
Def: Not prepared in advance; impromptu, a few unrehearsed comments, ad hoc, on the spur of the moment, an extemporary lecture, with little or no preparation or forethought : an off-the-cuff remark.
Ryan Moore
Ken Brockland
Michael Thomas
It may sound noble to say, “Damn economics, let us build up a decent world” – but it is, in fact, merely irresponsible.
With our world as it is, with everyone convinced that the material conditions here or there must be improved, our only chance of building a decent world is that we can continue to improve the general level of wealth. The one thing modern democracy will not bear without cracking is the necessity of a substantial lowering of the standards of living in peacetime or even prolonged stationariness of its economic conditions.'
- F. A. Hayek
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." - G. K. Chesterton in Everlasting Man, 1925
There is much work linking
I first have to figure out what knowledge is. There are things that we know and things that we think we know. Certainly there are suppositions that we make which prove to be true regardless of why we believe them. My favorite irrational explanation is that when you shut the door of the refrigerator a little gnome must turn out the light, since it appears to go off. Clearly this statement is false, but it transmits the understanding that the light goes off when you shut the door. This is understood, yet a bad explanation. Only when we start trying to systematically reconcile this interpretation with schematics of electricity do we have to abandon our childish notion of magic.
In this way science is very helpful. There are certain rules of the universe for which we have improved our approximation of understanding.
So if people specialize in knowledge, there seem to be gains. This is the same story that the economist will tell you about labor. In this way we can see a more egalitarian aspect to the use of knowledge in society (to use the Levy-Peart insight). Like with labor some is deemed dearer by the market, knowledge too can be rewarded. The market exchange is transacted through medium of exchange; there should be something like this with knowledge.
This knowledge is what separates us from animals. We can choose to benefit from it, or we can allow it to continue on a random course. The quote I choose above speaks to the ability for man to counter the prevailing force. If we recognize this ability as what makes man distinct, than we have a theory of reason. If we are all similarly not animals, than it follows in some way that we are all equal. To put it another way, this reason creates membership in the society known as humanity, and we all have certain rights within this context. It is incredibly interesting to recognize this natural law doctrine in even the most secular of sources. It is in this way that I feel
"We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak