Money

A simple idea that many people don’t fully comprehend.

Money represents willingness of other people to provide you with necessary things, while you provide them with some kind of service or product that they value. Let’s say you paint. Professionally. You create beautiful works of art. But you’re poor, because people do not appreciate your art. “Ugh,” exclaim some people, “to measure art in dollars and cents!” Well, it’s not really the art per se that is being measured. What is being measured is willingness of other people to grow your food, obtain and transfer electricity to your home, provide you with housing, make clothes for you, assemble together cars, computers, and iPods (not to mention make easels, brushes, paper and paints) for you — all in exchange of your creating your paintings. And people may just be unwilling to do that.

See, I may value my neighbor’s paintings. I may value them very much. But I may still be unwilling to cook for him, do his laundry, cut his grass, and educate his kids so that he can be free to paint and maybe give me one of his paintings. Sorry. There are things that I can do during the day that I value more.

This is what society is all about, in the end. The ultimate value of society is division of labor. I grow food. You chop wood. He makes tools. She makes clothes. Then we exchange them. Instead of each of us growing his own food, chopping his own wood, making his own clothes, etc. That way each person can focus on doing whatever he wants to do or can do best. Or what is more demanded or valued at the time. Or what is less supplied at the time. All of which is measured (in a market society) in money.

Money is merely a medium for exchange of the services that different members of society provide for each other. There is nothing inherently dirty, ugly, or nasty about it; no more than there is anything inherently nasty about one person doing a favor to someone in exchange for another favor.

(And just like services can be done for free, just like products can be given as gifts, money can be given as a gift too. There is nothing “not nice” about that. You’re merely giving a choice to your friend which of the products or services of the society to select from for himself.)

Russian problem — Russian solution.

Background: While driving along the road, sometimes a Russian driver wants to eat some peaches. To do so, he can stop and buy some from a local old lady selling them along the road (with regular intervals — not just pears, all kinds of stuff).

Problem: After sitting in the heat the whole day, the peaches become hot. A driver wants to eat cold peaches.

Solution: Put the pears in a plastic bag; hang the bag on the rear-view mirror, over the A/C vents. Turn the A/C on max. In a short while you’ll have cold peaches.



[via Artemiy Lebedev]

“I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican”

An interesting interview with Harry Stein about the reasons of liberals being so “tolerant” of their conservative brethren. His main point is that when a liberal hears someone is a conservative, he does not think the conservative is wrong, he thinks the conservative is evil.

I myself had an experience of being asked “So, you are a conservative?” in the same tone as “So, your sister is a prostitute?”

I also remember how my rabbi once heard from someone that he would never even consider Orthodox Judaism as having any truth and would not even research or think about it, because Orthodox Judaism apparently limits one’s freedoms, disregards scientific evidence, is outdated, and in general it is close-minded to believe all the things that Orthodox Jews believe, which is why this person would not waste time learning even a little about them. My rabbi’s response was: “So… you closed your mind to stay open-minded?”

You get the same ‘tude in other illuminated places. In this Gizmodo article, the author makes fun of an Orthodox couple who sued a building owner for placing a motion-sensitive light near their apartment and refusing to allow them to pay for it being replaced with a normal light (or something or other). Now, some of the criticism is about people pushing their religious views on others, but most of it is about how ridiculous the idea of not turning light one day a week seems to everyone, how superstitious and outdated. (More particularly, the idea that turning light constitutes creating fire or building something is even more ridiculous to them.)

When one person was accused of disrespecting other people’s beliefs, he answered: “I am all for respecting other people’s religious beliefs, but not crazy superstitions such as these.”

So, with liberals being appaled at someone being a conservative (I am not even talking about being a libertarian — that’s not just a reason for disgust, but grounds for calling 911 and screaming: “There is a devil in my living room”) it’s the same thing.

There is a degree of accepted disagreement within their zone of comfort (e.g., you may disagree with me that Obama is the best candidate and Hillary is not — fine, I disagree with you but respect your opinion), but outside of this zone, you have drifted out of the definition of a normal human being, and no facts, arguments or supporting evidence help. You are either evil (if you are a conservative), nuts (if you are an Orthodox Jew not merely believing in G-d and wearing a white scarf on “Sabbath”, but actually practicing Jewish Law) or both (if you are a politically conservative Jew, who does not like Obama and eats properly shechted chicken on Shabbos with his sons who are circumcised and daughters who are dressed modestly).

On different responses

A response of a conservative and a liberal to what Obama is doing to the market:

Side effects may include...

Speaking of Oral Torah

A conversation with one X-ian:

— In Isaiah 53:2, there is no “Israel” inserted in brackets. It’s just something “Talmudists” made up to get out of the prophecy about [idolatry].
— And in expression F = ma, there is no multiplication sign. It’s just something some physicists made up.

Nor, by the way, is there in V = IR. It’s just something I made up to prove a point.

One-year truce

Very amusing news.

Thanks to Hesh of FrumSatire for the cartoon.



(Actually, it would be amusing if it wasn’t sad. Let me refer you again to JEMnation’s presentation of the Rebbe’s view.)

On Mishna Brura and arguments

(photograph of Roman Vishniac)

The hot question of whether Mishna Brura is a halachic work (and if it is, what this means) has been discussed here.

One side holds that it’s not a work of halacha, because the author did not follow the process of shimush (one prospective rav learning by example and tradition from an already accomplished rav) and did not pasken according to klaley hoyro’oh (rules necessary to figure out which authority’s opinion to follow in each situation — which are transmitted from one rav to another in a form of oral tradition). Instead, Baal Chofetz Chayim merely tries to figure out by himself who is right in a machloikes and provides chiddushim in halacha.

The other side holds that Mishna Brura is a work of halacha, since many authorities relied on it for discussions of halachic questions.

My rabbi holds that it is funny how you can have two people arguing and not realizing that they are not hearing each other — each one talking about a completely different aspect of the argument.

Typical leftist libertarian narishkeit

I am having increasing problems calling myself a libertarian, rather than a conservative. I agree with libertarians regarding economics and government butting out of our private affairs (which are not its business to begin with). But I find some libertarians’ pacifism annoying and distasteful. In addition, their common sense in international affairs is pretty much non-existent.

I don’t understand what’s so difficult about the idea that in order to have freedom, rights and capitalism, one sometimes needs to fight for them against those that try to take them away.

Take, for instance, Ron Paul’s statement that “invasion of Gaza” is sad news for him, since the idea of “preventive, preemptive war is spreading”. Forget about the idiocy of not understanding that sometimes you have to shoot the bastard first before he kills you (“Did you wait for the attacker to shoot first before shooting him?” — “No, why the hell would I do that?”), how is “invasion of Gaza” a preventive war?

I mean, I don’t know how to ask this question is a polite form, but — is he a moron? If somebody tells him, “Give me all your money, your car keys and your house keys”, he refuses, the bastard shoots at him, hits him in the arm, Ron Paul pulls out his gun and shoots the son of a bitch dead — he just did a preventive strike? I suppose, yes, he prevented the attacker from killing him. Is this now immoral? Has Christian idiocy spread to all layers of thinking now?

But an even better treat is this article from a web-site I normally very much respect for its views, articles, lectures and books on economics.

The main idea of the article is this: Arabs hate the State of Israel. The solution is not in a two-state solution or in a one-state solution (I suppose the idea of carpet bombing the area and kicking out the bitches or imposing military law until they learn to behave is also out of question too). The solution is to abolish the idea of a state itself!

We should pursue the dream or anarcho-capitalists and replace a central government with private companies providing law and defense as any other service (I reviewed this idea before) in the society. And since the State of Israel will be no longer there (replaced by Jews protecting themselves through private organizations), Arabs will have no State to hate — problem solved.

I am not going to argue at lenght in favor or against anarcho-capitalism here. Generally speaking, I certainly agree that private enterprise can provide any service better than the government, including law and defense, but that I do not see it possible to achieve equality of these services (necessary for a free society to exist to begin with) with anarchist system. I don’t have a problem if Bill Gates gets a better service from a hotel or a restaraunt than me. He is richer, he provides the society with services I don’t — he has better service coming. I do hope, however, that our representation in a court of law or our defense by the Army will be equal and not based on our wealth.

One can expect “difficult” questions of morality (children, animals, abortion — just to name a few) will arise.

Furthermore, anarchist society is possible only in civilizations that are ready for it and where majority of people will have necessary ethical, economic, social and political views (in societal and invidivual levels) to support such a society — otherwise, the society will spontaneously revert to a state, and not necessarily a better one. In case of Arabs, this is sure to happen. (Somebody almost accused me there of racism for stating this opinion. Well, let’s forget about Arabs and politics and look at Wikipedia. American Wikipedia is capable of producing articles with neutral point of view — at least making effort to have one. In Russian Wikipedia such thing is not even on agenda. As I pointed out, the problem is not with genetics, of course. The problem is with culture.)

You can read some of my comments there (as “CA”), but I just want to quote one comment (by Kyle):

In the case of Israel and Palestine, what does the presence or absence of states really have to do with the real problem of use of force? Let’s hypothetically eliminate the state of Israel. Now we have a large and homogeneous group of Jews who are pissed off that they see rockets flying at them from the other part of town. A bunch of them get together in the name of self-preservation and go to Gaza with the intention of apprehending or killing the culprits. The homogeneous group of Arabs on the other side are equally pissed, and do the same. The only difference between this vigilantism and the state-sanctioned brand of violence is the name.

Anarchists: what am I missing?

I said something similar a little earlier in the comments:

As long as there are Muslims in the Middle East that believe that there needs to exist a Shariat-law–based state on every land that was once under jurisdiction of Muslims (including Spain, by the way), these Muslims will support states, private organizations, alien fleets — whatever — whose goal will be establishment of such a state. And if people no longer have such view, then the problem of Arab–Israeli conflict will disappear by itself — with or without anarchy.

Finally, the idea that Arabs are opposed to specifically Jewish state (rather than just Jewish society) is absurd. Arabs are opposed not to a Jewish state per se, but to Jews controlling territory once under Muslim jurisdiction.

Muslims are happy to have Jews live under their authority, pay taxes and suffer a few pogroms once in a while. They will never, however, accept an idea of Jews controlling once-Muslim land, whether through a State and Knesset or through private Jewish law- and defense-providing organizations.

Also read this comment criticizing the idea of private defense (e.g., he discusses counter-examples of African warlords).

So, to summarize, perhaps I should start describing myself as right-wing again. The problem is: most of today’s right-wingers are actually turning into socialists. And economically, I am very much a libertarian. I suppose I’ll just have to describe myself as “anti-liberal”.

Regarding “Palestinian children”

Just saw an excellent post from Bormental regarding “Palestinian children vs. Israeli children”. I only wish it was in English or I had time to translate it.

Отсюда:

Я могу понять Энни Ленокс, там Hey-hey, I saved the world today и прочий гуманизм, который позволяет закрывать глаза на израильских детей и скорбить по палестинским. Черт с ней, она мало знает, судя по всему. Я общался с англичанами и канадцами, которые на полном серьезе ужасались «чудовищными преступлениям израильской военщины», потому что просто тупо не получали всей информации, за что отдельное спасибо нашей службе пропаганды. И британским СМИ.

Я не принимаю их точку зрения, но я понимаю, откуда она идет.

Я могу понять мусульман и прочих «братьев» этих палестинцев. Их корпоративная этика диктует однобокий и плоский взгляд на проблему, потому что европейский гуманизм пришел и ушел, а с «братьями» им жить. Я не могу принять эту точку зрения, но я могу ее понять.

Но когда образованный человек, объездивший, можно сказать, весь мир, владеющий огромным количеством информации, способный думать, размышлять и делать выводы, человек, стоящий на общегуманистических позициях, делает подобные выводы относительно «еврейского нацизма» и «палестинских детей» — меня это просто вгоняет в ступор.

Если отрешиться от эмоций, а обратиться просто к обычной житейской человеческой логике, попытаться изложить все происхолдящее сухим языком фактов, то даже тогда становятся совершенно непонятными те выводы, к которым ты приходишь.

ОПЕРАЦИЯ

Сдерот и поселения, прилегающие к сектору Газа, обстреливают 8 лет. Прописью: восемь лет. Пришел и ушел Путин, отсидев два срока, пришел Медведев — а жителей этого региона все обстреливали. Пришел и ушел Джордж Буш, отсидев два срока, пришел Барак Обама — а жители Сдерота так и сидели в защищенных комнатах и бомбоубежищах. Случилось 9/11, война в Афганистане, война в Ираке, свержение и казнь Саддама Хуссейна — а жители поселений, окружающих Газу, не знали, вернутся ли, выходя на сельскохозяйственные работы. Их обстреливали. В мире происходила куча очень важных и очень серьезных событий, на фоне которых как-то меркли проблемы маленького региона, сидящего под обстрелом.

Но вот после 8 лет беспрерывных издевательств над детьми Сдерота, началась операция Литой Свинец. Если просто вдуматься, то сегодняшние третьеклассники на юге просто не знают о том, что можно жить, чтобы тебя не бомбили. Они родились с этой реальностью, они всю свою маленькую жизнь с ней прожили. У них сломанная психика, они точно так же вздрагивают по ночам от громко хлопнувшей двери, как до сих пор вскакивает моя младшая дочь, пережившая и обстрелы Скадами во время Персидской войны, и обстрелы севера страны так называемыми Катюшами.

Но мир это не интересовало.

Мир всколыхнулся и начал обсуждать эту животрепещущую проблему только тогда, когда наше правительство после 8 лет терпеливых уговоров, решило — наконец-то! — защитить своих детей. Вот тут почему-то судьба палестинских детей всколыхнула все прогрессивное человечество. Почему?

Я никак не могу понять: почему ребенка в Газе жальче, чем ребенка в Нетивоте? А если их жалко одинаково, то с какой целью возникают эти бесконечные разговоры о несчастных палестинских детях?

ПАЛЕСТИНСКАЯ ПРОБЛЕМА

Так называемая палестинская проблема придумана самим палестинцами. Им предлагали государство в 1947 году. Они не захотели. Им предлагали государство в 1994 году — они не захотели. Им предлагали государство в 2000 году — активно, навязчиво предлагали — они отказались. Им предлагают государство сейчас.

И это не просто слова. Если завтра тот же Махмуд Аббас заявит, что он готов строить государство Фаластын на тех землях, которые были оттяпаны в 1967 году — он немедленно получит всю легитимация для этого шага. Он даже получит часть Иерусалима, которую может назвать Аль-Кудс и объявить столицей Фаластын. На здоровье.

Ему нужно пойти на одну маленькую уступку: согласиться не тащить в Израиль 4 миллиона потомков — я подчеркиваю! — потомков палестинских беженцев. Все. Один маленький компромисс, чтобы получить свое государство.

Напомню, что Бен-Гурион согласился на гораздо худшие условия в 1947 году и построил Израиль.

Но меньше всего палестинцев интересует собственное государство. Потому что иначе совершенно невозможно объяснить, почему они никак не хотят его строить. У тебя есть другое объяснение? Переговоры идут как-то иначе? Компромисс — это уступки обеих сторон или только одной?

Критиковать Израиль легко.

Он посылает своих свирепых 19-20-летних сионистских выкормышей умирать за детей, сидящих под обстрелом. Это, безусловно, крайне жестокое и бесчеловечное решение, если думать о судьбе несчастных палестинских детей, которых бедные родители просто вынуждены ставить на крыши зданий, чтобы израильские безжалостные летчики не бомбили эти здания. Этих детей очень жалко, они ни в чем не виноваты.

А в чем виноваты дети Кирьят Гата?

А какое решение? Переговоры?

Так мы уже согласны. С кем? С теми, кто не признает само наше существование? И опять мы согласны. Признайте, что мы существуем — и м вместе сядем за стол переговоров. Правда ведь, это не слишком жесткое требование ко второй стороне? Но нет, наши противники демонстрируют несгибаемую волю и твердую позицию. Вас не существует, с вами мы ни о чем говорить не собираемся.

Ефрат, твои предложения? Как ты хочешь мирно решить проблему, чтоб ничьи дети не пострадали?

ОДНИ НАРОДЫ ЛУЧШЕ, ЧЕМ ДРУГИЕ. ЧЕМ ЛУЧШЕ? ЧЕМ ДРУГИЕ.

Вот такое вот нацистское начало. Ужас, правда?

Ты написал вполне себе гуманистический пассаж:

«Очень удобно представлять палестинцев гомогенной массой, единодушно поддерживающей ХАМАС, хотя сами израильтяне лучше всех остальных могут представить себе (и поведать нам), каковы шансы у палестинца, не поддерживающего ХАМАС и желающего мира с Израилем, хотя бы публично огласить свои взгляды.»

ОК, давай не представлять их гомогенной массой. Я согласен. Но еще 200 лет назад Л.Фейербах сказал фразу: «Каждый народ имеет то правительство, которого заслуживает». Как ни обидно, но это так.

Мы заслужили и Шарона, и Ольмерта. Заслужили потому, что слишком лебезили перед Западом, перед общечеловеческими ценностями, потому что жалели палестинских детей больше, чем собственных. Да-да. Мы жалели ливанских детей, пока обстреливали север нашей страны. «Ну, потерпите» — говорили мы жителям севера. — «Ну что ж поделать, ведь не воевать же с ними?» А когда робко попробовали воевать, даже не воевать, а только продемонстрировать звериный оскал сионизма, как тут же весь мир завопил об агрессорах и мы страшно испугались и спрятались обратно в свою ближневосточную раковину.

Что поделать, такое уж правительство мы выбрали.

И ушли из Газы, заявив палестинцам: «Что вы, что вы! Пожалуйста! Все теперь — ваше!» И чо? А ничо. Вместо того, чтобы использовать уже готовые к обработке поля и заботливо построенные теплицы, они стали строить фабрики по производству ракет. От жалости к нашим детям, правда?

Вот и палестинцы имеют то правительство в своей Газе, которого заслуживает. И нам безумно жалко гражданское население. Очень. Но раз им не жалко нас, то что ты предлагаешь сделать? Подставить своих детей во имя палестинских? Мы все же не настолько продвинуты, сорри.

Да, у палестинца, живущего в Газе, нет шанса громко заявить протест ХАМАСу. Как ты думаешь, почему? Может, если бы таких палестинцев бло много, то они смогли б выразить этот протест? А если б основная масса больше бы любила своих детей, чем ненавидела наших, может, и не было бы никаких ХАМАСов?

Как ты думаешь, побывав в Израиле и познакомившись со здешней спецификой и народом, если бы палестинцы тихо ковырялись б себе в своей Газе, выбирали бы любое правительство, какое захотят, но при этом не лезли бы к нам, Израиль бы напал на мирных селян? Ты же не будешь утверждать, что — да, правда?

И кто же виноват в том, что они получают то, что получают? Израильтяне? Или те, кто 8 лет беспрерывно обстреливал наших детей? И что с ними делать? Да, мы уничтожаем боевиков, и если бы это было бы возможно сделать без жертв среди мирных палестинцев, мы бы безусловно так бы и сделали. Но если эти боевики подставляют свой собственный народ, а народ, вместо того, чтобы бороться с боевиками, борется с нами – то кто виноват? Мы или этот народ разнесчастный?

У тебя есть предложения, как не наказывать этот народ, а пинцетом вытащить и отшлепать нехороших боевиков? Без того, чтобы потерять немалую часть нашего собственного народа?

Если человек, которому жальче собственных детей и собственный народ, чем тех, кто его ненавидит и хочет уничтожить его детей и его народ — если такого человека ты называешь нацистом, то считай и меня им. Я согласен.

Я прошу прощения за многословие и за то время, которое отнял у уважаемой публики (да и у себя в это непростое время). Но я, как говорится, не мог молчать.

Evil Walmart vs. benevolent government in helping Katrina’s victims

(liberal propaganda of WalMart’s effect on communities)

Another proof to immortal truth: anything that can be done privately is better done privately. Including philanthropy.

A study of evil Walmart’s help to Katrina victims, compared to that of FEMA. (“The top causes of a Black man’s death in the USA include AIDS, chicken wings, guns, and FEMA.” — Boondocks.)

Wal-Mart produced desirable outcomes in the Katrina event because it had both the right knowledge and the right incentives in place, compared with those of government agencies [the U.S. Coast Guard is not included], declares economist Steven Horwitz. “Whether organizations are able to acquire such knowledge and have the appropriate incentives depends on the institutional environments in which they operate and the way in which the organizations are structured,” he continues.

“In general, the environment of market competition is superior to that of the political process in providing both the knowledge necessary to respond to people’s needs and the profit incentive to act on that knowledge in ways that create value. Within the political process, agencies face different incentives, as they do not operate by profit and loss. Instead, government agencies are more often concerned with pleasing other political actors and finding ways to expand their budgets and power. This often makes them less sensitive to the direct needs of the people who rely on them to get specific tasks accomplished.” On the market’s superiority at providing both the knowledge and incentives for efficient resource use and greater value creation, Horwitz directs interested readers to the essays in F. A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

“In addition, the absence of a competitive market for their product means that, in general, government agencies face knowledge problems in determining what their output should be and how best to produce it. However, government agencies with a more decentralized structure that puts them in more direct contact with the people they serve may be able to overcome these knowledge problems. Larger, more centralized government agencies will lack the incentives of firms in competitive markets as well as the knowledge provided by true market prices, but more decentralized ones may do better along the latter dimension. [...]”

Who could have thought that evil WalMart that cares only about its pockets, kicks small cute businesses out of local area, trades with China and hates labor unions would be more effective in helping poor people than the government? Hmm… Maybe somebody with the right idea of what the government’s role is supposed to be?..

Rabbi Gottlieb: “What makes us what we are?”

Check out Rabbi Gottlieb’s book on the reasons we know that Judaism is true. His collection of audio shiurim is also very good. A brilliant example of common sense in modern Judaism. Can’t say I agree with everything, but it is always very enjoyable and in the vast majority of cases very illuminating.

Akeidas Yitzchok — rational approach

Some people have a problem with akeidas Yitzchok. “What do you mean, Avraham wanted to kill his son? Isn’t it barbaric — to want to sacrifice your own child? How is this used as a virtue? Isn’t it just like Muslim terrorists? Why would G-d ask such a thing? So, if G-d asked you to sacrifice your son, you would also do it? So, when a crazy person kills someone — it’s OK?”

In response, a few points:

1. To begin with, the argument that it is barbaric is not fair. We find it barbaric to sacrifice our children precisely because Judaism — a religion founded by Avraham — says so. During Avraham’s times and much-much-much later, it was OK to sacrifice one’s children to gods according to general rules of morality existing amongst most people. We find accounts of the Nations’ child-sacrifice practices in Torah and Judaism in general (and some of our mitzvos include prohibitions to emulate these nations). Throughout history, we also find stories of mass massacres of children. For instance, inhabitans of the famous Carthage sacrificed their children en masse (and you thought Romans were bad, huh?). When Carthage was besieged by Rome, they sacrificed a lot of children even when they knew they were going to lose — just in case it’d work.

One can hardly apply to Avraham standards of morality which appeared much after his time and were created by his own religion! It would as if I, as a surgeon, invented a certain procedure at the age of 50 and then would be blamed for not using it at the age of 30. Only until after it became clear that G-d does not want Yitzchok sacrificed has it become possible to even suggest that perhaps G-d does not want children sacrificed. Furthermore, as a moral message for masses it only appeared as a part of Torah given to Moses many generations later.

2. The more important thing that we are overlooking here is that this was asked by G-d. Yes, the same G-d that created the Heaven and Earth, the same G-d the gave Yitzchok to Avraham (in a miraculos way), the same G-d whose Essence penetrates all existence, aside of whom there is no reality. All laws of logic, morality, all emotions stand aside from the word of G-d. I am not sure how to say it any clearer that whatever G-d says is an absolute law, because there is nothing besides Him. Therefore, when Avraham was able to see past his own emotions and logic and recognize the Uniqueness and Oneness of G-d, he is indeed to be praised — especially regarding how hard our reason must calm our emotions in order to comperehend this.

3. I hardly think this can be compared to Muslim terrorists. First, because you do not compare light to darkness, life to death, and something clean to something filthy. In other words, lehavdil. Second, because what they are doing is not sacrifice. They blow themselves up because they have convinced themselves that they will be immediately rewarded for this act by life infinitely better than the one they are leading right now. What separates them from those not yet ready to commit a suicide is that they convinced themselves much better, while others still have some doubt or did not overcome the regular animalistic fear. When you trade X for Y, and Y is much better than X, you are not sacrificing X, you are making a reasonable exchange.

What about atheists who blow themselves up for an ideology? Aren’t they trully giving up their life for some higher (in their opinion) cause? No. They are giving their biological existence for something that in their mind replaced their life. Their life is their ideology, not what we call life. Therefore, they are not sacrificing something. A sacrifice can be only of something you really value, losing which is a real tragedy for you. Then it is a sacrifice.

What Avraham was sacrificing was infinitely valuable for him. Yitzchok was not only his son, given to him by G-d miraculously, but also his future, his cause, his whole life, his only promise that his life would not be a mere existence, but a life, with a reason and a purpose, having its effect in infinity. That was taken away from him for no reason, with no promise of receiving something back, by G-d whom Avraham knew as merciful (as we find out at the beginning of the parshah, Avraham argued that merciful G-d cannot kill inhabitants of Sodom if there was only one righteous person amongst them). Furthermore, it was absolutely against Avraham’s character, because his nature was that of love and kindness.

And he was ready to do it, because he recognized who G-d is: that G-d is beyond any definition, and our realization of G-d’s boundless and limitless Essence must be above any definition we have of G-d, of this world, and of our lives.

4. Should somebody today follow in Avraham’s footsteps? No, because G-d Himself promised He would not violate His Law, the Torah, and in Torah it is forbidden to sacrifice children. Just like G-d is unlikely to call pig kosher or square a triangle, He will never call child sacrifice permitted. What a lot of people overlook, furthermore, is that G-d never permitted child sacrifice in human history. He simply asked Avraham to be ready to sacrifice his child (and act Avraham would have not indication to be immoral), and then did not permit it happening!

So, if you believe G-d is speaking to you and telling you to sacrifice your child, see a good psychiatrist. And get yourself commited before it’s too late. How did Avraham know he was not having a delusion? Just like you know that the world around yourself is real — to Avraham (and Moses), G-d’s revelation was at least as real as the world around himself, and probably more, and G-d made sure that there absolutely no doubt (if something miraculous happens in front of me right now, I will first question my own sanity; Avraham knew that was his revelation was real). At the same time, he, as all prophets, had proof of absolute clarity of his mind, full logical capacity and so on.


Finally, we must all draw a lesson from Avraham’s conduct: ability to realize with absolute clarity who G-d is. When you’re thinking of breaking Torah (either a Biblical commandment, a Rabbinic commandment, doing something not in spirit of Torah, or even just taking a more lenient path because it is easier), G-d forbid, for some physical or mental pleasure, think about the realization of who G-d is that allowed Avraham to be ready to sacrifice his own son. G-d does not and will not ask us to sacrifice our children for Him. He does ask as to sacrifice ourselves — our love of this physical world and its pleasures — by keeping Torah and realizing that there is nothing besides Him. Literally. Mamosh.

(Oh yeah, the last thing: Yitzchok was not a child. He was in his 30’s and went willingly, knowing what’s going on.)

Some examples of how good liberals are for economic progress

An interesting article about what happened to the Great Lake states and how good Obama-styles policies (together with the labor unions) are for progress and development.

One really has to ask the obvious question: If Obama’s economic policies work so well, why isn’t Detroit a paradise?

In 1950, America produced 51% of the GNP for the entire world. Of that production, roughly 70% took place in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The productive capability of this small area of earth staggers the imagination. Virtually everything that rebuilt the industrial bases of Europe and Japan came from those eight states. Cars, planes, electronics, machine tools, consumer goods, generators, concrete — any conceivable item manufactured by industrial humanity poured out this tiny region and enriched the world. The region shone with widespread prosperity. People migrated from the South and West to work in these Herculean engines of industry.

The wealth, power and economic dominance of the region at the time cannot be overstated. Nothing like it has existed in human history.

Yet, a mere 30 years later, by 1980, we called that area the “rustbelt” and it became synonymous with joblessness, collapsing cities, high crime, failing schools and general hopelessness.

What the hell happened?

Obama happened.

Of course, not Obama personally but rather the same ideas that Obama espouses. What those ideas did to the Great Lakes states, they can do to the entire country.

Read on. He talks about how two things crippled those states’ economy: 1) labor unions, 2) invasive government. By the way, the first impressions of a famous Soviet dissident, Victor Suvorov, after coming in 1978 to the Great Britain are interesting to read, in light of the above article:

[After arriving to the UK] I was astonished by the extremely low level of life. Not as in the famished Soviet Union, of course, but impossible to compare with Switzerland, from which I escaped. London was filled with garbage, lines were snaking around the streets, stores were standing half-empty… The winter of 1978-79 was a winter of destruction.

The thing is: by that time, Britain was already long-ruled by socialists who destroyed the economy as only they know how. At that point, everybody was on strike — garbage collectors, transport workers… It was a sight to see! As soon as the railroad workers’ strike ended, the train drivers’ strike began. Then went the ticket collectors. Labor unions had huge power, and the country was inevitably rolling towards a cliff. I was just amazed — after Geneva I’d thought that all of the West was prospering. And it turned out that socialism got its hands on England too. Unbelievable! Such a great country brought to a level of some Bulgaria.

Fortunately, the elections were won by Margarita — Margaret Thatcher. She came to power and started breaking apart socialism and saving Britain. The most difficult thing was to defeat the miners. It was unprofitable to mine coal in England, and every ton of coal was impoverishing the country. Just like in the Soviet Union — the more meat a collective farm produced, the more losses for the country’s budget. Margarita started closing down the mines; the miners started striking, since they were accustomed to robbing their own country, being parasites on it. But the Iron Lady did not give up.

It wasn’t just the miners either! Dockers were the second major enemy. All the world by that time was already using highly-efficient container unloading of ships. But English dockers’ union was against innovations, because container unloading increased productivity, leading to firing of additional workers. Sometimes it was like a comics strip: container-carrying ships would arrive at Dutch Rotterdam; there, everything was unloaded on trains and delivered to England by railroad. While the dockers were still getting paid, since the labor union forced this out of the business owners.

Or another idiocy… Socialists decided to defend English cinematography. Before, cameras were inefficient and had to be assisted by three people. Then cameras became better and could be served only by one person. But the socialists enacted a law where three people had to work on a camera anyway! What, should we fire a worker because of some progress?! At that point English cinematography could not compete with Hollywood and lost the juice.

Socialism is a national suicide. And Margaret with her iron hand started to choke it, saving her country. She showed utmost will not to give up. And she won. After that, the country started climbing out of the nightmare. And now England is one of the world leaders. It blossomed virtually in front of my eyes. No wonder Russian oligarchs come here…

Yet, socialism is not dead everywhere. [He goes on to give some modern examples where unions or state-sponsored monopolies drive prices up and slow down the progress.]

Powerful stuff, huh? Some more links about labor unions, relevant to Jews: “The New Gangster”, “Can you say witch hunt?”

Now, let’s see what happens in the next four years.

How traffic jams happen; good book to read about traffic

This video (seen at Alex Exler’s blog) shows one of the main reasons why the traffic jams happen resulting in the wave-like pattern of traffic (which always reminded me of business cycles):



The reason, as it turns out (and as I always suspected) is simple: it is due to the stupid [expletives deleted by Administration] bastards who sleep behind the wheel, drive slowly, and do all the other things leading them to slow down, create “gaps” in the traffic and create a jam for the cars behind.

My suggestion? Be a good driver (take some defensive driving lessons, read books, etc.), have good breaks, be alert (invest in caffeine IV drip if necessary), cut the bullshit while in the car, drive aggressively and screw the two-second rule while in close traffic.

See also this simulation.

I would like to use this opportunity to advertise Tom Vanderbilt’s book Traffic, in which he researches and explains many everyday phenomena of traffic, from physical, mechanical, dynamical, psychological and mostly commonsensical point of view. He starts of the book with asking which strategy is better for reducing traffic in a situation when “Left lane ends soon” and one has to shift to the right lane eventually: to drive down the left lane until the end and shift in the last possible moment, whenever the opportunity comes (trying to follow your own interest as much as possible), or be a nice guy and shift as early as possible, instead of selfishly driving down the empty left lane? He calls the first strategy “Live Free or Die” (the motto of libertarian state New Hampshire), and the second one — “Do Random Acts of Kindness”.

As it turns out, the first strategy is the best for reducing traffic, simply because it leads to traffic using two lanes (up to a certain point) instead of one, speeding up the flow. If one sits down and thinks about it, it will make sense. So, even though it instinctively seems “unfair” to people that shifted already to the right lane, this strategy (if used by everyone) actually speeds up the movement of traffic — for the people who shifted already as well.

So, let’s see: do-what’s-best-for-you, libertarian-style strategy is better for everybody involved than feel-good liberal-style strategy. Who could’ve thought?