Jan 11

Understanding Socialism in Games

by Chris Billows in Playstates Theory, Political Ponderings, Republic of Bloggers 2 comments tags: Blogging, Human Condition, Political Opinion, Republic of Bloggers, Virtuous Discourse
Brian Green wrote on his Psychochild blog an interesting post about how MMO games are a means to understanding Socialism. First of all, its an interesting post to just think about games in terms of political economics. Second of all, I think Brian makes a typical mistake of associating positive qualities with something he favors, known as the Halo Effect.   Games as Socialism… I’ve run into an interesting situation with some people in FFXIV. Many times people have needed items which I have gladly been able to provide (or acquire easily), but people feel bad taking the items from me. They insist on paying for the items somehow, or they want to trade. One friend said she felt bad always asking me for stuff, even if I offer on a regular basis. I wanted to take a look at this, and look at why it really didn’t bother me to offer these items or services to others. Why I’m a big-hearted socialist in MMOs. Okay, I used “the scary S-word” in the title. Intentionally. 😉 Since many Americans have a terrible understanding of what socialism is, let me give a basic definition here. This delves into some economic theory, […]

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Apr 23

Critiques of Democracy

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 0 comments tags: Corruption of Democracy, Human Condition, Political Opinion
Months ago, I was doing some Google searches on different philosophical tangents and one of them was “Critiques of Democracy” and I stumbled upon an intriguing website called Promethea. What caught my interest was its statement on its notes page that “all things should be examined according to their impact on life, and popularity by itself is not enough endorsement.” Wow! That struck home and made so much sense. Democracy is not about rationally evaluating what matters or counts most, but about simply giving power to people who are not necessarily capable of measuring or judging competently. Instead voters resort to treating democracy as popularity contests. The site is extensive and I personally find the reference to a mythical character of Prometheus to be very cool. It speaks about Individualism but appears to understand that there is no such thing as a self-made person for we are dependent on the sacrifices of others. Its anti-collectivist stance appears to be a bit too rigid – if individuals have freedom, then surely they have the freedom to join (and leave) a collective. Its something I will peruse over the next year and write a more extensive summary. Check it out… Promethea.org

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Jan 05

Book Review: Small is Beautiful by E.F.Schumacher

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 0 comments tags: Foolishness, Free Enterprise, Human Condition
It remains painfully obvious that this book is written by a crank. Only a crank would tell us that we need to rethink our consumption patterns, how we manage our economy, and our relationship with our environment. Going against conventional thinking is pretty fashionable today, but to do so in 1973 and still be so relevant is testimony of a crank who knew what he was talking about. E.F. Schumacher wrote this book in response to what he saw as the quickening and centralizing nature of modern society. He saw governments and businesses getting bigger and losing their essential and natural sense of scale, which is human friendly or simply “small”. Thus prompting the title of the book. It was through this book that Schumacher is credited with influencing green economic thinking from the 70s and afterward. He articulated the fundamental question about growth: “How much further growth will be possible, since infinite growth in a fine environment is an obvious impossibility”. Such thinking was radical, yet not socialist. Instead his thinking was the basis of humanistic, or human-centred economics. This book helped shift the tired and largely irrelevant debate of Left wing vs Right wing economic politics or big […]

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Dec 23

Ideology: Scourge of the Modern World

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 0 comments tags: Foolishness, Human Condition, Human History
The Economist posted an article, Why Wars Happen, explaining that the cause of most conflicts in the world during 2008 is due to ideological differences. This reinforces my conviction and past blog posts, Ideology vs Philosophy and Confessions of a Recovering Ideologue. that ideology in all of its forms is the scourge of the modern world. The research about world conflict was conducted by the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, and has some pretty amazing information there. Does my criticism of ideology mean I am anti-thinking? No, I would instead argue that ideological thinking is an oxymoron. Ideology is a mental disorder that afflicts politics, religion, culture (political correctness), and business. To be ideological means to not think and to abdicate one’s rational powers. To truly be a thinking person one must be philosophical and open to new information.

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Oct 15

The Winner of the October 14 Federal Election is…

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 0 comments tags: Change of Mind, Human Condition, Political Opinion
The Winner of the October 14 Federal Election is… Nobody. The Conservatives received another well-deserved minority government. They definitely did not deserve a majority government. What is more interesting is the losers. The poor Green Party received nearly a million votes, yet did not receive a single seat. Ouch! What is interesting is that they appear to have benefited from the decline of the Liberals. Another loser is the Media. What a bunch of tripe they tried to push on us with their election coverage. What I saw on CBC demonstrated the levels of desperation and hyperbole they were prepared to stoop to in order to create an event out of a non-event. Soon after the polls opened in Alberta, one of the CBC analysts breathlessly reported that a Liberal candidate had pulled ahead. She failed to mention that it was only one poll. I found it more interesting to follow the results via the Internet. The final loser is Democracy with only 59.1% of eligible voters turning out. The lowest rate ever. Why is this? I have some speculative reasons: Canadians no longer care about voting because they hate politics and politicians. Canadians are so comfortable and richly entertained […]
Feb 09

Book Review: In Praise of Nepotism by Adam Bellow

by Chris Billows in Political Ponderings 0 comments tags: Change of Mind, Human Condition, Human History
Welcome to my first ever blog post! I hope to post on a range of topics that intrigue me.   Adam Bellow states correctly that nepotism has been with human history since the beginning of our species. He states that biological nepotism is the basis of social cooperation and became the main tool that has allowed our species to thrive and colonize the planet. The biological drive to care for one’s relatives has evolved complex patterns of social reciprocity that not only allowed for society to be created, but for civilization to flourish. As Westerners, we have been socialized into believing that nepotism is a bad thing. To most of us, nepotism is synonymous with corruption and familial self-interest. Bellow explains in 420+ pages that nepotism has redeeming qualities, has played a critical role in the development of every historical figure, and that we are fooling ourselves if we think it will go away. Starting from the nepostic practice amongst animals, moving on to ancient cultures, and then to the modern era of the political dynasties in American politics (the Kennedys and Bushes), Bellow explains through literary reference and analysis how nepotism has helped humans thrive. Bellow pulls off a […]
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