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Central Banks

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

The bank of Canada is not controled by parliament.  Many see this as a grand thing, as the people can not meddle in the economy.  I would call them fools.

The bank is ostensibly independent, but is largely run to the benefit of business.  Certainly what is good for business sometimes matches what is good for citizens, but not all the time.  This is strange, since rights of a citizen are constitutionally guaranteed,  while businesses are just a construct.  Constructs have protections of their interest which we, citizens, do not.

Parliament represents us, the people of Canada.  If parliament does not control the bank, then we do not control the bank.  The bank operates in the interest of a subset of citizens who have no doubt convinced themselves, and perhaps many others, that what is in their interest is in the interest of Canadians as a whole.

It is a problem.  A problem lacking a clear solution.

One wonders how

Nietzsche on Memory

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

One of the most important messages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra was that you cannot regret.  Regret means you hate something you have done.  In the philosophy of Nietzsche, you are a sum of your actions and choices, as the outcome has made who you are.  If you had chosen otherwise at the time, you would be someone else entirely, since it is experience that defines a person.

You are allowed  to say that, given a similar situation now, you would behave differently, since you are not the same being you were at the time of the earlier action.   But when examining what you did in the past with the knowledge you had at the time, you must  decide on the same course of action you took then.  You must reaffirm what you have done in the past.  He called this eternal return or eternal recurrence.

It is thus obvious, by this philosophy, that the past is important in defining a being.   Anyone denying the path dependence of the human mind is lacking an understanding of the humanity.

Thus, the fitness function which defines what is most ideal for a given person is dominated by individual dependencies, while still having some effect from general, group effectrs.