wurakeem

Capitalism Is for the Other Guy

I have to say that even as an essay this would be an "F".
You pose a hypothesis without any arguments to support the claim or produce details or evidence.

It's like saying "United States is becoming a Nazi country",
and then moving on to provide a Wikipedia definition of Naziism.

In any event, thank you for this senseless drivel.

On Nov 13 07:00 AM Michael Clark wrote:

> It's a form of fascism, state capitalism. The state and big business
> have a symbiotic relationship now, each needs the other to survive.
> The American public is a secondary thought now -- the spectre of
> the collapse of American pride and power is what is happening. Read
> Greek mythology about Hubris. (I'll post this from Wikipedia, thanks
> to them:)
>
> Hubris (/hjuːbrɪs/) (ancient Greek ὕβρις) is a term used in modern
> English to indicate overweening pride, haughtiness, or arrogance,
> often resulting in fatal retribution or Nemesis. In ancient Greece,
> hubris referred to actions which, intentionally or not, shamed and
> humiliated the victim, and frequently the perpetrator as well. It
> was most evident in the public and private actions of the powerful
> and rich. The word was also used to describe actions of those who
> challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting
> in the protagonist's downfall.
>
> Hubris, though not specifically defined, was a legal term and was
> considered a crime in classical Athens. It was also considered the
> greatest sin of the ancient Greek world. That was so because it was
> not only proof of excessive pride, but also resulted in violent acts
> by or to those involved. The category of acts constituting hubris
> for the ancient Greeks apparently broadened from the original specific
> reference to mutilation of a corpse, or a humiliation of a defeated
> foe, or irreverent "outrageous treatment" in general.
>
> The meaning was eventually further generalized in its modern English
> usage to apply to any outrageous act or exhibition of pride or disregard
> for basic moral laws. Such an act may be referred to as an "act of
> hubris", or the person committing the act may be said to be hubristic.
> Ate|Atë, ancient Greek for "ruin, folly, delusion," is the action
> performed by the hero, usually because of his/her hubris, or great
> pride, that leads to his/her death or downfall.
>
> Ancient Greece
>
> Violations of the law against hubris included what might today be
> termed assault and battery; sex crimes ranging from rape of women
> or children to consensual but improper activities or the theft of
> public or sacred property. Two well-known cases are found in the
> speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient
> Greece. These two examples occurred when first, Midias punched Demosthenes
> in the face in the theater (Against Midias), and second when (in
> Against Conon) a defendant allegedly assaulted a man and crowed over
> the victim. Yet another example of hubris appears in Aechines "Against
> Timarchus," where the defendant, Timarchus, is accused of breaking
> the law of hubris by submitting himself to prostitution and adult
> male intercourse. Aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to
> bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded.
>
>
> Perhaps one of the most vivid examples of hubris in ancient Greek
> literature is demonstrated by Achilles and his treatment of Hector's
> corpse in Homer's Iliad. Achilles killed Hector in revenge. Not only
> did he kill him, but he stripped Hector's corpse and dragged it around
> behind his chariot, threading leather thongs through Hector's ankles.
> Although the Greek forces were appalled by his treatment of this
> other hero's corpse, he was unrelenting. Priam, king of Troy, had
> to come and kneel at Achilles's feet and offer him Hector's weight
> in gold before he could convince him to give up the body. Once the
> body was gone, Achilles had time to ponder the fact that it was prophesied
> his own death would come soon after Hector's..[citation needed] Similarly,
> Creon commits hubris in refusing to bury Polynices in Sophocles'
> Antigone.[citation needed] Another example is in the tragedy Agamemnon,
> by Aeschylus.[citation needed] Agamemnon initially rejects the hubris
> of walking on the fine purple tapestry, an act which is suggested
> by Clytemnestra, in hopes of bringing his ruin. This act may be seen
> as a desecration of a divinely woven tapestry, as a general flouting
> of the strictures imposed by the gods, or simply as an act of extreme
> pride and lack of humility before the gods, tempting them to retribution.
> One other example is that of Oedipus.[citation needed] In Sophocles'
> Oedipus the King, while on the road to Thebes, Oedipus meets King
> Laius of Thebes who is unknown to him as his biological father. Oedipus
> kills King Laius in a dispute over which of them has the right of
> way, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that Oedipus is destined to
> murder his own father. Ikarus, flying too close to the sun despite
> warning, has been interpreted by ancient authors as hubris, leading
> to swift retribution. In Odyssey, the behaviour of Penelope's suitors
> is called hubris by Homer, possibly still in a broader meaning than
> was later applied. The blinding and mocking of Polyphemos called
> down the nemesis of Poseidon upon Odysseus; Poseidon already bore
> Odysseus a grudge for not giving him a sacrifice when Poseidon prevented
> the Greeks from being discovered inside the Trojan Horse. Specifically,
> Odysseus' telling Polyphemos his true name after having already escaped
> was an act of hubris.
>
> Hubris against the gods is often attributed as a character flaw of
> the heroes in Greek tragedy, and the cause of the "nemesis", or destruction,
> which befalls these characters. However, this represents only a small
> proportion of occurrences of hubris in Greek literature, and for
> the most part hubris refers to infractions by mortals against other
> mortals. Therefore, it is now generally agreed that the Greeks did
> not generally think of hubris as a religious matter, still less that
> it was normally punished by the gods. Herodotus made it clear in
> a passage [2],
> “ Seest thou how God with his lightning smites always the bigger
> animals, and will not suffer them to wax insolent, while those of
> a lesser bulk chafe him not? How likewise his bolts fall ever on
> the highest houses and the tallest trees? So plainly does He love
> to bring down everything that exalts itself. Thus ofttimes a mighty
> host is discomfited by a few men, when God in his jealousy sends
> fear or storm from heaven, and they perish in a way unworthy of them.
> For God allows no one to have high thoughts but Himself. ”
>
> (Think of Ahab in Moby Dick, an Archetypal American character prototyype;
> this of Greenspan-Bernanke; think of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton
> (who were two sides of the same coin).)
>
> Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because anything
> happened to you or might happen to you, but merely for your own gratification.
> Hubris is not the requital of past injuries—that's revenge. As for
> the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating
> others they make their own superiority the greater.
>
> Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honor
> (τιμή, timē) and shame (αἰδώς, aidōs). The concept of τιμή included
> not only the exaltation of the one receiving honor, but also the
> shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. This concept of
> honor is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition
> to the contemporary concept of "insolence, contempt, and excessive
> violence".
>
> I have a couple of modern American examples of Hubris: Wall Street
> Masters of the Universe who have recently destroyed the universe
> and been reduced to begging for billions from their consort, the
> American Government -- this picture is SO Roman. And Muhammed Ali.
> Remember him: I loved him as a boxer. But his "I am the Greatest'
> and his standing over his defeated opponents mocking them (Sonny
> Liston comes to mind) were clear acts of hubis; when Ali's power
> sank it really sank.

Black Swan Author Is an Awkward Bird

I devoured Taleb's book "Fooled by Randomness" while on honeymoon and have since read "The Black Swan" and almost every news article written (by him / about him) and saw almost every video with him (Fora.tv, Edge.org w/ Kahneman in Munich, speech before Congress, various Bloomberg and CNBC appearances, special w/ Mandelbrot).

While I am a tremendous follower of Taleb's, I do believe that he allowed himself to be "watered down" by the popular media and has lost himself in the theatrics of weekly appearances to talk over short-term trends and to mention how everyone else is wrong but he is not.

He used to firmly refuse to predict or comment on anything that might sound like a prediction. His best answer was "I don't know and I don't think anyone else knows either". He has slowly become just another "Analyst Face" on Bloomberg/CNBC with his own personal opinion about the way things are going now.

Personally I think he should pursue his idea with the academic world, not the popular media to feed the addicted mind.