The moral threat and material benefits of Bill Gates - misdirected philanthropy

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In an open forum on ABC's Q&A last night Bill Gates offered some insights into the values of the man. He was discussing a number of issues surrounding his philanthropic investments in health and education, however I was more interested in his personal values. Ultimately what I want to see is 'just how smart is this guy'. He did not fail in the arena of business; but he does fail in the arena of ethical values. This is not to say that he does not convey a code of values; but rather than he has some misplaced values. His values are no worse than most business people; in fact they are rather commonplace, which I would attribute to the fact that such business people are so compartmentalised in their actions, that they don't reflect on the broader implication of their values, aside from satisfying themselves that 'they complied with the law'. This is bad for two reasons:
1. They are sanctioning the 'evil' taxation system and extortive political system
2. They are sabotaging the global economy with their moral relativism

You can listen to his values on the ABC Q&A website. They even offer excerpts of his contreibution by topic. i.e. You can see an excerpt on his attitudes to tax evasion. So what is wrong with his views? Well, I had the following issues:
1. He reiterated the advice of Warren Buffet - that the private sector should take on 'tough projects' which are too hard for the public sector. This of course stands in contradistinction to what most people view as the role of government, to take over the 'tough projects' that business will not fund. Though you might say that business will not fund projects which have a long development lead time....yeh, they are the tough projects...its not a construction problem like developing a dam or oil rig, which the private sector tends to do. So why is he not an advocate of small government? Well, we should learn its his conservatism.
2. He conveys a great lack of intellectual malfeasance. He says that 'the greatest injustice is a woman who has to bury her baby'. No, the greatest injustice is the sovereign nation which spurns the rights of its citizens, such that mothers need to bury their children. Destitution is not an environmental factor, its a political system and value failure. He does however support capitalism, but clearly he is not a consistent advocate, since he is completely morally 'repressed' when it comes to moral conviction. But what a minute.
3. The other gross failing of his presentation was that he argued that business are not moral agents. True, we can accept that corporations don't have to feel any moral justification to pay taxes; but its encumbent upon them to be moral agents. So this selective repression is not good. He contradicts himself too in two respects:
      (a) In Pakistan women are routinely raped. I don't think he would sanction his moral right to rape his wife in Pakistan merely because that is the local rule. The argument that he will accept any tax rate then is morally evasion. i.e. conservatism. We can expect that behind the scenes he would fight to oppose a global increase in taxation.
      (b) He was critical of a woman who wrote a book critical of his efforts in Africa. He even considered her 'evil'. This strikes me as a convenient departure from his previously expressed values.

The implication is that I got my answer to the motivations for Bill Gates actions. They are not entirely healthy. What can you expect of business people who are so focused on the 'material'. They consider their mindlessness purposeful and practical. But he we are, after 300 years of moral abdication by business leaders, still fighting socialism because 'socialism is good in theory, but does not work in practice'. We have Bill Gates ironically to blame for this false economy, as well as the cohort of business leaders who spurn the moral significance of a 'tax statute' for a beneficial tax loophole, and then argue that the government should just change the rules if its not happy with tax receipts. This is the moral abdication that leads to fascism.

To his credit, he recognises why business people don't give money to philanthropy. He argues that they have no sense of efficacy in the task. This is true and its a good thing. When business develop a sense of moral efficacy; that is the time for them to invest in philanthropy. Until they develop that skill base, we are better off with them investing 'concretely' and in a 'compartmentalised' fashion in commercial endeavours. They should continue to avoid tax as they do, since the government is a poor custodian of spending, and we should support their actions.

He properly repudiated a jaded child who argued that capitalism has caused greed. He correctly argued that capitalism is under-appreciated for its contribution to human prosperity, including reductions in poverty. Capitalism does not cause poverty; tyranny does. The greed of tyranny is a consequence not of capitalism, but arbitrary, subjective statism.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

The legacy of king making and socialised standards

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Contemporary society is all about hierarchy. Why shouldn't it be? We recognise a hierarchy in knowledge; there is a sequence and succession in the entire universe, from causation to more specific examples of evolution and social organisation. Ok, so we have established that hierarchy is necessary and 'natural'. The question is - how should it be framed. It is a value system; but what should be the standard of value.
I reflect on this question because of two issues:
1. The case of a politician who I suspect is being vetted to fill a certain position.
2. The case of a student given a generous scholarship to an American university.
3. The case of my own life experience

The question of the politician 'making good' highlights in my mind the question of why this person and not another. This guy is confident, engaging, charming, has a history of success, and probably wants the job. But there are a lot of people like that, many of these salesmen. Organised and an effective leader? They are certainly important traits as well. And yet this politician probably had to develop those capacities as well, and his family already had politicians in the family, so he was perhaps 'born into it'. The question I entertain is - born into what? What standard of value? If this system posits certain standards, and everyone who is 'made king' is required to meet these conditions, is it not inevitable that they will affirm those values which made them successful; which affirmed their value. Of course its possible that they could 'humbly' or 'honestly' extricate themselves from the 'system' later in life, but how many people are so honest to do that, and how many people are such critical, reflective thinkers to start off with. We might even ask whether, under contemporary standards we are in a position to know whether a person is successful or not, because of their own efforts, or because of the people under them. A lucky pick or is their natural talent to pick and develop the skills of people. The truth is - we don't know or care. We as a society only care about the 'concrete' results. When it goes wrong; we don't care about the reasons; we punitively spurn failures and elevate success. Its the same for criminals as well. We only take an interest in criminals when the offend our sensitivities. I would argue that crime prevention, like empathy, is a conceptual capacity. I don't wish to cite the politician I am discussing here because I suspect he will end up being my local MP. Time will tell. Truth be told, he will probably be a good politician, 'according to contemporary standards'.

The next case is the student making good. I watch with interest his development. A smart kid to be sure. Better than any other kid? Well, he won the prize, so apparently so. But by what standard? The standard again in this case is an external appraisal. Some people came to regard his academic and civic track record as exemplary. But how fair was the race; and is that important. I know this child's family from a distance. The parents are proud, hard-working, engaging, and they'd do anything to contribute to the success of their child. In fact, I suspect it was the parents who were seeking opportunities to win scholarships, but perhaps they were offered through the school. In any respect, engaging parents are a solid basis for the development of a child's self-concept, and equally important in terms of their broader 'non-academic' education, as well as important in terms of shaping their values. But might we ask what role this plays in shaping a child's success. I suggest its critically important; and most reflecting of the parents engagement rather than a child's actual academic skill, and still less perhaps their own values. This is a controversial point. How well versed is the child with their own values, or merely reflecting:
1. The values of their parents
2. The values of the gatekeepers to credentialism - the pursuit of titles.

Not just this student but another student who was the son of an old boss, who got a Rhodes Scholarship. He is entering politics as well. The king makers have chosen well or are they merely cultivating certain measures of success. To what extent did they kids choose the values they were judged by? Given their parents custodianship; to what extent did their parents choose their success? They didn't. These philanthropic institutions presided over by king makers decided their values; the hurdles they would have to jump, the standards of value which will apply. What society will eventually conclude is the measure of the good. The philanthropists are deciding this - setting the standards of success - for the ultimate admission to the kingdom of the chosen. 

This is where I enter the picture. I contrast very differently with these students in a number of respects. I did arguably go to a worse school than one of these students, but a better school than the other. This is I believe less important than the level of engage by my parents. I can never remember getting any advice from any of my parents about anything. Perhaps for that reason I never asked them questions. No career guidance, no lessons in morality. They did provide for every material need, and perhaps felt obliged as a parent to send me to a private school because they went to one. They were rather insistent about they. I did not get a reason; and was rather defiant. This might be construed as typical of conservative values. Who is to know whether I would have otherwise been convinced. I did not get the opportunity. The fact is that I was forced to develop my own values; I did not get any support in this regard. No one went looking for scholarships for me, and no one offered them. Maybe that was a good thing. Judging by the fact that my father 'forced me to go on a holiday to Canada' (yep most people laugh at that) and that I was disruptive & disagreeable for the entire trip, he may have (when I was 16yo) decided that there is something to be said about parental engagement. Nope, as it turns out he did not later reflect on that decision. 
So it was not from my parents that a curiosity was evoked. That would come from science in school, and eventually philosophy in early university. If there is anything to convey from this blog post, its that:
1. Values are a source of success - depending on whether they are life-affirming or compatible with social institutions.
2. Values are a source of disruption - there I was at the age of 19yo - an ardent materialist pursuing money as a mining analyst, eventually a mining entrepreneur, and I was being pulled in another direction by such profoundly important philosophical questions and answers, that I was about to change my entire life direction.

The question is - was I better off or less a candidate for success because:
1. I was self-reliant - I had no parents to depend on. I consider it their role as custodians to prepare; though they might argue that 'disengagement' was their mode of preparation, and my critical insight and conceptual awareness is a testament to their success as parents. Its a nice rationalisation for them; but no. I think their mode of engagement was in fact a reflection of their own parents lack of engagement and ardent conservatism. My parents custodianship was actually 'outsourced' to my (private) school. 
2. I challenged convention - I would later walk out on a geology field trip because my lecturer was ineffective. I would defy the traditional career path in mining finance and travel to Japan. I would become self-employed and attempt to make money from philosophy. 

Irrespective of those issues, it might well be argued that I was free but ineffectual. I did as I pleased, or did as I thought important, but was it right? I personally think it was the best I could do in a bad system, coming from a partially unsupportive 'anti-intellectual context'. The good news is that that historical legacy was critical in giving me a new lease of life at age 19yo when I discovered philosophy. The problem however was that my success in many respects was written in the sand when I was young, and it would take years to overcome shyness and largely anti-authoritarian values. 

The positive of course is that, having had that philosophical education in my 20s and evolved as a critical thinker from that age, I was able to advance my education a great deal. But actually I have nothing to show for my brilliance. It is seldom that I don't win a debate, even in my field (resource analyst), and I don't even consider it my strength. The reality is that people only measure you for those 'tangible successes', which all too often don't even depend on you; which are not even a reflection on you. Too often those 'successes' are written in the stand at birth, and we are validated for a path rather than for the particular values we embody. We debate in society the causes of crime; whether its nature or nurture. I think its none of these. I think its values. You are not born with a criminal mind; you are not defined by your environment; you are shaped by your mental engagement. That 'engagement' depends upon being confronted by opposing standards of value. i.e. Two different parents. I had two parents the same; so I was invalidated and otherwise disengaged from parental insight until I discovered philosophy. I don't begrudge my parents to this day. I think they are simply products of their parents and society, simply because they were not challenged by 'differentiated' standards o of comparison that demand 'a choice' - to think or not to think. To think the way others think, or to forge one's own path. To react against other's values, or to develop an independent, coherent framework of values. Probably most people will take the money and be defined by others values. I wonder if you can do both. I tend to think you will get away with that once before you will be defined by your track record. Critical thinking is merely differentiated thinking. If you want to be a critical thinker, you first need to depart from conventional values in some fundamental way. Then you are destined to confront a litany of problems which you will have a very different 'solution'. This I would suggest to you is the foundation for genius. Basically I don't believe in genius. But I can say is that history shows that the reputed geniuses were rebels. Einstein and Nicola Tesla come to mind. Their trick was to place themselves in a place and systematically express 'differentiated thinking'. They did not seek out captains of industry until they were successful; until they offered something of 'recognised value'

So I say to people, define yourself differently, and piss your parents off. Let's rock this edifice until it changes. Let's destroy this hierarchy; a legacy of feudal times. The institutions have reformed only to preserve old conventions. As it turns out Einstein became 'institutionalised', whereas Tesla was arguably destroyed by institutional investors like J.P. Morgan. I have read different accounts of these facts. 

Truth be told; fundamentally I respected objectivity rather than social acceptance. 

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Chinese viral strain raises concerns

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From the outset, let me disclose that I am not a microbiologist, but a geologist by training. My concern here however is not a question of knowledge, but a question of thought process, or specifically, an absence of critical thinking. An article in the Japan Times raises the prospects of an epidemic on the basis of new emergent strains in China. These developments strike me as reason for concern because they might point to a failure in government policy. This failure might be mirrored in other sectors analogous to this one. The intent here is not to 'argue from analogy', but rather to raise an analogy, since I'm not aware of the biological processes to really question their process. Biologists and policy makers can take what is useful with respect to this issue. 

Richard Webby, director of a World Health Organization flu center at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital: "The virus has genetic markers that would help it infect people, Webby said. That makes him worry about a pandemic slightly more than he does over other bird flu viruses, such as the H5N1 strain that emerged a decade ago".

My concern is that attempts to control the spread of the virus might actually be aiding the virility of the virus. One might question if the analogy of a bushfire has any application. When governments adopt fire prevention methods like backburning and firebreaks, they actually enhance the prospects of a threat by increasing the threat where they don't backburn. i.e. Backburning is used to prevent fires spreading. The problem is that the fuel remains on the ground so that the intensity of fires is even worse when they eventually occur. The problem is that there are people who are set on starting fires because that know this. Perhaps they are exponents of more regular backburning, or maybe they are just looking for cheap thrills.

The question is, does the attempts by governments to prevent the spread of the H5N1 virus diminish our risk, or might the government be creating a systematic risk. How many people have taken the vaccine for H5N1? My concern is that people who have not might confront a more sinister version because they have not been exposed to a more 'benign' strain by preventive public policy. 

The same issue arises with the global financial crisis, where politicians and the Federal Reserve ignored the indebtedness in the property market; and 'managed the issue' by artificially lowering interest rates. We might wonder if the Spanish flu on 1918 was any different. My understanding was that this epidemic occurred because of poor hygiene conditions in WWI trenches made the soldiers susceptible to disease. That might be considered a different context. More vulnerable than old people in any society? Well, the avian flu seems to strike the more healthy people, with healthier immune systems. i.e. You actually die of an excessive immune response, in the sense that your lungs fill up with mucus. 

Leave it to the professionals you say. I think not. But don't let me decide...I'm just some sucker who knows better than the government....or at least so it seems. I leave you with my first public warning (of many) about the risk posed by government set on deferring a financial crisis. I might add that I was far from the first or only person to anticipate a crisis. It was others warnings that alerted me. In this spirit, I alert you. You will have to apply your own 'critical' judgement. More importantly perhaps, you might spare a thought for the efficacy of political decision-making. 

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Libertarians need identity and support

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Around the world we are presented with a false dichotomy; a false choice between two parties - The Democrats and the Republicans, whilst in the process being denied 'real choice'. Consider the nature of the 'choice' you have:

1. A choice between giving your vote (aka 'power of attorney') to a Democratic vision of a slave state, or alternatively, the Republican vision of a slave state. Now, given that you did not frame the 'choice', and given that neither 'choice' entailed you determining the candidates, it was not really a 'choice'. It was just a bad joke. 

2. Systems which discount the value of certain choices. i.e. In the 1990s, Ross Perot won 17% of the popular vote in the USA presidential elections, yet his supporters were entitled to No Representation. The First Past the Post (FPP) voting system in the USA entrenches the two main parties. Ross Perot, a billionaire, could not even sustain that type of spending. It pays to have friends in the media right! Well, you might wonder why. 

The media largely determines the choices you are presented with, who simplifies the message you are presented with. Why? I would suggest that the media wants to retain a centralised division of decision-making. If politics was divided by different schools of thought, you would need different newspapers or media outlet right. More critically, you would need different content to appeal to those different schools of thought. By controlling the content, the media largely determine how you think. They are actually more important than the education system, because the media went through the same education system as you, and so its only the media and their own 'passive', bureaucratic minds which are going to challenge the system. Sorry, no, the media wants to preserve a concentrated market share, and they want a favourable government to preserve that position. They have that from the two major parties. So what if there was ever an alternative? Well, there are alternatives. The Green Movement is a grassroots movement canvassed by the media. The media has been very sympathetic to its cause. Why? Because it is a grassroots collective, so a powerful threat; they have many members, they are ideologically powerful, and thus they are dedicated to their cause. They are a market which is very appealing to media groups. One hook for one collective head.

So what about individualists like me? Well, we are marginalised by several factors. Whilst collectivist do everything in their capacity to convey a sense of belonging to the collective; individualists like myself tend to differentiate or personalise any issue, so if we are not disagreeing, and even emphasising our point of differentiation, our line of thinking is destined to find a personal context in any such conception. We are notoriously difficult to organise, because we are self-assertive, critical, and running our own agenda. Not the mettle of a person who will proscribe to a single newspaper. We are more likely to critique it for its imperfections. We are often anti-institution. We project a pride in our own mental efficacy. You can therefore understand why a media group is likely to marginalise any such individualist. They are divisive. So when Ross Perot was able to get 17% of the popular election, he was able to win a lot of popular support from business, people who support entrepreneurism. Not the media; and most particularly any journalist who is going to fight to change the system to give the Libertarians the political identity they deserve. 

In terms of political identity however, libertarians are their own worst enemy. Consider New Zealand, where there are 3 libertarian groups - there is the campus based Libertarianz (mostly university students), and then there is the Christian dominated ACT Party (with one seat) and the Christian-led Conservative Party. That's right, you have two parties and another splitting their political identity, and thus their capacity to gain profile and extortion-power in our political system. The problem of course is that:

1. It is silly to have 2 Christian parties when there is no separate representation for atheist libertarians

2. It is silly for libertarians to sanction a political system that demands that they spurn their personal identity or political sovereignty to a collective identity which alienates their minds. It is most particularly senseless for atheist libertarians to surrender their personal identity to Christians who are as mindless as their political counterparts. They should instead forge their own political identity, and renounce the system which is destined to marginalise them. 

Here is a video which captures a 5-minute speech by former Supreme Court judge and media commentator Judge Napolitano. He lost his job from his Fox Cable TV show for this speech; in which he is critical of the media groups, and their coverage of Ron Paul in the last election. Hopefully, his Supreme Court buddies respond to his case. He was sacked for supporting Ron Paul; and criticising the mainstream media for not giving him air time. In case you are questioning the partisan support of the media groups, let's switch to New Zealand again. In NZ, the ACT Party holds the balance of power with the National Party. There parliament has just ended an inquiry into the curtailment of the MMP electoral system which favoured minor parties, i.e. The ACT Party. But more critically, the media showed a great deal of bias in this election on a number of occasions:

1. It was contemptuous and disrespectful of the former ACT Party leader - hounding him over non-issues, in order to take a political scalp.

2. It blew up the leader John Banks over a 'Tea gate' scandal which was not misconduct; scathing of him for doing what other MPs do all the time.

3. It dropped a case of Green supporters defacing electoral posters for the National Party.

There seems to be a complete over-statement of the ACT issues; but a dismissal of the issues of vandalism by supporters of the Green Party. Why is this important? Well, the Sea Shepherd incident, a litany of vandalism, break & enter cases by the Greens Movement are a reflection upon their lack of respect for human rights and due process. This perspective is of course sanctioned by the liberal media. 

You might wonder why. The reason is most poignantly conveyed in this series of interviews by a libertarian at a Democratic Party convention. He interviews democrats on the question of choice. Expect no better from Republicans. If libertarianism is going to advance, a number of things need to happen:

1. Atheist libertarians/individualists who possess a sense of mental efficacy or critical thinking skills need to distance themselves from Christian libertarians. The reason is that they are engendering moral ambivalence in their thinking. Christianity is incompatible with individualism or freedom. Causeless values are a contradiction in terms. Society is shifting towards collectivism by default. As long as true individualists don't have a legitimate political identity and 'organise' they will continue to be undermined. 

2. Libertarians need to highlight the ploy of the media and governments to marginalise them in order to preserve the two party system, or more importantly two-party coalitions. The left-right dichotomy is a false dichotomy. The media wants collective vs collective. It wants individualists out of the equation. 

If you short rights for minorities - support the rights of the smallest minority - the individual. There is no notion of personal sovereignty when the mind is subordinated to the collective, however that is a topic for another blog article.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Divide and destroy?

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Ever wondered how the world in future will be divided? The old paradigm was 'divide and conqueror'. The new paradigm is 'divide and destroy'. The fact is that life has gotten complicated. We were blissfully ignorant centuries ago; and now we think we are start. In this game its not a question of smart or dumb, its moral relativism. But here is the thing, aside from the absoluteness of truth, there is actually a context in which events occur. This is not a paradox, its a perspective. Conscious interprets a real world; but it does so from a particular context. This is true of facts and values. 

So the adage of 'divide and conqueror' is a little tired when the absolute state has already essentially won the game. There is just a few rogue states to rein in, but otherwise statehood is well-entrenched. The Wild West these days is one of the few places where you can actually have the freedom you might like, aside from Pakistan and those other rogue states. 

So its interesting that Julian Assange and others are controlling this space. Interesting however is that a group, claiming to be opposed to Wikileaks, has actually sought to 'destroy' his website. These people claim to be defending our state...defending justice. This organisation claims to be independent, but I would argue that this is an organisation set up and sponsored by the US government in order to attack Wikileaks. Why? Well, its a rationalisation for war isn't it. 

Justice is whatever the US wants it to be? They don't want to wait for a trial. They claim to be defenders of justice. But if that was the case, where is the moral principle directing their actions. There is none. This is a testament to the emptiness of the US Constitution. Yes, a framework of concrete law that makes no provisions for a moral context, unless they are talking about a vacuous, context-dropping, dogmatic religious 10 Commandments. This might well be the philosophical basis upon which the Anti-Leaks - the self-proclaimed defenders of justice was formed. I thought the US Constitution enacted a police and military force to defend ourselves from vigilantes. Well, this one seeks moral rectitude, not in legal means, but the anonymity of the internet. 

The practices of the government do not bother them because they are paid stooges of the US government seeking to avoid accountability. They are the terrorists. Does not the US government hunt down organisations that break into its 'secure' sites? Well, that is what Anti-Leaks claims to have done. They are not anarchists - they are politically-aligned bureaucratic despots.

There is no question in my mind that Julian Assange does not represent the best values in the world. There is no question that he is not a moral agent open to accountability. But by that standard of value, neither is the US government. It is even worse. In this context, I would far prefer to see the existence of WikiLeaks, than I would prefer to see their destruction. So I celebrate the disclosure of public information which would never see the light of day under Freedom of Information requests. Where is the evidence that any information released by WikiLeaks has done any damage to the US? 

In this context, I would prefer to see the retention of Cuba, North Korea, China, Russia and Syria, rather than see these states subordinate themselves to US values. To be sure these states do not represent the best of values, but for the mere sake of competition, I would prefer to preserve their existence - at least as some form of opposition to US complicity or moral relativism. For I know without any standard of comparison, we will surely face tyranny from the United States. Representative democracy, as we have discussed elsewhere, is a form of tyranny. It is the subjugation of freedom-loving people to the collective. You will derive no objective notion of rights from it. See Wikileaks here.

Andrew Sheldon: "AntiLeaks are either severely misguided people, or they are working for the US govt. Since when was US govt justice objective? Since when was justice the providence of internet vigilante groups? I thought hacking into web servers was a crime? Well, the US govt thought so, until they needed to stop some embarrassing press releases".

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

America - the great and free-ain't

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Here is a well-articulated speech about the legacy of US greatness. The problem is that it wreaks of moral relativism. All those other countries are not too much greater than the USA now; as much as we might condemn the USA for collapsing.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Kim Dotcom - making a case for political reform

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Judging by Kim Dotcom's creation of the Mr President website, Kim Dotcom is attempting to gain some popular support with a campaign to attack the US for attempting to control internet content. His argument is that knowledge should be free; if the video is to be believed. The implication is that he opposes intellectual property. The problem with this position is that he needs to defend it; and it also implies that his intent was always to break the spirit of the law, and that his position is not an accidental 'legalistic' position. i.e. The law says this, so I did this. His position is apparently, I don't believe in intellectual property, so screw the law. That much I got from the website lyrics and footage. Ultimately it will be a court determination. But to me, he seems to be contradicting his 'legalistic' position with a moral condemnation of IP. 

Refer also to this story in the NZ Herald.

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Author Andrew Sheldon| Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com