Steve:

HOAs are just one the very lowest local levels of overlapping government.   But they are certainly an example of self-subscribed governance; members have signed up for the governance.    And mobs will do what mobs can do, not just what mobs may do.

It's where we are.   It's certainly where the folks in SF are.   They've formed a community, subject to loosey-goosey and sometimes even artsy community rules.    

But please;  the developers building on that waterfront are not doing so to enjoy the view;   they are doing so to cash in on the fact that there is a community flocking there to enjoy the view.    And they can't have it both ways, IMO.    They can't say they are going to woo the mob and at the same time bitch when they are eaten by the mob.    And that is why I find Sowell's complaint irrational.   Those developers do not have any enforceable right to build in the very midst of a tribal community without exposure to that same tribal community.

If some developers do not want to subject themselves to what the mob can do, then rationally, they shouldn't court the mob.     There will be developers who gladly agree to the mob's terms.   I doubt the Universe gives a shit about that or anything.    And we are free to give a shit all we want.

That is where we are today in this country, in its present state of tribal rot.   That is reality in this Universe.    Just like the reality that libertarian loving, freedom seeking individuals once found themselves long before the discovery of what was once going to be the New World; shit out of luck.   Can wish for freedom from the mob all we want, the mob rules.   The Jungle vines have clawed their way back from the Old World and have over-run the once New World.   Since before you and I were born.   We read about freedom.

We're living in the Old World again. The Tribe/Jungle has overgrown all.    There may not be another New World for this species.   The Universe just lays it all out, and has no dog in the hunt; it does not guarantee Freedom , it merely offers it, on the far side of great risk and peril.

I built in a neighborhood without any HOA in 1993.    It wasn't the only choice available.   There were other locations with HOAs.   But moot;   there were not any other locations without township, county, state and federal government, except on the Moon, and apparently, some of the Tribe's far reaching treaties have already been launched at it.    

HOAs are just the tribe piling on to an already smothered tribal member.

I'd accept Sowell's complaint as having some basis (even if still being futile) along the way on our slide back to the Jungle if this was about introducing sudden new 'height restrictions' or licensing and permit requirements on some developer who had purchased property under some other set of constraints.    Tear that building down.   Change that construction project already in process. But that's not the case.   His complaint is about a proposal to change the process by which changes to existing height restrictions are made.    Someone in SF is proposing that arguments for such changes be made publicly, and that the community vote, like a referendum.        What is Sowell's preference?    A world with no building restrictions at all in the community?    That is some other world, far across some vast gulf, if and when anyone ever gets there, but only for as long as it takes the tribe to follow along and Tribe it up.

How -should- something as arbitrary as 'height' restrictions be established?    Pure physics with a backdrop of uncertain loading?    I mean, assuming we were that good,  how extreme an earthquake, of what duration, should limit how tall buildings should be built?   So should that determination be left to experts, like the PE Licenced folks who designed the collapsed Kansas City walkway?

On the Moon, maybe.   Knock ourselves out.   For a few decades, anyway.    But then the Tribe is going to show up, with its covenants, ropes, grappling hooks, and Lilliputian sensibilities.   This is an observational law of the Universe; process in the Universe acts in a manner to ultimately consume all gradient;   all of it.   Can't think of an exception.    The lack of all gradient is apparently the terminus of this Universe.  Literaly, a dim 3 deg K vastness of sameness; the lack of all gradient.    In the meantime(meaning, over cosmic scales of time), the only choice we really have is to either struggle to run uphills, or not, because the Universe's rules dictate that standing still is really losing ground and sliding downhill.

So here is my own irrationality; I'll add it to Sowell's.   If a rational case can be made(by who?)for changing existing height restrictions, can't that case be made to the electorate in the light of day, and can't they be counted on to look away from "Anderson Cooper Interviews Sterling About Words With The GoldDigger" long enough to pay attention to the details?

regards,

Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 5/16, 7:26am)

Fred,

I don't disagree with your assessment of the tribal rot that exists in today's culture and how deeply it infects today's politics and laws. My disagreement is only with what should be.

You said:

Those developers do not have any enforceable right to build in the very midst of a tribal community without exposure to that same tribal community.

I'm not clear on this.  "Enforceable" would appear to modify "right" so as to make it a statement of legal status.  And I don't know what the particular state of the law, or the integrity of its enforcement in SF today as reflects this cultural issue.  But, I was talking about moral rights as they should be applied to the law.

From that perspective, a developer who buys a property with height restriction X, owns the right to build up to height X. And a mob cannot vote that moral right away. It is the heart of property rights. 

A person could argue that it isn't logical or practical to count on having that moral right respected even if it is current law. And that would be a valid argument.

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If some developers do not want to subject themselves to what the mob can do, then rationally, they shouldn't court the mob.

That isn't a part of what I was arguing. I was just saying that a covenant is a contract and the tribe or it's elite rulers have no moral right to change that covenant unilateraly. And currently the law supports that, even though it is frequently ignored by the law makers, law interpreters and law enforcers themselves.

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There may not be another New World for this species. The Universe just lays it all out, and has no dog in the hunt; it does not guarantee Freedom , it merely offers it, on the far side of great risk and peril.

That's true, but I believe that evolution is built upon increases in organized complexity as a means of progressing towards processes and entities that have more options with which to react to reality - and human rationality with its degree of choice is a major evolutionary breakthrough.  Even though its possible that the human race could be wiped out, and yes, the universe has no dog in the hunt, I believe we are a persistent species and the rational capacity will be properly exercised in sufficient numbers... some day... and the result will freedom.  Not as a logical neccesity, but a probability based upon evolution's love for more options and freedoms greater efficiency (itself being a maximizing of options in the dimension of human actions in society).

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...process in the Universe acts in a manner to ultimately consume all gradient

Human productivity and creativity - even reasoning itself - are uphill runs and our progress in these areas is to run up these gradients more and more efficiently and to celebrate with joy and pride those successes. Hell, we tap into the universe's gradients to fuel our runs.

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The tribe is this slobbering beast that tends to destroy all that is good, but a tribe is no more than a significant portion of individuals in a society that share certain beliefs and ways of reacting to their surroundings.  These characteristics shared by individuals that make a group of people into a tribe are not wired in so deeply that they MUST be for all time.  Those beliefs and ways of being that support a benevolent society respectful of individual rights are more effective and that gives it an evolutionary advantage.  But it is a level of complexity that is still getting started, evolutionarily, it is still new, and it might not take on this go around.  But once it reaches some critical mass, tribalism will disappear like the dinasaurs did.  No guarantees this will happen and no clue as to the time scales involved, but on the other hand, the awfulness of tribalism, and the current trend towards more of it, shouldn't be internalized as an unpleasant pessimissim or turn us away from appreciating our capacity for all that's good in individualism.   

Fred,

In running up hill, we consume more energy than we realize as potential gain

Mostly I agree with you.  You are talking about the part of the universe that is described by physics and chemisty.  I, given my propensities, sometime include the part of universe that is our psychology.  That is what I had in mind when I wrote, "Human productivity and creativity - even reasoning itself - are uphill runs and our progress in these areas is to run up these gradients more and more efficiently and to celebrate with joy and pride those successes."  

Thought experiment:  Two people that are both running up the same hill, are the same age, same physical conditioning, etc., and they each burn an equal amount of calories.  But one of them, due to different thoughts in the past, and different personal values, experiences joy while running and especially at reaching the top, while the other does not.  One of them experiences so much joy that he is 'fueled' to run again and again and excited at the prospect.  The other hates the exercise so much, that just dwelling on his dislike makes his future runs feel like they are against a much steeper hill.  Joy is an energy that isn't consumed in the same way calories are burned, or fossel fuels burned.  And misery can be an expenditure of energy that produces no work.

Understanding that I'm using the words energy and gradient outside of physics and chemistry which is clearly a conflation, but given that, and treating them more as metaphors, how would you relate psychological 'energy' (motivation, excitement, will, determination, etc.) to your statement, "useful energy requires gradient of some kind, and when all gradient is consumed, no more useful energy(at least, from inside this universe)"?

---------------

You wrote: 

If the price of Gold were to rise to $20,000/oz tomorrow -- a massive increase in the gradient of price of Gold-- forces would increase the number of folks trying to find Gold, which would tend to act to eliminate that gradient in price.  To consume the gradient.    

when things are valued intensely, this often means those things are rare or difficult to obtain.   When they are plentiful and easily realized, they are not valued as much.    That gradient in value tends to drive the incentives to provide the values.

I agree with this economic observation, but valuing also needs to be looked at psychologically.  You value the experience of love you feel for your family.  That doesn't fit a economic perspective very well.  Sometimes people 'value' things that are no good for them, and are certainly not scarce resources, like denial and avoidance.  And in the area between psychology and philosophy is the concept of 'value' as that which objectively contributes to human flourishing.  I'm not sure how one would apply the concept of gradients in these areas.

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I don't understand the concept of 'gradient' well enough to follow you on the consumption of political gradient you mentioned in the paragraph starting "Politically as well."  

But I did understand the example of the Marxist standing on the dock wanting to distribute fish he didn't catch (he didn't expend the energy running up hill catching fish, but wants to be the one to direct the consumption of the gradient - running downhill handing out fish he didn't catch.)

Steve;

Equality as in we are all peers is a value;   that is because it is not equal to a world of arbitrary emperors and subjects.

But we can target equality too far.  Think what it means to value absolute equality in everything.   That is a demand to not love.  To have no identity.  To live in a flat gray world devoid of all value save equality.

Screw that world with a chainsaw.

Steve:

It is more accurate for me to say, the observation is, process in the Universe tends to consume all gradient.   Tends is a traffic ticket shy of an absolute law.   However, you really must struggle to find exceptions, and even those tend to be local and transient.   The Universe has the game rigged if all process ultimately leads to a uniform 3 deg K cloud of samness(lack of not only all valued gradient, but ... all gradient.)

For purely physical gradients, this is widely true.    There may be fring examples of natural process which tend to amplify gradient, especially locally.    We could apply that to out of all control run away radioactive chain reaction.   Of cource, in the end, what is the result?  Where once there was a concentration of fissile material -- a local gradient -- in the end there is heat, and so on, towards that 3 deg K terminus.

But lets apply the concept even to 'love'.   For Universe, subsititute 'the challenges of life.'(Not really much of a substitution, is it?)   Without care and feeding, the pressures of life will consume what was once an intense love, and leave in its place cold ashes.   The license is 'tends'.

Not always.   With care and feeding, we can guard and cherish the valued gradients in our lives, and when you think of it, often times at the cost of consuming other gradients in order to accomplish that.   As well, in order to maintain and cherish love over decades, it is often necessary to court gradient even in the nature of how we love; if we try to maintain it by standing still, it will often wither.   That which makes that a trueism(as opposed to an absolute law)is what tends to consume love.

Gradient is simply a difference in something with respect to something else, usually space or time.    The gradient we are most familiar with is a 'hill', an incline.   What varies is the height above some equal potential energy level in a gravity field.   (And if you wait long enough, the very forces of  nature will tend to consume that hill.   Bits at the top will roll to the bottom.)

But there can be gradients of anything with respect to time or space (or anthing else as the second axis, but most often time and space.)

Consider 'you.'   There is an abrupt difference in the amount of 'you' with respect to space at your skin;  there is an abrupt difference in the amount of 'you' with respect to time at your birth and death.   Our very existence in this universe is dependent on gradient, not only for identity and uniqueness, but to exist at all.   And over time, the Universe tends to consume that gradient.   The gradient 'you' does not last forever.    

You can in fact consider there to be a gradient field which at all locations in space points in the direction of the greatest increase in the amount of  'you' in the Universe.   That is a kind of gradient field in three dimensions.   

Same thing with temperature; temperature is not (yet, but in theory, someday will be)not unitform everywere in the universe.   We observe that something called 'heat' will tend to flow from a hotter mass to a colder mass,  resulting in an intermediate warm mass.   We can consider there to be a local gradient field of temperature with respect to space.    We often locally take advantage of that gradient field ,,, for as long as we can.   Because the Universe tends to act, with its processes, in a manner which consumes that gradient field.

Same with pressure.  Same with lots of things.   Concentrations of species.   When we concentrate things, without care and isolation, natural processes will tend to diffuse and reduce that gradient of concentration.       Sometimes, locally, processes increase gradient for a time, but over enough time, those intermediate gradients are eventually consumed.   An example is, species in solution in a gravity field(an ordering gradient.)  The species will settle out as sedimentation, and form rough layers by density.   And for a while, will represent ordered layers of species.   But over time, natural processes will also tend to amelioreate those gradients... diffusion, erosion.   Eventually, disorder wins, and in forming local order, we tend to do so at the cost of additional disorder.   So we must choose our orderings wisely based on what we value, which is also tied to gradient.

When you look into human physiology, you see gradient everywhere, driving everything.   Same with the Unverse.

When you consider economies, for sure, gradients drive everything.

Gradient is the most relied upon and least considered aspect of existence.   Something so 'true' that it is widely ignored.  Humans live entire lifeimes without ever once pondering 'gradient.'    But just like one of the three famous things that even God cannot do in his Universe(create a plane triangle with more that 180 included degrees), those humans are unable to avoid their dependence on gradient to exist.   

The Universe without gradient is nothing.   Life without gradient is death, and even the final transformative processes of death involve our last ride on gradient.

regards,

Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 5/17, 7:50am)

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 5/17, 7:53am)

Vera:

It depends on your definition of foolish;  if we are worried primarily about trying to avoid some future terminus (that is many times the current estimated age of our Universe in the future), then it that sense, it might be considered foolish.

But if we are concerned with making the most out of(gradient again, seeking a local maximum) the limited time that we as human beings with our unique identities(thank you, gradient)have in this Universe, then if we value, we seek gradient, and it would be foolish not to try and run up hills while we still can.

It's still not foolish to want a better(gradient again)future for ourselves and our children, because on the scale of time we experience, there is yet an interesting future full of gradients, plural.

regards,

Fred

Fred,

there's certainly many applications in understanding gradients - local and universal ... I was mainly thinking of differing interpretations of their respective value (probably from the other thread here) - I think the gradients, the thinkers, the doers, the lovers are just a passing phase, locally and universally, towards a very different kind of existence - if it can be called existing at 3 deg K - universally speaking ... so if every gradient is absorbed to return to that terminus, then there's two different 'values' to a gradient: obstructing that terminus until it's resolved or fulfilling it's ultimate potential to reach it by being resolved ... in both cases the gradient serves a purpose: for or against - that purpose defines it's value to be reached - obstructing or fulfilling - yet both having the same terminus ... otherwise living it's own gradient without pondering it's terminus could be said of any sheeple on this tiny planet ... understanding that terminus helps me understand the gradients value - local and universal

Thanx to you and Jules '3 deg K' and 'sheeple' have become my new favorite catch-phrases :)

Vera

Steve:

When you go off to ponder, and see mankinds attempts to model processes, note how many times you run into something of the form    d(something)/d(something else).    The change in something with respect to something else.

We've all mostly been exposed to at least F = MA inhigh school physics.     F = MA is not really F = MA;   it is really  F = d(mv)/dt    (ie, Force results in change in momentum with respect to time, or equivalently, a change in momentum with respect to time results in a Force.)

For those examples where mass is unchanging, that reduces to F = M dv/dt = MA

When we are taught only F=MA, we are being robbed of an introduction to the importance of gradient.

Look at physiological processes.   Gradient is everywhere.   (Even, gradients of gradient)

Remove all gradient from life, and we have death.

Remove all gradient from the Universe, and there is nothing of interest left except a massive Universe of unbroken equality.

We are for sure all equal in death.

Stasis is death.  (Even homeostasis depends upon a balance of opposing gradients.)

regards,

Fred