The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees

A building is more useful. 

Difference is not the labor (because a different pile is not worth more than the original pile) but the results of the labor — i.e., a more useful pile. 

Socially useful labor. 

What goes into it?

(Architect) > Plans — useful plans; 

(Landowner) > Spot — a useful spot; 

(Capitalist) > Money — useful funding; 

(Laborer) > Labor — useful labor; 

(Coordinator) > Coordination — useful coordination; 

—

Plans + Land + Money + Coordinator + Laborer = PRODUCT

Divide the returns among the inputs according to supply/demand curve for each input. 

———

Question is not LTV, but why is the S/D curve for Labor so much worse than for the other functions? 

1. CAPITALISTS & CAPITAL are not concerned about subsistence; they can pay people now for future returns; Guy who brings lunch gets the gold. 

{ INFORMATIONAL ASSYMETRIES } and { POWER ASSYMETRIES } { VETO }; 

PLANNER/COORDINATOR knows how to appropriate slightly more wealth than the others; In other words, the IDEA-MAN keeps extra; But, by keeping extra, the IDEA-MAN becomes a CAPITAL-MAN, and in exchange for his capital to a new IDEA-MAN, CAPITAL-MAN demands a) IDEA-MAN shares information and b) CAPITAL-MAN gets an extra share; 

why are IDEA-MAN and CAPITAL-MAN trying to get more than an equal share? Because this is not a game, this is a war, and one rule is that YOU SHOULD NOT DIE FOR SOMEONE ELSE’S WAR, and the first rule is TRY NOT TO DIE IN YOUR WAR. 

(And because we never know what tomorrow will bring, and because in this world, money buys future subsistence, we want to accumulate as much as possible as insurance against death for us and ours.)

——
however, the Goal of Society is to End the War. 

The Slave Revolts

Improving the lives of slaves is in interest of masters as to minimize slave revolts. However, that interest would only extend to the amount of bread, circuses, and monopolization of violence necessary to minimize slave revolts to acceptable levels. 

The Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, and before, Exploitation & Domination were the explicit violent domination of bodies — life & death. Populations were at the mercy of military leaders who would rape, pillage & murder, and were dependent on like-members of militant class to protect from said raid, pillage, & murder. Wealth, privilege, and prestige flowed accordingly to the militant class. However, complete & total exploitation could not take place b/c ultimately, king could be killed. 

In a society based on violence, the threat of the underclass’ violence required that the underclass not be exploited into nothingness; again, however, the underclass would be given just enough bread, circuses, and deprived of just enough access to violence to minimize threat of revolution to acceptable levels;  

—

The Rise of Capitalist Society

capitalist society has lessened significantly the role of violence — the state has usurped a monopoly of violence. That peace has allowed for more productive projects. In these productive projects, POWER and PRESTIGE flows to those who can monopolize the means of production; 

—–

The Rise of Automation

Automation is labor that has abstracted the human — it is capital that behaves like labor. Accordingly, labor’s position has weakened even further. 

—————

THE ANSWER: 

First, what is the goal? Equality of Outcomes? 

Best goal would be for Man to be free from the War for Survival — enough food, enough leisure, enough health, enough happiness; a Post-Scarcity Society; 

why will Man continue to work in a post-scarcity society? Well, he likely won’t, but that’s ok; 

Basic Food is grown by machines and distributed free to all; 
Healthcare is provided free to all by doctors who are given the highest rewards in society [A GUARDIAN CLASS]; 
Homes are built by machines; 
Clothes are made by machines; 

Who builds the machines? Other machines; who makes sure the machines keep working? Engineers, who are given the highest rewards in society [A GUARDIAN CLASS] 

And who makes sure everything is coordinated and works? Coordinators. [A GUARDIAN CLASS]; 

the problem is of course that elites want to perpetuate their privileges for their children;

LOCAL-GOVERNMENTS should step in to coordinate to deal with supply shocks; otherwise, let the free-market appear to function. The Coordinators they hire to resolve this problem should be elevated into the GUARDIAN-CLASS and given all rewards; A SOCIAL MINIMUM is distributed to all CITIZENS & PERMANENT RESIDENTS. Immigrants can work, but are not eligible for SOCIAL WELFARE unless and until they can prove ASYLUM. NON-RESIDENTS’ social welfare costs will be billed to ORIGIN COUNTRY. SOCIAL-MINIMUM POLICY should be handled by lowest-competent government/ngo unit; 

Four child policy. Add’l children result in a ADD’L USE CHARGE. FREE CONTRACEPTION. Social Minimum just that, Social Minimum. Can’t go on vacation to Hawaii, etc., but can afford food, shelter, etc., occasional movie or restaurant or toy; WORK-LIFE IMPROVEMENT REQUIREMENTS. DRUG-TESTING, though failure to pass drug test results only in small fines. [Test showing that Small-Fines work better than large consequences]; 

SCHOOLS are computer-assisted; EQUAL; EXCELLENT; SAFE; children are taught MORALS, SKILLS, and INTELLECTUAL SUBJECTS. Older children are given work training, apprenticeships. 

GOVERNMENT should act as an EPISTEMO-NORMATIVE COORDINATOR/ENFORCER, discerning norms, enforcing proscriptions, and coordinating positive goal-seeking. 

–

Philosophy should be that all humans should be given the opportunity and abilities to pursue their own Reasonable/Respectful Conception of the Good, and being asked to contribute no more than is necessary to ensure that other humans are given the opportunity and abilities to do likewise. “ALL MEN MUST WORK TOGETHER TO BUILD THE DAM” // Weekday/Weekend Split — Common Pursuits vs Individual Pursuits; 

if we are in a war of all against all, why should we pursue Utopia? 

A) Because it is better/nicer to live in a world of justice than a world of injustice; (easier to enjoy your things if you know others are not suffering) (THE PARABLE OF THE CRONUT)

B) Because it is safer to live in a world of justice than a world of injustice; 

C) Because we can afford such a world; 

—

how do we get there?

Social Democracy or Revolution? 

likely, social democracy w/ tools of revolution/direct action to a) decommodify and b) marginalize, punish, and shame the exploiters

Somehow, we dream. And in our dreams, all is possible. The mountains race, the dead speak. And yet, we wake, constrained by the Real, until the edge and the end when the Last Dream comes, restraints are transcended, and at the last, we go, we do, we see what we will.

And we should live our lives so when the Last Dream comes, we can see each other’s faces, forever.

“We shall not decide which life fights the good fight most easily, but we all agree that every human being ought to fight the good fight, from which no one is shut out, and yet this is so glorious that if it were granted only once to a past generation under exceptional circumstances-yes, what a description envy and discouragement would then know how to give! The difference is about the same as that in connection with the thought of death. As soon as a human being is born, he begins to die. But the difference is that there are some people for whom the thought of death comes into existence with birth and is present to them in the quiet peacefulness of childhood and the buoyancy of youth; whereas others have a period in which this thought is not present to them until, when the years run out, the years of vigor and vitality, the thought of death meets them on their way. Who, now, is going to decide which life was easier, whether it was the life of those who continually lived with a certain reserve because the thought of death was present to them or the life of those who so abandoned themselves to life that they almost forgot the existence of death?”

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Hong p. 280

Sitting there, watching the band play, my mind turned leftwards by bringing the outside in, magic dust, I considered being there in the now, and the book of the Renaissance Popes I am reading, and my atheism, and their belief, and what else precipitated the thought — the idea that those guys have been on stage for thirty years — & how us humans come and go, and have come and gone, for thousands of years, time without end — 

and thought again, how though I don’t believe in God, it was natural for humans to look out at the world and back at themselves, and consider and question the strangeness of the fabric– 

where we are, what we are, why we are

Contre-jour, French for ‘against daylight’, refers to photographs taken when the camera is pointing directly toward a source of light. An alternative term is backlighting.[1][2]
Contre-jour produces backlighting of the subject. This effect usually hides details, causes a stronger contrast between light and dark, creates silhouettes and emphasizes lines and shapes. The sun, or other light source, is often seen as either a bright spot or as a strong glare behind the subject.[2] Fill light may be used to illuminate the side of the subject facing toward the camera. Silhouetting occurs when there is a lighting ratio of 16:1 or more; at lower ratios such as 8:1 the result is instead called low-key lighting.[citation needed]

When we look into the sun, the light obscures details but emphasizes form. If we take light to be awareness, knowledge, the totality of existence, by turning towards it, by allowing that totality to fill our awareness and backlight the mode of being, the details of being are obscured, but the form of being is revealed — 

——
Pynchon’s Themes

Conflicts between 

Utopia / Totalitarianism
Counterculture / Hegemony
Anarchism / Corporatism
Nature / Techne
Eros / Thanatos
Slaves / Masters 
Entropy / Order 

————————————-
My theme: The Form of Being, the Light Beyond; 

Reflections on the theme: 
One question is when and where the spirit sang to me, which was a) in school, when I had lots of time, and b) when I was sad, and lonely; 

still — I prefer to think that any causation between the depression and the word was tangentional, or that, in truth, there was some third, secret, cause. Even in the chain of causation, we may be fooled by post-hoc fallacies and miss the middle steps that served as the true causes of action — 

so there — what if it was the solitariness and the contemplation of the frame that comes with unhappiness, a desire to understand the condition — trapped in the head, I became one with the head, I came to explore the head, perhaps hoping, that if I sketched the head, if I mapped the Res Interna, I could master it and tame it — 

I have thought of depression as an ocean, as a boat on stormy seas — the record then was a plumbing of water — 

and yet answer came and with it what – not much – perhaps it was also shouting — 

Perhaps, if all we are is thought, and thought is fleeting, and there is no other to bear witness to such thought, the whole thing disapates and disintegrates – without others, there is little of our selves to hold on to — the writing became a staff to lean on, to keep my balance — to keep the mind and self from fading away — 

what does that mean when the writing was replaced by the love an other? [that too? what of the fact that I was in relationship during that time, but in a relationship where some questions could not be answered, or could not be answered to any satisfaction?] 

but prior question being, the was the love & presence of the other, the being-with, was that the same staff, the same cane, the same standing that kept me together, made me, me, gave self to thought – & what if it was wrong-self, or different-self, 

My cri di coer says that no, it was right-self, it was true-self — 

right and wrong – are they useful? Who is I? What is the I? 

The permanence & the impermanence of identity — the reality of change — if as the nihilist philosophers suggest, our identities are illusions, contingent things, then in fact, change should come easy — change the impulses, change the stimuli, and you change the outcome — 

or in other words, change the weather, change the water.