imbalances.

Yet despite over a thousand years of history none of these people ever examine their premise to discover why these so-called “fixes” never, ever work. They instead wave their arms and try to come up with all sorts of other “explanations” for things like the Panic of 1873 and the Depression beginning in 1929 instead of examining the foundation of their premise and recognizing it’s infirmity.

Mr. Denninger’s superficial and deceptive historical commentary is an immense disservice to his fellow man and only exposes his own ignorance of the banking conditions that preceded the panics of 1873 and 1929. He assumes the rather naive notion that rulers have ever allowed a “hard currency” to exist without manipulation. Even old roman gold coins were diluted by the emperors. The gold gave the coins their appeal to the general public, the diluting copper gave the emperor his pound of flesh. As the coins became more diluted, prices rose. Every economic bust was the result of financial manipulation because every economic bust was preceded by the introduction of a legalized counterfeit. The consequent result is as inevitable as the series of events that follow a man jumping off the ground.

Perhaps the most concise definition of money is the best one: Money is the unique commodity that all sellers in a particular market agree to accept. Thus, the terms “money” and “market” become inextricably linked; the “market” being a group of sellers all of whom accept a common currency called “money”. Honey might be the currency of the beehive, while money is the currency of the rush hour commute. Using this simple paradigm, it becomes clear that there exists markets of all kinds each using their own currency. The obvious fact that certain proprietors are not interested or willing to sell their assets for a particular “money” should immediately dispel the illusion that “money can represent all wealth”.

Money serves a particular function no different than a nut or a bolt and like any tool has an optimal use. Unfortunately that use has been perverted to serve someone other than the ignorant public. If a central bank creates 100 billion dollars in a year, private banks can create one trillion dollars a year – conservatively speaking because the fractional reserve ratio only applies to checking accounts. A trillion dollars a year can change cultures, corrupt academic institutions and scientists, brainwash the public, create new religions and buy politicians. Perhaps it explains why the little mafias the world over have never been able to successfully engage in counterfeiting, perhaps it also explains why some people persist in the magical belief that banks can and should be doing something that nobody else can – turn electronic blips into money. To support his own belief in money creation, Mr. Denninger confuses “money” with “wealth” and in the process elevates money to life itself. He claims that hard money advocates engage in idolatry, while he himself requires money to be everything under the Sun.

The words universe and atom originally had very specific abstract meanings. Universe referred to “everything that exists” while atom referred to the “smallest indivisible constituent of matter” (from the Greek philosophy of Atomism).  Over time these abstractions became concrete in their meanings.

As the science of physics progressed people came to have assumptions as to how big the universe or the atom would prove to be. When they thought this limit was reached, they began using the abstraction to express the concrete. Of course, science proved those limits to be wrong; today, an atom refers to a concrete piece of matter that is hardly the smallest, and universe has come to refer to an object which is “expanding” and therefore can hardly include all of existence. The word universe has even spawned terms such as “multiverse” or “parallel universe” which are clearly in contradiction with the original abstraction.

The best way to keep these equivocations clear is to ask yourself this question whenever they appear in an argument: does this person intend to express an abstraction or a concrete “real-world” object? You may find that the person making the argument isn’t clear on it himself.

Recently I wrote a quick post about the FDA in relation to a TV show on Animal Planet called I’m Alive. I received a couple of comments, but one of them requires a little more explanation so I’ve decided to answer it as a post.

First, the title of that article is “Yet another example of why the FDA ought to be abolished” and it is really yet another. It is certainly not the most compelling. Government agencies like the FDA violate ethical and political theory and as a consequence they result in negative outcomes. Understanding theory requires time and effort so it is generally these consequences that get people’s attention. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that they are consequences, i.e., concretes, where the argument requires abstraction.

A thorough discussion of the ideal in government is really a subject for a book. It requires strictly defining terms and discussing why central planning in general is unethical. In this post, though, I might be able to elucidate a bit for those who are new to the subject by revealing the true purpose of an agency like the FDA.

Any government agency has two purposes, an ostensible purpose, the one that the people buy into, and the real purpose, the one that those in control want to achieve. (See my post A Spoonful of Sugar for more on this). Let’s just take the FDA, DEA and USDA as examples (you can do this with pretty much any government agency and rather than repeat myself, I’ll let you do some of that. Go ahead and post some in the comments section if you like.)

As you can see, government is particularly useful for preventing business competition. If you doubt this is the real purpose of these agencies, below is a list of books which will teach you a little about the history of government interference with the market economy.

I will elaborate a bit on the arguments the people generally believe (it is these beliefs that a discussion of ideal government would dispel). For those who worry about “snake oil salesman” it is important to note that there already exists within a proper system of justice protection from them – it is the law against fraud.

Now some may argue that the law against fraud is not enough because it doesn’t protect people before the crime. But no legitimate law can punish crime before it happens. The law serves to protect people by making an example of those who commit crime. In fact, protecting people from making mistakes leads over time to a population that is particularly vulnerable to such mistakes and this of course plays right into the hands of the real snake-oil salesman – the one who wrests control of the apparatus of government. An analogous situation might be the infant whose immune system remains unchallenged. He never builds up an immunity to disease while he is young and so remains particularly vulnerable.

Now, do these agencies sometimes do what people think they are supposed to do? Yes, sometimes they are successful in preventing a dangerous drug from making it to the market – after all, not everyone working as a cog in the wheel is aware of the real reason the agency exists – some people actually believe they are working for the benefit of individuals. But it’s important to realize that this function can be served in better ways – ways that do not impact the freedom of individuals to behave ethically and therefore do not have the negative consequences associated with these agencies.

I hope this clarifies somewhat my position on the FDA. For those who wish to do some studying on their own I highly recommend the following books.

The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton Folsom (good for beginner)
The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard
The Law by Frederick Bastiat
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand (ethical theory)

My friend Richard died this year in January. Shortly after his death I submitted a paper he had written for publication in a scientific journal called Bioscience Hypotheses. The editors were interested, but they had questions. As I had contributed somewhat to Richard’s ideas, I was familiar with them and I felt I could refine the article for the editors. This I did and the paper was accepted for publication in late January. The article has finally been officially published at the journal and is available online here: Honey bee colony collapse disorder is possibly caused by a dietary pyrethrum deficiency and also on Richard’s personal website.

This paper presents a hypothesis regarding the possible cause of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, but the inspiration for it actually came from consideration regarding the controversial cancer treatment laetrile and a general principle of economics known as the Law of Returns.

The Law of Returns was first made explicit for me after studying Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action. Mises discusses the law in relation to economics, but it is in fact a universal law which holds for any goal-oriented action. In essence it states that: if for the realization of goal G, a given system S requires ingredient I, then for I there exists an optimum; i.e., there is a “too much”, a “too little” and a “just right”. Aristotle boiled it down to a simple rule: “everything in moderation, nothing to excess.”

Put that way, it seems a little obvious. But despite most people having an implicit understanding of it, the lack of an explicit one leads people very often to violate it. They seem to say “If a little is good, then a lot will be even better!” The reverse is also popular: “If a lot is bad, none is best!” Hence, one can always find violations in the current news; a woman, for example, who died after drinking too much water, or the off-hand rejection of a treatment for cancer because the molecule includes a cyanide group.

Thankfully, our bodies can handle small deviations one way or the other fairly well, either by filtering out when we take in too much or by breaking down the least necessary of our tissues to reuse what we don’t take in enough of (this second principle is also discussed by Mises in relation to economic science, it’s known as the Law of Marginal Utility.) Still, our explicit understanding of the law can mean the difference between health and disease. After all, just what qualifies as a “toxin” or a “nutrient”? For the woman who drank too much water, the water was clearly toxic. But for the bee that consumes pyrethrum, a natural insecticide, the trade off may be resistance to parasites. The answer is not as easy as we might first think and is affected in no small part by the Law of Returns.

So I’ve been sick for a few days (swine flu?) and have been staying home and going stir crazy. Lack of exercise and the general misery of being sick have meant a lot of late night TV for me. Last night, for the first time, I got a chance to see the new Animal Planet show I’m Alive.

There are actually three incarnations of this show – two are on Discovery networks and one is on the A&E network Biography (survival in general is an extremely popular theme of late). I’m Alive deals mainly with surviving animal attacks. The other two are the original I Shouldn’t be Alive which deals with surviving excursions into the wilderness or onto the ocean, and I Survived, which in general deals with surviving crime, but not always.

One of the benefits of this particular type of show is that it makes evident to people just how dependent they are on a properly functioning civilization. My hope is that at least a few people are making this connection (and making it properly, i.e., not equating civilization with socialism). Nevertheless, the episode I saw last night (actually the first of the series) of I’m Alive serves as a nice reminder.

A teenage boy, Mike Makens, is bitten by a black widow spider that had been hiding in his sock. His family rushes him to the hospital only to discover that there is no FDA approved antivenin available. Mike is having an unusually bad reaction to the spider venom, is in excruciating pain, and is in danger of suffering permanent nerve damage. The only treatment available in the US could kill him.

Mike’s parents are obviously intelligent people and they are unwilling to risk Mike’s life on a dangerous treatment. And they discover, via the internet, that a non-toxic antivenin exists and is available in Mexico. Mike’s step-father makes the decision to go to Mexico and smuggle the three needed vials of antivenin into the US to save Mike’s life. He recounts the harrowing story of smuggling the antivenin vials out of Mexico, carrying them onto the plane despite warnings that no liquids are allowed, and then into the US, where the antivenin is potentially illegal, all the while realizing that his son is only hours away from permanent nerve damage.

As luck would have it, he is not accosted by customs on either side of the border, who simply fail to check the open manila envelope carrying the antivenin vials (oh well, so much for the no liquids on a plane rule). But Mike is not out of the woods. The hospital has refused to treat Mike with the Mexican antivenin, fearing retaliation from the US government for using a non FDA-approved substance. Only after some pleading does Mike’s family manage to convince a doctor to help them administer the antivenin to him.

Throughout this episode, mind you, Mike’s step-father is shown wearing a shirt the same color orange as a typical prison jumpsuit. I don’t think this is a coincidence. But Animal Planet is sure to include a note which points out that a “loophole” in the law would have allowed the importation and administration of the drug, but only because there is no antivenin at all available in the US. How this importation was to have happened legally is another question.

Now, how many of you knew that if you were ever bitten by a black widow spider, a pretty damn ubiquitous spider in the US, that there would be no FDA-approved antivenin for you? This despite the fact that said antivenin exists in the world?

If this story does not sound familiar to you, you should familiarize yourself with the story of laetrile. Now, who wants to argue that antivenin is dangerous?

On the path to enlightenment there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, want to keep you from the truth and they have a few ingenious techniques for doing so. One of these goes like this:

Present a little bit of truth along with a lot of falsehood and the truth will easily be ignored.

Present a little bit of falsehood along with a lot of truth and the falsehood will easily be accepted.

A spoonful of sugar…

An example of something like this would be to combine the true history of an elite banker class with the absurd notion that the world’s political leaders are not really human beings, but are a species of reptilian alien. See how beautifully that works? If a single person is spouting both of those ideas, you will likely imagine that you can safely ignore both. This device relegates all discussion regarding the elites and their plans for a New World Order to the New Age section in the bookstore, where everything is assumed to be pseudoscience and no self-respecting college graduate would be caught dead.

A very similar method is used in the development of political parties. It goes like this:

Package a position on issues of emotional importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Package the opposite position on those emotional issues of importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the VERY SAME politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Pit these two against one another and you will pass the doctrine you wish to pass with the blessings of the masses.

Examples of this would be the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue and of course the ever-present ”science” of global warming, which, fraught as it is with so much nonsense, is easily swallowed by those who attach to it all the truths that science has ever uncovered.

Together the principles are part of a kind of dialectic which is really just a fuzzy equivocal term (another important technique for confusing people) for the fallacy of false alternative. These are, among others, some of the tools used by the “sagacious lawgiver” to ensure his particular rules will be followed. Speaking of equivocation, which I discussed in a previous post, if you are going to use the above techniques, make sure that whatever doctrine you wish to pass is named using words that evoke positive emotions, but mean precisely the opposite of whatever you are doing. This gets people used to using these words in conjunction with your ideas and prevents anyone from using them with their true meanings. You know, freedom is slavery, war is peace, and liberals are people who want more government (and hence less freedom).

With these techniques in mind, you’re well on your way to despotism.

Okay, so now that you know what it means…

For those of you who live or work in the tri-state area (or could travel to NY once a month), a new group called the Tri-State Polymaths has recently formed. The idea behind the group is similar to Benjamin Franklin’s Junto and works something like this:

The entire group meets once a month to discuss current events and to present overviews of subjects or ideas that they are currently studying. As the group grows, smaller groups develop with narrower aims. For example, if a group of meeting members all happen to be interested in studying physics, they can start a smaller group which will meet to discuss physics in particular. Another group might be interested in studying the German language. Another might work on understanding a historical event or period. All these groups would continue to meet with the main group thereby enhancing everyone’s understandings.

The group is still new and rather small at this point. There are, however, some very dedicated polymaths. If you think you might be interested, check us out.

A polymath is defined as a person of great or varied learning.

The first person that comes to my mind when I hear this word is Ben Franklin – because the word evokes for me specifically a person who’s knowledge is both deep and varied – in essence a generalist. One might say that Franklin “dabbled” in everything – but in fact “dabbled” seems an inappropriate word, since it implies someone who never looks beyond the surface.

Wikipedia lists similar terms such as Renaissance Man, Generalist, and Homo universalis and also includes a list of noted polymaths including Imhotep, Aristotle, Cicero, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, and of course Ben Franklin. Good company to aspire to, I think!

To many Americans the first thing that will come to mind when they hear this word is the cloudy object that sometimes develops in the eyes of older people and usually has to be removed. But there is another meaning for this word that you might not be so familiar with: it is another name for a waterfall.

To American ears, waterfall probably sounds much nicer, but most likely that’s due to the association in our minds with a pathology of the eye. The word cataract comes from the French word cataracte, which means waterfall and according to a few sources, its origin is probably the Greek word katarassein which means to “dash down”. I have yet to discover how the word came to mean a clouding of the eye.

Lately, as you may have noticed, I am particularly interested in geology and geological terms. This one came up as I was investigating the history of Niagara Falls – the 2nd widest continuous cataract in the world after Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. To give you some idea about the sizes of these landforms, Victoria Falls is a whopping mile wide and about 360 or so feet tall. Niagara is about 170 feet tall with the Canadian Horseshoe being about half a mile wide, and the American Falls adding about a quarter mile to that.

If you click on the links above they will take you to the Wikimapia satellite view. This can be a fun way to become acquainted a famous geographical location and it has gotten a lot easier to do lately. Wikipedia now includes a link to GeoHack, a program that creates a list of known internet map resources with links centered on the location of interest. For example, check out this Wikipedia entry for Victoria Falls. At the top on the right, you will see the geographical coordinates for the Falls. Clicking on that link will take you to the list of maps. Just find your favorite map and click to go to that map centered on Falls. Easy, and it helps to put a location in perspective, especially if you intend to travel there at some point. Wikimapia is my particular favorite because locals can label places of interest right on the map for you.

If you’re a “cataract” buff, then you will probably like the World Waterfall Database which looks to be the pet project of a couple of guys who really like waterfalls. I must admit, it’s a very cool site and a great place to quickly obtain statistics on a number of waterfalls, including some of the lesser known ones – like this one:

Great Falls, Paterson, NJ

The Great Falls in Paterson, NJ are a lot smaller than Victoria or Niagara, but they are rich in history and for me, fairly close to home.

Here are some cool pictures of cataracts from various locations on the web:

Particularly beautiful shot of Niagara Falls from above

Particularly beautiful shot of Victoria Falls from above (note: GeoEye has a lot of beautiful satellite images in their gallery for download)

Iguaçu Falls in Brazil from above

Angel Falls (Highest Waterfall at 3,212 ft) in Venezuela