Arius

Gnome! I get it.

Andrew is wildly pro-government, he just doesn't like the current set of laws... Amelia isn't anti-government either. She just doesn't like the current set of laws. My goodness, she says "My goal is building a political lobby....". She's a special interest. I don't think the show did Caleb justice...That, or he's just trying to form a junior politics club. A youthful activist is difficult to classify as "hating government". I'm calling B.S. on MTV. None of the people featured in the program hate the government. A more accurate title would have been "I hate the current cannon of laws" or perhaps "I am very vocal about a political agenda".

That warms my post-modern heart. We shall never submit to the tyranny of the lexicon...never!

I also dislike conversations in which one or both people use semantics as a tool to avoid actually having a conversation. Well, the whole of a debate is decided in the set of definitions and assumptions used. Perhaps they're just a hyper-strategic debaters. Alternatively, there could be a goal conflict. Some people debate to be right, rather than to discover what is true.

The IRS knows what they are told by taxpayers. A W-2 only has total wages, not total hours worked or hourly wages, If you file taxes for a business (corporate taxes), you will total labor costs and deduct them from revenue, but never reveal a compensation scale. At no point is employer or employee required to reveal per-hour wages to the IRS. Nowhere in the taxing process is any information about labor conditions revealed. What is your solution to people using words in vauge ways? What do you do when the speaker is using words to straddle several, mutually exclusive, meanings?

So, here's a point for you to ponder. You'll recall, there are no labor police. If all the people who work somewhere forgo hiring contracts, and simply don't inform the IRS, then labor laws are meaningless. The laws are unenforceable, save that people prefer to use force against each other. The state does not spontaneously interfere with people's lives. Rather, people invoke the state as a vehicle to solve social problems. It is the poor interpersonal relationships between employers and employees, and those peoples' lack of ability to resolve problems peacefully, which summons the state. If there were no state, the same employees who lodge labor complaints would assault their managers, and those managers, who strive to get as much labor as possible for as little money as possible, would carry bullwhips. The state is just a symmetrical tool of force (like a gun everyone can hold and fire simultaneously) in labor relations, it exacerbates an underlying condition. The problem is the people. They are bad at dealing with each other and resort to force too quickly. Think about it, if everyone resolved social problems without violence, who would need laws?

Could you elaborate? I'd be very interest to read your thoughts on the matter.

How does the epistemology of COSSAP differ from solipsism?

Rick, I think you're a solipsist.

I'm gonna expand the term "rational", cause I think it's one of those idiosyncratic words with too many meanings to be casually used during in-depth conversations. In the case of argumentation, I use "rational" to denote an objective process whereby a set of definitions and assumptions are combined to reveal a conclusion. In the broadest sense, I use "rational" to mean "concerned with what is objectively true". I do not use "rational" as an antonym to "emotional", "artistic", or"sensitive". I am almost certain a person can both be concerned with objective truth and be highly artistic. I've known several people who both painted and argued. When I contrast appeals to rationality with appeals to bias, I am contrasting a specific flavor of objective and subjective appeals. I suspect that you are using "rational" as a character trait of a person. I believe you are using "rational" in place of "cold", "calculating", or "unemotional". I think it's funny that the word shares both those meanings. It's one of those weird words which has both a useful and a derogatory meaning. I'm not trying to describe a quality of character. You'll remember, we started this by contrasting a rational, versus "other", approach to persuading people of things. My thinking is that people's minds are changed (at least in the process of argumentation) by appeals to things. For example, I just tried to narrow-down the definition of "rational" so I can make reference to it for the purpose clarity. You might point out that, because of the particular definition I've chosen, some other thing must be true. There would be a mix of appeals to the shared definition and the value of truth. There's always gonna be some kind of appeal in a persuasive argument. That's why I mentioned pathos and ethos. Those two categories are supposed to encompass everything which isn't logos (an argument). If a communication is a spoken/written (I'll just say "in word-form") argument, and there is no appeal to some objective truth, then the persuasive reference must be an appeal to some personal bias. Now, in the case of pathos (raw emotion), we'd find stuff like parents hugging kids. I don't know that pathos alone persuades. If I came across a crying stranger, my first reaction would not be to hug them. My first reaction would be to inquire as to their motivation. "Why are you crying?", "What's wrong?"...something like that. If they just needed a hug, I'd do it. My point is, the expression of raw emotion without a context does not persuade. In the case of a parent and a child, the two people have a complex personal relationship which serves as a vehicle to inform action at the moment of crying. I'm not sure what pure ethos would look like in art, but I'm skeptical that it would persuade outside the context of a word-form argument.

I still don't know how to produce valid sums without math. So yes, appealing to individual bias to engender belief reduces argumentation to a choice of meals at a restaurant...It's whatever you like. In terms of morality, you'd just end-up with a mess of cultural relativism. Of course, like most people, I'm bad at math. I'm sure to make terrible arguments from time to time (hopefully not often )... That is actually my primary motivation to participate in this forum. If my arguments are terrible, the social anonymity of the internet should grant everyone the honesty to tell me. I'm simply at a loss to think of a means by which a theory of objective morality (objective anything, for that matter) could be developed using only appeals to bias. As far as it being less effective... I'm still of the mind that we're stuck choosing between appeals to reason and evidence or appeals to bias. Now, bias might get more people to follow you, give you money, or worship you. However, bias isn't going to get those people to rationality...And I think many people want to get to rationality. There are some definite disadvantages to being tugged about by subjective bias. I mean, gods and governments are the crowning achievements of non-empirical, irrational thinking. But yea, with the exception that I'm not sure rationality is less effective, you've got it.

If "moral" isn't rational, then it's an appeal to bias. That is, irrational morality is subjective and cannot rightly be described as morality because it is not equally true for everyone. Suppose I suggest murder is wrong and you ask me why that should be so. If I respond with "Because you wouldn't want to be murdered", then I'm not making a rational argument. I'm appealing to your bias of self-interest as a means to convince you to believe something which may or may not be true. While that's a boss rhetorical technique, it isn't a very powerful argument. That is a great example of language as a tool for dominance. It's subtle, because most people are conditioned to think of morality as divorced from rationality. However, appeals to individual bias are not claims to truth, and cannot describe universals. It's as-if I claimed you have $5,000,000 in your bank account and, when you questioned how I know that, I respond by saying "Think how much you would benefit from having all that money"...While you would benefit from all that money, your bias of self-interest is not a vehicle to change the condition of the world. I'm not saying everyone needs to be rational. There is no obligation to be rational.

I'd be very apprehensive to support any means of arriving at what is true other than reason and evidence. Perhaps a work of art could direct it's audience toward rational pursuits, but I'd really be nervous about that. If, say a movie, directs it's audience to perform some action, entirely through ethos or pathos, such that the audience then performs that action. Well, those poor people could have been compelled to do almost anything. Appeals to bias are anti-truth. They make discovering truth more difficult through the obfuscation of facts. Is it possible to paint a picture which, without appeals to bias, reveals what is true? I'm unconvinced that, other than mathematics, there is any way to arrive at valid sums. It isn't that people should think or accept rational arguments. It is entirely the prerogative of the individual to think critically or not. There is no imperative to reason. Reason is a communication style... A series of conventions which are objectively valid. What better advertisement for reason than reason? I mean, if I'm gonna advocate people reason, I better use reason to get that message out. Otherwise, I'd do better to advocate for whatever I was using to in-place of reason.

People are conditioned from birth to submit to authority. First by the family, then by the state. The Milgram students are exactly what you'd expect from 20 years of behavioral conditioning...good little soldiers. Of course, that's not what I said. Though, I find it interesting that you talk about beautiful paintings and songs as-if those things cannot be used as tools of control. As-if no one has ever used a . As-if a beautiful painting cannot decieve and manipulate. Much of the communication in society is used for power. Not all of it. There are songs, paintings, and arguments which compell without dominating, though such activities can only be accomplished with appeals to truth.

Of course many people don't respond to logical ideas. They've been taught to use communication as a tool of dominance and authority. In many cases, people see language as more a weapon than a tool. Regardless, adopting communication as a vehicle of authority (even to communicate the truth of a matter) is a poor strategy. One may as well try to violently overthrow the state. We can abandon the idea of a good government, by rejecting force as a solution to social problems. Why is it any harder to abandon language as a tool of control, by abandoning marketers' tricks and keeping to rational argumentation? Perhaps almost no one will be convinced, that's entirely possible, but you can't purge deception and force from the culture using deception or force. We're not gonna bring math back by producing bad sums.

There are two primary points which are presented as pro- and con- arguments surrounding minimum wage laws. Pro-state leftists will argue all that "predatory capitalism" (heartless business, race to the bottom, minimum standard of living) nonsense. Pro-state righties argue that the minimum wage increases unemployment by functioning as a price control (just read Forbes, the WSJ, or any other business publication). When the two arguments are presented against each other, something very interesting happens. Neither argument addresses any of the other, both make a bunch of unfounded assumptions, and neither addresses the moral argument (which is the best argument to make). Does the minimum wage increase unemployment? Not by any measure currently used (I admit, the data does come from the government and the measure of unemployment is questionable). Do marginal increases in the minimum wage improve the standard of living? Absolutely not. Is the minimum wage a price control? It doesn't meet the definition. The entirety of those arguments are unsupported. So, the entire discussion needs to be re-framed. First, we gotta get away from the idea that the moniker of a piece of legislation, in any way, describes its purpose. Sure, it is called "the minimum wage", but it isn't a true floor on the cost of labor. You'll notice, the statement which separates the name and function of the legislation, if shown to be true, dismantles both the left and right arguments. The discussion is not about the utility of a price floor on labor, no one has even proposed introducing such a floor. Both assume that the legislation's nickname accurately describes it's purpose. Once you're past the rhetoric of the legislation, you can ask the important questions. If it isn't about a minimum wage, what is it about? Who lobbies for the increases? How do they benefit from changes in the law? Who pays most of the costs of the minimum wage? These are the questions that invite real discovery. In the case of a debate about legislation, I find it helpful to abandon all the popularized arguments and focus on the facts. What do we know? The state is stupid and self-serving. Elected officials have spent the last two years discussing a method of raising enough money to service federal debt. The long-term consequences of legislation are not important to the government. Now, I don't know that the reasoning behind a crazy proposal like "linking the minimum wage to the cost of living" is a scheme to increase payroll taxes. I do know that it would have that effect (in the short run)...especially if there was a huge bubble of monetary inflation in the near future. I don't know if anyone looked at the chart which compared the nominal and real minimum wage, but the nominal has been dropping like a stone. Maybe I'm wrong. I accept that possibility. All I know is the minimum wage doesn't improve life for anyone except those affiliated with the state (and I'd challenge anyone to show me any evidence to the contrary). It (the state) does nothing and collects more money. It's man-against-man because the spirit of the law creates an adversarial employment environment. If I'm a manager, I need people to not look for reasons to sue. If I'm an employee, I need to know my manager isn't going to screw me over at the first opportunity. Business is about trust and teamwork. The fear that my employer will cut my hours to save a buck...the fear that my employee will file a claim against me...These things make all working environments hostile. Labor laws engender distrust and animus between employer and employee...you see? Man-against-man.

I try to re-frame the discussion by changing key assumptions or definitions. Minimum wage isn't about labor versus management, it's about pitting man-against-man, and I think that's the important part to remember. Very often people forget to look at the assumptions and definitions in an argument and prefer to jump right into the arguing. It's funny, because the results of all arguments are decided in the assumptions and the definitions. I don't even like to pretend that the minimum wage is about labor or business because that assumption clouds the argument. Or, in the case of the trillion dollar coin, the name of the object "trillion dollar coin" is a subtle trick to draw focus away from what's really happening...It's not worth a trillion dollars. It's just a bad check...made of platinum, I'll grant you that, but a bad check none the less. It's those little assumptions that must be cut out of the argument if the truth of the matter is ever to be revealed. I find that most talking points are crap. "The minimum wage is a price floor", is it? Look at other historical examples of price floors...corn, for example. How does the government maintain a price floor on corn? It buys all the surplus corn. Does the government buy all surplus labor? Nope. Does the government eliminate all arrangements whereby one person can work for another at a rate lower than the minimum wage? Nope. There is both surplus labor and an opportunity to utilize that surplus. But, if everyone thinks of the minimum wage as a price floor then there's a chance to frame the entire discussion as a labor versus management conflict, rather than what it really is. The problem with talking in principles is that social violence is cleverly hidden in euphemisms and oddly-inappropriate labels. (IMHO) If you really want to convince anyone of anything, you've gotta frame the entire conversation differently than the national media chooses too... Every time I'm convinced of some new idea (or to abandon some old idea), it's because my assumptions were challenged or because new information was introduced. I figure most thinking people probably share that condition.

Sure, any quantity of force is bad. My point was that anything can be a negative at sufficient levels. Simply increasing the quantity of a thing to a point where it becomes negative does not show that a small amount is also a negative...thus, water. I'm just trying to keep logical falacies to a minimum. In the case of the trillion dollar coin, even a single penny of debt monetization is bad. The coin is detrimental at any dollar value.

The minimum wage is not a price floor. It is immoral, obviously, but to focus on the economic argument (which the historical data does not support) is to miss the point. Here's the recent unemployment rate over time. Here's everything since the Great Depression. Here's the Federal minimum wage. With the exception of all the 2008 "blow-up the economy" nonsense, you'll notice that the minimum wage has not been strong driver of unemployment. Between 1975 and 1980, the minimum wage jumps a dollar, but unemployment stays flat. Between 1980 and 1990, the minimum wage is flat and unemployment actually drops. The bad economic effects show-up in weird places, like youth employment, or (as Alan pointed out) in the lack of apprenticeships. Ah, but therein lies the rub. Remember strict liability? A contractor is legally responsible for any damages to property or person. If a burger flipper at McDonald's accidentally poisons the meat, the customer doesn't have a case against McDonald's. That customer has a case against the burger flipper. I assure you, a guy who flips burger can't afford the level of insurance necessary to protect himself from that kind of liability. No person, who lacks the skill required to make the minimum wage, can afford the liability of being a contractor in a menial job. The employer can hire people as contractors, but no individual is willing to work on those terms. You see, a business can hide behind a corporate shield, there is no legal equivalent for a single employee. This is the core of the power imbalance in national labor markets...everyone is not equally responsible for their mistakes. My point is, it isn't the state that polices labor practices. Employes turn-in employers as a tool to keep wages high. The minimum wage increases the level of distrust between employer and employee...that really is a shame. Of course, that's how the law has always worked. When it was first passed, factory workers would turn-in foremen for hiring immigrants and children at a lower wage.

If you don't accept the law non-contradiction as axiomatically true, there is no basis for making rational claims. A equals A, A does not equal not A. It cannot be any other way.

True and false are only mutually exclusive because of the law of non-contradiction. If you reject non-contradiction, there is no basis for making rational claims.

Fewer jobs in the future, more money now. Remember, the Federal Government funds 20 and 30 year debt with 90-day bonds. It's not exactly the most forward-thinking organization. Raising the minimum wage causes a sudden jump in payroll taxes and, over the course of several years, prices some labor out of tax-paying, hourly work. Benefits now, costs later (it's the defining characteristic of all legislation)...shortsightedness I think you've mistaken me for someone who is in favor of a minimum wage, that simply isn't the case. My point is that the rhetoric of calling the law "minimum wage" (and acting as-if it had anything to do with a standard of living) is to distract people from its actual purposes: pricing children and immigrants out of the labor markets, repaying state-affiliated unions, periodically bumping-up the payroll tax, and placating the howling masses by demonstrating the state's good intent toward its citizens. I was trying to illustrate that the law and a living wage have nothing to do with each other. Anyway, the minimum wage only prices hourly labor out of the market. When the law was first enacted, "hourly" and "factory" were synonymous. If any employer actually saw the minimum wage as a problem, then all their employees could be paid as contractors. Assuming those employees were willing to make substantially less than the minimum wage. No benefits, no payroll taxes, no minimum wage. It's not a very effective price floor, because there are a dozen substitutes available. Here's the one you should really think about. There aren't labor cops who go around to every business and make sure everyone is paid at least the minimum wage. W-2s don't include information about hourly rates. How do you suppose the law is even enforced? Let's not forget: we're talking about the same government that loses billions annually because they can't match projects' and debt lifespans (something a Subway franchisee can do). Imagine if you bought a house using a series of thousands payday loans, rolling-over the interest each time, and you'll understand how incompetent the organization is. These people aren't smart or competent enough to enforce labor regulations. The answer: employees turn their employers in.

If it were perfectly enforced, that would be the case. I think the millions of people who work under the table *coughmecough*, those in salaried positions who average less than the minimum wage, salespeople working on commission, and servers at restaurants would argue that the minimum wage has no effect on their employment situation (for ill or for good). I mean, just as a matter of perspective, we're only talking about a few million people, not the whole country. You, me, we aren't effected at all by changes in the minimum wage....Actually, I benefit from restrictive and exclusionary labor laws. The harder it is to hire people legally, the more under-the-table opportunities emerge. It's not like there are legions of people, wandering the streets, crying "If only I had fifteen cents an hour more skill I could find employment". If your too low-skill for the minimum wage, you work all-cash, under-the-table. It only prices people into grey labor markets, not into starvation. People go around inconvenient laws. c. The minimum wage helps some and hurts others. All workers do not share some common agenda or circumstance. It's Marxist nonsense to claim they do. We'd really need to narrow-down exactly who these "workers" are. I don't know that I'd want to argue that. Do you mean in a perfect world? Were that the case, I'd definitely want no minimum wage. However, we don't live in a strict liability world...We live in a world of taxes, corporations, state-controlled courts, and fascism. I really can't say if the minimum wage actually works against the overkill anti-person bias of the state. My instinct is that it doesn't, but I really don't know. The purpose of the minimum wage is, as it has always been, to price children and immigrants out of the labor market (it does both quite well). In this particular case, it is also to help the government pay off all those Social Security folks. Don't forget: every dollar of increase in the minimum wage translates to additional hundreds of millions, if not billions, in payroll taxes.

Since a swimming pool full of water will drown me rather than cure my thirst, all water must be bad? Alternatively, since a glass of water will cure my thirst, a swimming pool full might cure cancer? I think that logic sinks all ideas.

Carter and Nixon tried that "rising wages cause inflation" argument. Only one thing causes inflation: increases in the size of the money supply relative to the available quality of products. If the minimum wage were $25, it would not result in a penny of lost purchasing power... unemployment maybe, but not lost purchasing power. The minimum wage is a horrible thing, just like the corporation, regulatory agencies, compulsory public school, farm subsidies, government managed titles, taxes, state-run fiat currency, federal and state bonds...... There's a huge list. My only point is that at $9 an hour, the minimum wage will still be lower (in terms of purchasing power) than it was in the 70's. Like everything else the President says, it's just for show. There's no reason to "Go Galt" because the speech maker tries to pander to the public. Did you hear him try to talk-up Race to The Top? The entire program added exactly .03% to the federal education budget (it couldn't have been less significant to educational outcomes)... or what about the repeal of don't ask don't tell? 10% of the population is gay. 2% of the population serve in the military. The repeal effects, at most, .2% of the population. It's completely trivial (very few in the military care who is or is not gay), but the media treats it like it matters. If there is one defining characteristic of Obama's presidency, it's talking a great deal about doing very little.