L. K. Samuels: Trending quotes (page 2)

“Chaos provides order. Chaotic agitation and motion are needed to create overall, repetitive order. This ‘order through fluctuations’ keeps dynamic markets stable and evolutionary processes robust. In essence, chaos is a phase transition that gives spontaneous energy the means to achieve repetitive and structural order.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 135

“The revelation that systems organize on their own sat poorly with the apostles of social sciences—especially political scientists who base their theories on imposing external controls to achieve selected political goals. They are accustomed to thinking about government-produced certainties, not ambiguous probabilities. In their linear calculations, humanity must be physically forced to follow the guiding light of political leaders or flavor-of-the-month ideologies. The economy and human actions must march in step with legislative or dictated law, no matter what the outcome. Yet natural systems do not operate this way.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 10-11

Law , Way , Nature , Thinking

“To accept the legitimacy of the state is to embrace the necessity for war.”

L. K. Samuels

"Iraq and the Roots of War," California Freedom (June 2007).

War

“The field of economics is not exempt from the consequences of chaos and complexity. Marketplaces are indeterminate; value is subjective; and outcomes are subject to interpretation. Economic forecasting is just as nebulous, being based on the probability of statistical information that may or may not be accurate.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 16

“The inherent nature of complexity is to doubt certainty and any pretense to finite and flawless data. Put another way, under uncertainty principles, any attempt by political systems to ‘impose order’ has an equal chance to instead ‘impose disorder.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 227

Way , Nature , Chance

“If an emerging system is born complex, there is neither leeway to abandon it when it fails, nor the means to join another, successful one. Such a system would be caught in an immovable grip, congested at the top, and prevented, by a set of confusing but locked–in precepts, from changing.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 191

Change , Success

“Game theory brings to the chaos–theory table the idea that generally, societies are not designed, and that most situations don’t come with a rulebook. Instead, people have their own plans and designs on how things should fit together. They want to determine how the game is played, and they see societal designers as myopic busybodies who would imprison them with their theories.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 372

People , Game , Idea

“Libertarians say: what about individual rights? The question boils down to this: how many robbers must there be before robbery is no longer a crime? How many rapists must there be before it is no longer rape? We all know logic. A crime is a crime, no matter how many people are involved. If the majority of a town goes out and lynches someone, it is still murder. Majority rule often leads to mob rule, which tramples on individual rights and self–ownership.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, (1985), p. 196 (Chapter 23, “The Libertarian Philosophy and Taxation")

People , Question

“Every system that has existed emerged somehow, from somewhere, at some point. Complexity science emphasizes the study of how systems evolve through their disorganized parts into an organized whole.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 118

Study , Science , Parting

“Freedom does not guarantee wealth or success; it guarantees only the individual’s right to pursue them. Despite political promises of personal security from hunger and poverty, government cannot lessen the plight of the poor. Rather, the welfare state prolongs poverty and nurtures people’s dependence on handouts. This is no accident. There is no better way to control members of society than to make them insecure and eager to accept any type of legislation in exchange for a so-called free lunch.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer, (1985), p. 126 (Chapter 14, “What About the Poor?”)

Hunger , People , Way , Freedom

“To the political elite, statecraft is predicated on the notion that society is theirs to put into some type of hegemonic order. It is immaterial whether this institutionalized order actually helps society or instead puts it into a chokehold that slowly squeezes the air out of life. To the authorities, supremacy is always the primary objective.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 90

Life , Help

“The parity pushers fail to see the subtle grays of complexity in all of its tortured and messy manifestations. With swords held high, they ride forth and exploit every possible weapon in the political arsenal. Equality is to be imposed, unevenness and nonlinearity banished to the nether world. Science is politicalized for mass consumption, and natural laws are summarily supplanted by ideological 'correctness.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 301

World , Law , Nature , Science

“Complexity has the propensity to overload systems, making the relevance of a particular piece of information not statistically significant. And when an array of mind-numbing factors is added into the equation, theory and models rarely conform to reality.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 28.

Reality

“The hallmark of evolution is its ability to process situations and generate order without relying on the crutch of a conscious designer. Most complex systems grow organically, solutions evolving through unguided and mindless forces, never reaching any final state.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 338

“Various sociopolitical movements are oriented to the nostrums of ‘social justice,’ favoring entitlements for all those with economic disparity. They struggle for what is scientifically impossible: equality of outcome. They want everyone to end up with the same amount of wealth—billions of people all possessing the same numerical affluence.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 72

People , Justice , Wealth

“The problem of complexity is at the heart of mankind’s inability to predict future events with any accuracy. Complexity science has demonstrated that the more factors found within a complex system, the more chances of unpredictable behavior. And without predictability, any meaningful control is nearly impossible. Obviously, this means that you cannot control what you cannot predict. The ability ever to predict long-term events is a pipedream. Mankind has little to do with changing climate; complexity does.”

L. K. Samuels

"The Real Science Behind Changing Climate", LewRockwell.com, August 1, 2014. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/lk-samuels/the-real-science-is-suppressed/

Behavior , Problem , Science , Change

“A self–organizing system acts autonomously, as if the interconnecting components had a single mind. And as these components spontaneously march to the beat of their own drummer, they organize, adapt, and evolve toward a greater complexity than one would ever expect by just looking at the parts by themselves.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 225

Parting

“Paradoxes often arise because theory routinely refuses to be subordinate to reality.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 324

Reality

“Complexity scientists concluded that there are just too many factors—both concordant and contrarian—to understand. And with so many potential gaps in information, almost nobody can see the whole picture. Complex systems have severe limits, not only to predictability but also to measurability. Some complexity theorists argue that modelling, while useful for thinking and for studying the complexities of the world, is a particularly poor tool for predicting what will happen.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 226

World , Understanding , Thinking , Study

“Political structures are excessively paternalistic, and to maintain them requires a high level of energy. The massive amounts of energy they consume are unsustainable and invite political meltdowns, bailouts, and fallout. On the other hand, proponents of complexity theory take the paradigm–shattering view that less is more. They understand that, paradoxically enough, the complexity of simplicity is the key to the emergence of systems, repeatable patterns and the social glue that holds community together and creates order. Anyone can make simplicity complicated; it takes a true genius to make the complicated simple.”

L. K. Samuels

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 90

Communication , Understanding