Gyroscopic Investing

moda0306 wrote: I feel I've gotten a pretty good idea of the foundations of Mises work, but if you insist that I haven't, I'll read the book.

I do not insist anything.  I simply do not recognize anything you have written as being related to the content of Human Action.  (Indeed, the rest of the content of your post is on a completely different plane than Mises' work, on a fundamental epistemological level.)  If I did, maybe I'd have some more interesting comments and feedback on your posts.  Sorry!

Thanks for your replies and have a great day.

MediumTex wrote:I don't think that Mises discussion of money fully comprehends the expansion and contraction of credit, and the way that military force can act as a substitute for gold when assigning value to money.

I haven't yet reached his discussion of money (in Human Action... of course he wrote about it in more detail in other books such as Theory of Money and Credit).  When I do, I'd love to discuss it with you.  I'm sure you'd have an interesting perspective.

LC475 wrote:

MediumTex wrote:I don't think that Mises discussion of money fully comprehends the expansion and contraction of credit, and the way that military force can act as a substitute for gold when assigning value to money.

I haven't yet reached his discussion of money (in Human Action... of course he wrote about it in more detail in other books such as Theory of Money and Credit).  When I do, I'd love to discuss it with you.  I'm sure you'd have an interesting perspective.

It seems like a very interesting book. For some reason I felt though that it was pretty well explained in summary by HB's discussions on economics. Which I love from an individualist mindset. I mean that. HIFFIAW is perhaps my favorite book. Though I'm not much of a reader as you probably can tell.

moda0306 wrote:

LC475 wrote:

MediumTex wrote:I don't think that Mises discussion of money fully comprehends the expansion and contraction of credit, and the way that military force can act as a substitute for gold when assigning value to money.

I haven't yet reached his discussion of money (in Human Action... of course he wrote about it in more detail in other books such as Theory of Money and Credit).  When I do, I'd love to discuss it with you.  I'm sure you'd have an interesting perspective.

It seems like a very interesting book. For some reason I felt though that it was pretty well explained in summary by HB's discussions on economics.

Yes, it is.  I am not sure any summary could do it any justice.  I do not agree with all of it.  In the part I listened to just this morning, I do not like his exclusion of creative "geniuses" from the disutility of labor, making them essentially a special class of their own to which the rule doesn't apply.  I'm not sure what the solution is, but his is inelegant and I think needs further work.  Like any work that actually says something and pushes a science forward, some of what it says will be wrong.  But interesting it indeed is.

I do understand, I think, the point you have made in maybe three or four different posts now.  To condense it down:

Just because something works for the individual, doesn't mean it will work for a whole society.

I just don't know that I have anything interesting to say about that.  Should I agree with it, or disagree?  I could do either.  What do we say you pick my side for me, tell me whether to agree or disagree, and then we can continue discussing from there.  If you want to.

Human Action is a masterpiece. It's also like 1200 pages long, so it's not light reading. Even after several years I haven't finished it yet. It's a supremely stimulating book, and I find myself having to pause every few pages to let the words sink in. It's deep.

Mises' overarching message is that people are unpredictable, the future is not certain, and cause-and-effect relationships are hard to divine outside of the realm of science. It's all so true. And that very message is what I would level at people who are so sure they understand how the economy works--liberals and libertarians alike. Any neat logical theory or self-consistent model can butt up against this. A great example is the price of gold, which has left many shell-shocked due to its radical fall and stagnation amidst record "money printing" right after its run-up seemed to correspond so well to government deficits and Fed action. You just never know what those silly humans are gonna do next!

Pointedstick wrote: You just never know what those silly humans are gonna do next!

We endlessly toggle between our lower and higher natures.

It's maddening.

The image of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder competing for our attention sums it up well.

One thing that is interesting about humans is that while our higher nature can take us very high indeed, to the point that some minds seem to function almost completely in the world of abstract and interesting ideas, our lower nature doesn't just take us down to the level of a dumb beast, it takes us much lower than that.

Have you ever seen an animal take an assault rifle and mow down as many members of his herd as he can?  An animal who saw a human doing that to other humans might say: "That dude would need three promotions to be a dumb beast."

MediumTex wrote:

Pointedstick wrote: You just never know what those silly humans are gonna do next!

We endlessly toggle between our lower and higher natures.

It's maddening.

The image of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other shoulder competing for our attention sums it up well.

One thing that is interesting about humans is that while our higher nature can take us very high indeed, to the point that some minds seem to function almost completely in the world of abstract and interesting ideas, our lower nature doesn't just take us down to the level of a dumb beast, it takes us much lower than that.

Have you ever seen an animal take an assault rifle and mow down as many members of his herd as he can?  An animal who saw a human doing that to other humans might say: "That dude would need three promotions to be a dumb beast."

I'm pretty convinced that morality is just an odd evolutionary glitch in our brain that actually served a purpose (similar to the "hive mind" of the insect but with more consciousness associated with it), and that it doesn't necessarily exist at its highest within human beings.

If human lived in as desperate a state as most mammals do, 1/3 of us would be doing heinous sh!t, IMO.


This kind of gets back to religion, but what drives most of morality, IMO, is not God threatening hell, but how most of us see most situations when we can sit in comfort and aren't on some sort of emotional tirade.  If we didn't become physically disturbed at the sight of someone suffering, would we be as inclined to agree with religion?  Probably not.  Animal have this similar discomfort with watching their "pack" suffer.  All they lack is the ability to articulate that feeling and perhaps a decent amount of consciousness of the feeling itself.  But it's hard not to watch a dog or chimp or dolphin or elephant and not think that there is a soul in there.  IMO, of course.

MediumTex wrote: Have you ever seen an animal take an assault rifle and mow down as many members of his herd as he can?  An animal who saw a human doing that to other humans might say: "That dude would need three promotions to be a dumb beast."

What about the cat the cripples the mouse and plays with it before eating it?  Isn't that just HORRIBLE?!!  IT KNOWS WHAT IS COMING AND CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT!  AND THEN IT GETS EATEN ALIVE!

moda0306 wrote: I'm pretty convinced that morality is just an odd evolutionary glitch in our brain that actually served a purpose (similar to the "hive mind" of the insect but with more consciousness associated with it), and that it doesn't necessarily exist at its highest within human beings.

Love is supposed to be universal though!  As in cosmological.  How else do you explain the "attraction" that glues the non-matter together that makes up all matter?

MachineGhost wrote:

MediumTex wrote: Have you ever seen an animal take an assault rifle and mow down as many members of his herd as he can?  An animal who saw a human doing that to other humans might say: "That dude would need three promotions to be a dumb beast."

What about the cat the cripples the mouse and plays with it before eating it?  Isn't that just HORRIBLE?!!  IT KNOWS WHAT IS COMING AND CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT!  AND THEN IT GETS EATEN ALIVE!

A predator playing with its prey doesn't bother me too much.

It's members of the same species inflicting large scale violence and murder on one another for sport and entertainment that is hard to comprehend, and not something you see anywhere else in nature as far as I know.  You might see one gorilla kill another gorilla here and there, but I don't remember ever hearing about one gorilla trying to kill his whole herd because he believes that the Gorilla God wants him to and will give him an extra bushel of bananas in Paradise if he succeeds.

MediumTex wrote:

MachineGhost wrote:

MediumTex wrote: Have you ever seen an animal take an assault rifle and mow down as many members of his herd as he can?  An animal who saw a human doing that to other humans might say: "That dude would need three promotions to be a dumb beast."

What about the cat the cripples the mouse and plays with it before eating it?  Isn't that just HORRIBLE?!!  IT KNOWS WHAT IS COMING AND CAN DO NOTHING ABOUT IT!  AND THEN IT GETS EATEN ALIVE!

A predator playing with its prey doesn't bother me too much.

It's members of the same species inflicting large scale violence and murder on one another for sport and entertainment that is hard to comprehend, and not something you see anywhere else in nature as far as I know.  You might see one gorilla kill another gorilla here and there, but I don't remember ever hearing about one gorilla trying to kill his whole herd because he believes that the Gorilla God wants him to and will give him an extra bushel of bananas in Paradise if he succeeds.

I laughed because I started thinking about Donkey Kong as a Gorilla God.