Health as Apparatus of Power

To continue from another thread so as not to derail that one any further, we should take up the issue of health as momentum, as currency, and as apparent apparatus of control over the populus here. I’ll sum up the pertinent posts:

Aleatory: I don't think 'health' requires momentum; it's a relative state of being. Strictly speaking, the moment you are conceived, you begin to die--and since the dying individual is not considered healthy, one could make the argument that, regardless of any illness as accessory to the natural process of aging (or lack thereof), one is in a constant state of un-health from that initial moment of conception. Thus (again strictly speaking) health is false.

I have to wonder: why specifically favor 'irrational expenditure"? Is it a pro-[pensity/clivity] or a predilection (inherent or of conscious choice)? We may face an impasse via parallelism, since my impending statement would be, "I don't see a point in intentional irrationality."

Fixed Cross: Regarding the type of health that one ruins to rebuild it again, I refer of course to Nietzsche's concept of great health --

The great health. — Being new, nameless, hard to understand, we premature births of an as yet unproven future need for a new goal also a new means — namely, a new health, stronger, more seasoned, tougher, more audacious, and gayer than any previous health. Whoever has a soul that craves to have experienced the whole range of values and desiderata to date, and to have sailed around all the coasts of this ideal "mediterranean"; whoever wants to know from the adventures of his own most authentic experience how a discoverer and conqueror of the ideal feels, and also an artist, a saint, a legislator, a sage, a scholar, a pious man, a soothsayer, and one who stands divinely apart in the old style — needs one thing above everything else: the great health — that one does not merely have but also acquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up.

And now, after we have long been on our way in this manner, we argonauts of the ideal, with more daring perhaps than is prudent, and have suffered shipwreck and damage often enough, but are, to repeat it, healthier than one likes to permit us, dangerously healthy, ever again healthy — it will seem to us as if, as a reward, we now confronted an as yet undiscovered country whose boundaries nobody has surveyed yet, something beyond all the lands and nooks of the ideals so far, a world so overrich in what is beautiful, strange, questionable, terrible, and divine that our curiosity as well as our craving to possess it has gotten beside itself — alas, now nothing will sate us any more!

After such vistas and with such a burning hunger in our conscience and science, how could we still be satisfied with present-day man? It may be too bad but it is inevitable that we find it difficult to remain serious when we look at his worthiest goals and hopes, and perhaps we do not even bother to look any more.

Another ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal to which we should not wish to persuade anybody because we do not readily concede the right to it to anyone: the ideal of a spirit who plays naively — that is, not deliberately but from overflowing power and abundance — with all that was hitherto called holy, good, untouchable, divine; for whom those supreme things that the people naturally accept as their value standards, signify danger, decay, debasement, or at least recreation, blindness, and temporary self-oblivion; the ideal of a human, superhuman well-being and benevolence that will often appear inhuman — for example, when it confronts all earthly seriousness so far, all solemnity in gesture, word, tone, eye, morality, and task so far, as if it were their most incarnate and involuntary parody — and in spite of all this, it is perhaps only with him that great seriousness really begins, that the real question mark is posed for the first time, that the destiny of the soul changes, the hand moves forward, the tragedy begins." [The Gay Science, section 387]

I post this here as a counterweight to the idea that the state should interfere directly with peoples health in the conservative terms of obeying to certain ideals, as stimulating the perfect homeostasis. This can very easily grow into policies forbidding the consumption of any random product as long as some institution classifies it as "unhealthy". Such generalities are never correctly in place. And there is much room for abuse, as your own example of designating pizza as a vegetable demonstrates. I do, in short, not have enough faith in the institution of government per se that it could ever, in any shape or form, be trusted with such delicate subjects as the definition of health. Neither do I have any faith in governmentally controlled healthcare industry. I know of too many cases where governments banish truly effective medicine because it does not serve economic purposes. Rather I want to steer government away from such direct judging and controlling, and redefine concepts such as value and health in less judgmental-remedial (negative) terms. To understand where I come from consider the question whether life can be defined as at root willing survival or if to the will to survive/live another condition is required, namely, the value of life to itself.

James S. Saint (to my “I don't think 'health' requires momentum; it's a relative state of being.”): Absolutely and uneqivicably false. Without momentum, nothing exists at all, and certainly not "healthily".

(to my “Strictly speaking, the moment you are conceived, you begin to die—“): Again, seriously false and merely a left over socio-political mind game to get people to accept their death as a good thing.

(to my “Thus (again strictly speaking) health is false.”): Think about that for a moment. Think about its converse, "thus sickness is false". For what reason would anyone want you to believe that your state of heath is false yet your state of sickness is true? To see reality more clearly, consider the converse of what you are told, then consider which if either really reveals anything of rational use. Take care of what "truths" are spoken so as to favor the state at the expense of the individual.

______________________________________________________________________________________

I must get to work now, but I’ll have a response to these issues either today or tomorrow.

Fixed: I post this here as a counterweight to the idea that the state should interfere directly with peoples health in the conservative terms of obeying to certain ideals, as stimulating the perfect homeostasis. This can very easily grow into policies forbidding the consumption of any random product as long as some institution classifies it as "unhealthy". Such generalities are never correctly in place. And there is much room for abuse, as your own example of designating pizza as a vegetable demonstrates. I do, in short, not have enough faith in the institution of government per se that it could ever, in any shape or form, be trusted with such delicate subjects as the definition of health. Neither do I have any faith in governmentally controlled healthcare industry. I know of too many cases where governments banish truly effective medicine because it does not serve economic purposes. Rather I want to steer government away from such direct judging and controlling, and redefine concepts such as value and health in less judgmental-remedial (negative) terms. To understand where I come from consider the question whether life can be defined as at root willing survival or if to the will to survive/live another condition is required, namely, the value of life to itself.

I think when reading this excerpt from Nietzsche it is important to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, the state of medicine in Nietzsche’s day was abysmal. Antibiotics and antibacterial treatments weren’t to be put into use for another 41 years, essentially beginning with Fleming and penicillin’s use as an antibiotic. Until that point, the practice of treating infections was little more than voodoo (though there was a curious instance of the Egyptians circa 1550 bc using honey and moldy bread). The merits of bloodletting weren’t broadly questioned and scrutinized until the mid-19th century, and the disillusionment was certainly in vogue at the time of The Gay Science. Nietzsche had a strong pen for iconoclasm, and certainly towards the medicine of his day, it was warranted.

Now I’d be the last to support the American commercialization of pharmaceuticals, but I’d also be the last to conclude that because of this, the government (as an abstract but ubiquitous model, not just the poor example of the US) inherently wills a definition of health solely for the purposes of profiteering. I also think it’s far too presumptuous to assume that no government is or ever will be capable of an honest, equitable healthcare system.

James: Absolutely and uneqivicably [sic] false. Without momentum, nothing exists at all, and certainly not "healthily".

I worded the sentence poorly. What I meant was ‘health’ inasmuch as it is the state of being ‘healthy’—surely this is relative (it can only be defined relative to another state of being) and to maintain it requires balance more than momentum (momentum serving to upset the balance)?

Also, I think (or at least I thought) Fixed and I were employing ‘momentum’ in a more abstract sense, a momentum akin to the flow of capital as opposed to that of the molecular makeup of the physical tender—or am I misprising your implication?

James: Again, seriously false and merely a left over socio-political mind game to get people to accept their death as a good thing.

The view I’m exploring here is an acceptance of the inevitability of death rather than its celebration as a boon. I’m not entirely sure where you’re getting that from…

James: Think about that for a moment. Think about its converse, "thus sickness is false".
For what reason would anyone want you to believe that your state of heath is false yet your state of sickness is true?

Obviously if health is false, sickness is false. My point here is that from the biological level, health may be viewed as a relative state of ‘prolonging life’ and sickness its antipode; but if we are to view health as a momentum, then we must conclude that, though there may be minor ups and downs, the ‘master’ momentum if you will, leads incontrovertibly to death; it’s like a thrown ball. As for the rational use, knowing your existence is finite seems to me to only increase the value of the time you have left.

Fixed: One of which we see implemented now by the industries moving toward defining every single aspect of life as some form of disease, for which a medicin [sic] needs to be bought.

Again, I don’t condone the commercial nature of some aspects of the medical field, the major factions being psychological and pain management (and I have expressed this view elsewhere both here and on ILP). Certainly there is no small amount of profiteering, from overzealous marketing of pharmaceutical opiates, SSRIs and over-diagnosis of ‘ADD/HD’ to more vitamins than your body can retain given you already eat healthy. I agree there is an issue here; my objection is that you seem to be targeting the medical field as a whole, attacking a synecdoche. Is this the case, or am I mistaken?

Fixed: I would be tempted to see this simply in terms of profit -- but given the state defining peoples "irresponsible behavior" as "costing tax-money", I can't help to notice that there is a strong ideological current at work as well, ridding people of their sense of being able to take care of themselves as they are, which is to say without being "corrected" by the state, "purged of bad behavior".

If you would specify this objection’s target as psychiatry and the violence of the implied threat of institutionalization, I’d agree with you to a certain extent. I don’t think “bad behavior” is necessarily applicable to general health (such as the common cold; certainly engaging in gang violence and shooting heroin are behaviors detrimental to one’s health)—unless of course you are directing this at my criticism of tobacco, alcohol and obesity, in which case I’m not suggesting it be deemed “bad” or that it be “corrected”, but that if taxes are being redistributed to a universal healthcare system, their increased risk of hospitalization should be compensated for by the individual at risk. I don’t see this as an ideology oppressing a person’s ability to care for one’s self; quite the contrary. Certainly there is a means for corrupting such a system just as there is a means of corrupting any system. Man is corruptible.

Fixed: The ruling thought of todays [sic] states is one valuing (estimating) sickness over (as more real than) health and irresponsibility and reckless self-destruction over self-determination.

Could you develop this point a little more? I’m inclined to believe that one cannot be valued as ‘more real’ than the other, since they are (in my estimation) co-dependent. Also when you say ‘irresponsibility and reckless self-destruction’, I can’t help but wonder what you then mean by intentionally irrational expenditure. Pardon my ignorance, but could you clarify?

Btw, are you aware that right now the AMA is drafting a bill to require all USA citizens to submit to medical experimentation (the Noble class of Congressmen and business moguls would be naturally exempt along with most government employees). Just a while back the Justice Dept tried to get a bill passed to allow it to get around the freedom of information act by lying to anyone requesting information by merely saying that the information didn't exist. Immediately after that bill failed to pass, they issued another requesting to simply destroy any information that the enemy (the commoners) should not have the right to see.

I am only bringing this up because "health" by the purview of a socialist system means the health of the Noble's class at the expense of the common class in the same way that the health of fish or cattle is only relevant to how much it affects the health of the "humans" (the only relevant life forms on the planet). The State is merely the mechanism or machinery with which to maintain control of the meat and keep it fresh and plentiful enough (and not too intelligent to be controlled).

James S Saint wrote:

Btw, are you aware that right now the AMA is drafting a bill to require all USA citizens to submit to medical experimentation (the Noble class of Congressmen and business moguls would be naturally exempt along with most government employees). Just a while back the Justice Dept tried to get a bill passed to allow it to get around the freedom of information act by lying to anyone requesting information by merely saying that the information didn't exist. Immediately after that bill failed to pass, they issued another requesting to simply destroy any information that the enemy (the commoners) should not have the right to see.

I would be interested to read up on this if you would care to provide a source.

James S Saint wrote:

I am only bringing this up because "health" by the purview of a socialist system means the health of the Noble's class at the expense of the common class in the same way that the health of fish or cattle is only relevant to how much it affects the health of the "humans" (the only relevant life forms on the planet). The State is merely the mechanism or machinery with which to maintain control of the meat and keep it fresh and plentiful enough (and not too intelligent to be controlled).

This is a matter of will to power, no? I'd like to hear more about your stance on this before making an extensive reply, since there are so many ways this could go. For instance, we could also say that the flora's health is only relevant in its effect on the herbivorous fauna, that the bee is only relevant as a means of reproduction for the flower, etc. I see the ebb and flow of life into death and death into life as a machine rather than a farm of sorts: though hunting certainly serves the overt purpose of sustenance for the hunter, it also serves the pivotal function of population control, though this is certainly not the case with the farm, the pasture, the pen, the coop. I have a tangle of thought on and stemming from this matter, so knowing what your contention is would give me a sense of heading (I could get into my extrapolation of the Gaia hypothesis to serial killers and war as means to control the population of an apex predator, without said predator's consciousness of such a manipulation, by the will of the cybernetic super-macro entity that is this planet).

Incidentally, viral, bacterial and other microscopic life is the only relevant form on the planet.

Aleatory wrote:

Fixed: I post this here as a counterweight to the idea that the state should interfere directly with peoples health in the conservative terms of obeying to certain ideals, as stimulating the perfect homeostasis. This can very easily grow into policies forbidding the consumption of any random product as long as some institution classifies it as "unhealthy". Such generalities are never correctly in place. And there is much room for abuse, as your own example of designating pizza as a vegetable demonstrates. I do, in short, not have enough faith in the institution of government per se that it could ever, in any shape or form, be trusted with such delicate subjects as the definition of health. Neither do I have any faith in governmentally controlled healthcare industry. I know of too many cases where governments banish truly effective medicine because it does not serve economic purposes. Rather I want to steer government away from such direct judging and controlling, and redefine concepts such as value and health in less judgmental-remedial (negative) terms. To understand where I come from consider the question whether life can be defined as at root willing survival or if to the will to survive/live another condition is required, namely, the value of life to itself.

I think when reading this excerpt from Nietzsche it is important to keep a few things in mind. Firstly, the state of medicine in Nietzsche’s day was abysmal. Antibiotics and antibacterial treatments weren’t to be put into use for another 41 years, essentially beginning with Fleming and penicillin’s use as an antibiotic. Until that point, the practice of treating infections was little more than voodoo (though there was a curious instance of the Egyptians circa 1550 bc using honey and moldy bread). The merits of bloodletting weren’t broadly questioned and scrutinized until the mid-19th century, and the disillusionment was certainly in vogue at the time of The Gay Science. Nietzsche had a strong pen for iconoclasm, and certainly towards the medicine of his day, it was warranted.

Now I’d be the last to support the American commercialization of pharmaceuticals, but I’d also be the last to conclude that because of this, the government (as an abstract but ubiquitous model, not just the poor example of the US) inherently wills a definition of health solely for the purposes of profiteering. I also think it’s far too presumptuous to assume that no government is or ever will be capable of an honest, equitable healthcare system.

Yes I agree with this. Unless we can demonstrate the necessary truth of it, we cannot begin from the presumption that "government" is wholly unable to construct or manage an honest and equitable healthcare system. It is vital we not confuse the certain fact that such systems are, as systems, prone to corruption and abuse with the much more expansive claim that government, as government, is inherently unable to make such a system "work". (Note that we are not defining such as system as "working" to mean that this system is "perfect" or containts no waste or corruption at all. You have already pointed out that every system is by definition corruptable and imperfect, and this is certainly true).

Quote :

James: Absolutely and uneqivicably [sic] false. Without momentum, nothing exists at all, and certainly not "healthily".

I worded the sentence poorly. What I meant was ‘health’ inasmuch as it is the state of being ‘healthy’—surely this is relative (it can only be defined relative to another state of being) and to maintain it requires balance more than momentum (momentum serving to upset the balance)?

Also, I think (or at least I thought) Fixed and I were employing ‘momentum’ in a more abstract sense, a momentum akin to the flow of capital as opposed to that of the molecular makeup of the physical tender—or am I misprising your implication?

It seems we can incorporate these two views together to the benefit of each. Momentum in the abstract sense, or in the more molecular/scientific sense, as being a necessary component of any system, organic or otherwise. This being differentiated from a more overt momentum of actual macroscopic inertial movement/s with respect to the relevantly extant influential level/s of the system itself, as a whole and entire entity. What "health" reveals is the idea of supportive organization, sufficiently little degregation and breakdown, and this implies a certain lack of destabilizing "macro-momentums", even and perhaps especially where this macro-level is itself emergent from the sum activities of more microscopic-level (destabilizing, or less than stabilizing) momentums.

The healthy or unhealthy system in question is so with respect to both itself (its own internal-constructive constitution) as well as with respect to those inner and outer systems of which it is an integrated part, as well as with respect to other possible organizations which it might take, with regard either to its own self-consistency or its functional relatedness to that which is more micro- or macro-level than itself.

If we are viewing health therefore through the lens of apparatus of power we seem to be providing a nice framework in which these various relative measures of health can come together and be measured in the same breath, alongside the same standard of value. It stands to reason that, despite that no healthy organization will last forever, any organiaztions' health, measured by longevity or otherwise, is a function in part of its own ability to exercise healthy influence over itself and over the conditions to which it is subject. This of course also goes for social organization such as government. We can speak of the health of the individual, of the group of individuals, and of the group "itself" as the organizing principle itself by which individuals enter into group-relations to each other.

Quote :

Fixed: I would be tempted to see this simply in terms of profit -- but given the state defining peoples "irresponsible behavior" as "costing tax-money", I can't help to notice that there is a strong ideological current at work as well, ridding people of their sense of being able to take care of themselves as they are, which is to say without being "corrected" by the state, "purged of bad behavior".

If you would specify this objection’s target as psychiatry and the violence of the implied threat of institutionalization, I’d agree with you to a certain extent. I don’t think “bad behavior” is necessarily applicable to general health (such as the common cold; certainly engaging in gang violence and shooting heroin are behaviors detrimental to one’s health)—unless of course you are directing this at my criticism of tobacco, alcohol and obesity, in which case I’m not suggesting it be deemed “bad” or that it be “corrected”, but that if taxes are being redistributed to a universal healthcare system, their increased risk of hospitalization should be compensated for by the individual at risk. I don’t see this as an ideology oppressing a person’s ability to care for one’s self; quite the contrary.

Yes, quite the contrary indeed. Without such incentives and disincentives in place, which is merely to say without an environment that more properly conditions healthy behavior against unhealthy behavior, there is less assurance that individuals themselves will make healthy choices. All decision-making is done with respect to incentives and disincentives. There is no reason to automatically assume that the state or governing institution cannot or should not be establishing these sort of regulative mechanisms for individuals. To say that people need environments which incentivize healthy behavior and disincentivize unhealthy behavior is certainly not to say that people "cannot take care of themselves", nor is it to say that the modus operandi or rasion d'etre of these state or government incentivizing systems is the motivating assumption that "people cannot take care of themselves".

...which is of course to say that I take this a step further than you here, in that I do affirm that governing-organizing system/s ought to deem "bad" certain individual behaviors (e.g. smoking, excess drinking, consuming unhealthy or unsubstantial food) and indeed ought to actively work to correct such behaviors.

Aleatory wrote:

James S Saint wrote:

Btw, are you aware that right now the AMA is drafting a bill to require all USA citizens to submit to medical experimentation (the Noble class of Congressmen and business moguls would be naturally exempt along with most government employees). Just a while back the Justice Dept tried to get a bill passed to allow it to get around the freedom of information act by lying to anyone requesting information by merely saying that the information didn't exist. Immediately after that bill failed to pass, they issued another requesting to simply destroy any information that the enemy (the commoners) should not have the right to see.

I would be interested to read up on this if you would care to provide a source.

Attempting to not only catalog but also establish links in and out of the extreme degree of noise that surrounds me merely adds burden to the impossible. But I have to say that anyone who can not only spell "bourgeoisie" but also use it properly in a sentence, deserves a respectful response to such requests.

Unfortunately after spending some time reviewing my mountain of chatter notes, I couldn't even find under what heading to search for that AMA reference or even if it was within public domain. Although, I did run across this reference;

Quote :

I would say it's unbelievable, but it's not. In fact, it's totally
believable.

The Department of Justice attempted alter the Freedom of
Information Act (FIOA) to allow them to LIE about the existence of
requested documents.

Ordinary citizens seeking government information would be far less
likely to demand justification for withheld records that, as far as
they knew, did not exist. Federal agencies would have to justify
far fewer decisions to withhold such information.

So much for a more open and transparent government...

Video:May We Lie to the Proletariat?

Aleatory wrote:

James S Saint wrote:

I am only bringing this up because "health" by the purview of a socialist system means the health of the Noble's class at the expense of the common class in the same way that the health of fish or cattle is only relevant to how much it affects the health of the "humans" (the only relevant life forms on the planet). The State is merely the mechanism or machinery with which to maintain control of the meat and keep it fresh and plentiful enough (and not too intelligent to be controlled).

This is a matter of will to power, no? I'd like to hear more about your stance on this before making an extensive reply, since there are so many ways this could go.

Since I can't seem to easily discern your point in your OP, let me explain the reasoning for my interjection.

I was considering asking for your definition of "health", but it occurred to me that no matter what you provided, if it didn't agree with mine, I would have to give this same speech;

To me, (as a metaphysicist) health, harmony, and value are the same things. And Momentum is the very god of them (thus my impetus to interject).

Health is most commonly thought of as a relatively stagnate state of existence. The mind seeks to simplify all it has to peruse and thus naturally catalogs states of existence rather than flows of existence. A flow is more complex, requiring more detailed identifiers and associations. But such an instinctive tendency creates a misperception that has been a serious bane to the efforts of homosapian throughout his existence.

A healthy tree is not merely a tree that is well shaped and leafy. A healthy tree is a tree in process of doing what causes it to be a tree (that "self-valuing" thing). A tree is a process, one that requires harmony of its subprocesses.

Harmony, unlike Peace, is a flow. Any flow requires momentum and could be fundamentally defined as the same thing. A truly healthy tree is a tree that is flowing as a tree must in order to be what a tree is. It is ONLY by the interference of that flow, that harmony, that a tree or any living thing dies. Ill health is exactly defined by such interference, an interference in the defining harmony of flow, of the momentum of its life.

Capable's reply seems to be the focus of these threads;

Quote :

Unless we can demonstrate the necessary truth of it, we cannot begin from the presumption that "government" is wholly unable to construct or manage an honest and equitable healthcare system. It is vital we not confuse the certain fact that such systems are, as systems, prone to corruption and abuse with the much more expansive claim that government, as government, is inherently unable to make such a system "work".

I can probably do exactly that.

As noted above;
A) Health itself has been seriously misunderstood by all of homosapian since his existence.
B) Any governing system proposing to engage in the health of an individual, must define "proper flow" for each individual.
C) Any effort to increase the harmony of one individual almost invariably requires the decrease in harmony of another.
D) The probability of entropy within B and C over time even if altruistically avoided is 100%.
E) Any govenance of life (rather than governance of community) becomes a life in itself requiring otherwise unnecessary sacrifice to maintain its existence (ill health of individuals on all levels, including wars).
F) Any effort to maintain a harmonious flow, much like the issue of stasis vs flow, requires much more detailed and immediate observation of every motion within the system (the individual). Even if a governing body could be trusted to maintain such an extreme response-ability, the information and economy concerns would be staggering well beyond the point of requiring simplification, "All people of this class must be in there designated place at all times".

I could probably go on and could certainly fill in more detail on any of those concerns, but any one of them would be enough to prevent the goal "to construct or manage an honest and equitable healthcare system"

Aleatory wrote:

Incidentally, viral, bacterial and other microscopic life is the only relevant form on the planet.

"You only think that because the fungus entwined with and replacing your neurology have rewired your brain to cause that thought." [Conspiracy Theory 401]

Capable wrote:

It seems we can incorporate these two views together to the benefit of each. Momentum in the abstract sense, or in the more molecular/scientific sense, as being a necessary component of any system, organic or otherwise. This being differentiated from a more overt momentum of actual macroscopic inertial movement/s with respect to the relevantly extant influential level/s of the system itself, as a whole and entire entity. What "health" reveals is the idea of supportive organization, sufficiently little degregation and breakdown, and this implies a certain lack of destabilizing "macro-momentums", even and perhaps especially where this macro-level is itself emergent from the sum activities of more microscopic-level (destabilizing, or less than stabilizing) momentums...

(I use '...' here to indicate my response is to the greater body but that I'm not putting the entire quote in the post to save on space--I'm not sure if I've specified that on this forum yet.)

To clarify, there are two chief frames I think are efficient for identifying health as a territory of positive/negative values: inertia towards decay on the macro-conscious level (the ‘health’ choices an individual makes) and inertia towards decay on the micro-unconscious level (mitosis, carcinosis, apoptosis, necrosis, etc.). As such, the state of being healthy would be an equilibrium (whose values we have yet to define) and thus lack any momentum divergent from that model. Now I’d like to make it clear that the definition of health in this manner is most definitely a normalization—and I’m always skeptical of unchecked normalization. Normalization implies a constant; it operates in a stasis-life whereas evolution requires a certain amount of destruction to facilitate growth—for instance, to ‘build’ muscle, you necessarily injure it. If you don’t incorporate some marginally injurious element to the structure, you’re just begging for stagnation and decadence. The progressive mechanics of the individual can be thus regarded as a gambit in chess in both frames mentioned earlier, which significantly complicates matters. We’ll need to ask (and potentially answer) all manner of ambiguous questions, all of which tangle, involute, split and proliferate into other often discursive matters. (An example would be: “With increasing levels of pollution and the population breeding at break-neck paces, are increased processing in food and habits such as smoking tobacco, etc. not spurring evolution to create a more resilient human capable of surviving in a potentially inhospitable future?” This is assuming we can’t remedy the mess we’ve made, and also is just an example…though perhaps it is a question that warrants attention—I wasn’t planning it as such.) This requires an analysis of evolutionary potential and enacting a program via an ad futura utilitarianism; we must measure the benefit against not the currently extant populations, but the myriad future ones…and this gets morally precarious. I’ve thought quite a bit about such procedures (for both the host and the ailment), most of which are regrettably draconian, such as quarantining sufferers of viral and hereditary ailments and specifically not treating them, thus optimizing evolutionary survivability. Though not in the typical fascist sense, these are certainly eugenic practices…and I’ve eschewed further development of these concepts purely out of fear that I might find an ad futura altruism/utilitarianism rationally justifies such wanton inhumanity paradoxically in the name of humanity. Have you ever feared your own mind?

James S Saint wrote:

Since I can't seem to easily discern your point in your OP, let me explain the reasoning for my interjection.

I just wanted to divert the line of discussion digressing from the chief topic of ‘Capitalism with/in Communism’ so that we could continue without derailing the prenominate thread.

James S Saint wrote:

To me, (as a metaphysicist) health, harmony, and value are the same things. And Momentum is the very god of them (thus my impetus to interject).

Rather I would say health and harmony are values, but I agree.

James S Saint wrote:

Health is most commonly thought of as a relatively stagnate state of existence. The mind seeks to simplify all it has to peruse and thus naturally catalogs states of existence rather than flows of existence. A flow is more complex, requiring more detailed identifiers and associations. But such an instinctive tendency creates a misperception that has been a serious bane to the efforts of homosapian throughout his existence.

I had been drafting a response to Capable when you posted this, and it seems we may be on the same page. See if you don’t agree with the above to a greater or lesser extent.

James S Saint wrote:

A healthy tree is not merely a tree that is well shaped and leafy. A health tree is a tree is is in process of doing what causes it to be a tree (that "self-valuing" thing). A tree is a process, one that requires harmony of its subprocesses.

I agree, which begs that ultimate elusive teleological question of what being a human is all about, to which the answer is most likely “Man’s telos is discursive.” But to me, the nature of purpose is in constant flux; there is no perpetuum flumimun but an entity of constantly shifting components, a shape not even meta-stable, its data points and plots embodying a sort of febrile gesticulation, each infinitesimal point in space time as unique as a snowflake, never to be the same again, never repeating itself—and is there any model more perfect to describe the collective entity of any given social milieu than that of the river? So as not to wax poetic, I’ll assume you can surmise why it’s such a perfect analogy.

Any sentient life is a process of reinforcing its own health.

Any proposed healthcare system can only accomplish its purpose by assisting the individual in accomplishing his own reinforcement effort. Such a system would provide the means for the individual to monitor and affect his own health concerns. It would provide tools concerning monitoring, information, and affecters on all components and subcomponents of the individual's health.

A governance of health presumes the opposite. A proposed government healthcare system presumes to make the individual's health the responsibility of that governance, not the response-ability of the individual.

Health of a society can only be accomplished by endowing each individual with the means to pursue their own health standard without ulterior motive or persuasion.

There is only one means to accomplish such a task;
Constitution of Rational Harmony/Health - an agreement for individuals to manifest small groups within which they can clearly see all reasoning proposed to be authority over them and freedom to relocate to or establish a different small group if harmony cannot be established.

The reasoning established within each group will begin to flow toward the fundamental purpose of each individual within each group; their health, their individual harmony, flow of their life. But each group has different needs and environment and thus different health standards and concerns.

The "system" is comprised of millions of groups, each endowed with the ability to seek its own harmony, its own health by individually available means. The cooperation between the groups is by the volition of the groups as their own health standard is authorized as their fundamental priority.

The entire system becomes a body wherein each "cell" is taking care of itself by the provisions stemming from trade with others doing the same, the unfettered, uncontrolled economy of the pursuit of health/Self-harmony. Considering the extreme degree of intelligence already obtained concerning affecting health, eternal health is shortly acquired - a living body (the society/system) formed of eternally healthy individual components doing no more than pursuing their natural aim in sentient life.

Such is the very make of the natural human body except that the individual human body cannot provide sufficient information processing such as to accomplish the final goal without external assistance. A properly formed societal body, certainly can.

Since all joy is no more than the inner perception of progress toward chosen aims, as the environment provides the monitoring tools required to pursues one's health/Self-harmony, joy in perceiving its accomplishment is inherent.

The end result - Eternal Joy
.. for both the individual and the system.

If Communism wants to succeed, this is the ONLY way to do it - community endowed capitalistic pursuit of self-harmony.

And btw, that was the fundamental intent of the original USA Constitution except they inadvertently left out a very critical concern.

And since we have gotten into this, I can now complete my earlier comment concerning why laws must be obligated to their individually stated purpose.

Note that in the Constitution of Rational Harmony, it is fundamentally required (no option) to publicly document all governmental reasoning. This in itself establishes the most fundamental concern of Momentum, the flow of Health, and that is Firmness (ie, "mass/inertia").

The documented and thus system-remembered prior reasoning prevents entropy back to prior ineffective states. That means that at a fundamental level, the only direction available for growth is UP. Life, like any and all flows, pursues all available paths. It is ONLY when a direction of flow is immutably blocked, that momentum and existence is achieved. That fact is true of all reality, life, and physics ("Nothing is possible until something is impossible" Rational Metaphysics 101).

Once it is immutable that digression is impossible (not allowed), progression is automatically forced into being. Because it is directed, it has velocity, the other component required for momentum and flow. The prophesied mountain rises from the Sea (or "Order rises from the Chaos" if you prefer) simply because it cannot do otherwise (is not allowed).

Documenting or firming reasoning for responses is what allows evolution from lesser capable to more capable entities. Without the firming aspect, evolution could not occur but would instead be merely random changes without progression/momentum.

Additionally, in the realm of psychology, it is by the inner perception of progress that joy is felt within any conscious life. By virtue of being able to see WHY things are being done as they are and to what goal they are aimed, participating individual lives immediately sense the progress and thus the associated inner joy.

Health is very much an issue of joy because health is an issue of inner harmony. There cannot be inner harmony/health if there is no perception of progress toward the aim. Instead frustration and depression become what is felt by the conscious. Thus it is imperative that whatever reasoning is being imposed upon people to confine their behavior in any way, must be able to be seen, else paranoia, dissension, and revolt is the inevitable result. The system is then required to expend ever increasing energy and confining laws so as to maintain itself. Harmony is eventually lost on all levels. The system along with very many people perish in the process.

The USA Constitution established that each state must have its own constitution for the exact reasons that have been stated in this post and the prior. USA townships, cities, organizations, and corporations were also required to have a "Charter" doing the same. But the requirement to actually document anything wasn't established until the IRS was formed and its purpose wasn't to establish harmony within the groups, but rather to ensure proper accounting and tax liability so as to fund that very afore mentioned oppressive system - an ever increasing taxation and control mechanism merely trying to maintain itself at the expense of all else.

Health/Harmony/Happiness cannot be accomplished by Socialism nor Communism unless and until they become a harmony of Capitalism; the pursuit of Self-Harmony. And such cannot occur reliably without publicly documenting the reasoning and holding any laws to their individual reasoning. Survival is the foundation of incentive. Reasoning is the foundation of growth.


Clarify, Verify, and Instill the Perception of Hopes and Threats that Optimize the Momentum of Self-Harmony
Else
From THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.