One problem and its solution

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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‘‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’’

This is a rather well known poem by W.B. Yeats…
the first paragraph anyway… and the question is why,
why can’t the center hold? What does that even mean?

this is a physics problem which is also a human being
problem… and the entire point revolves around what keeps
the center intact? Energy… pure and simple…
when the center no longer holds, that is entropy…

ENTROPY: Entropy is a scientific concept that refers to
a measure of disorder or randomness within a system…
essential signifying the tendency for things to naturally
move toward a state of greater disorganization over time…

Old age is simply entropy within the human body…
the human body naturally becomes disordered or random
as we grow older… death by old age is simply
the point where entropy has won the battle…
too much disorder within the body, and eventually, the body dies…

if there were one aspect of old age that is universal, that is
the loss of energy as we age… I am 65… and I feel that
loss of energy every single day… and at some point,
the disorder will win over order, and I will die…

and this increase in disorder happens to all systems…
but don’t get fooled by what is energy within various
systems… energy is not only energy, but time, effort
and materials… as a car ages, entropy works its magic
on the car… when we first buy a car, we have little to no
work done on that car… it isn’t necessary… but as the
car ages, things become ‘‘disordered’’ and slowly
parts begin to age, which is entropy… and at some point,
we have to begin to replace car parts, renew that energy
that part brought to the car… as the car ages, it takes
longer and more money and more energy, to repair that car…
that is the nature of all systems… we can extend the time that
car can function, but eventually, there is a point of no return where
the energy and time/money to repair a car is no longer worth it…

and this is true of all systems… which brings us to our political
system… as it ages, it takes more energy, time, and effort to
keep a system going and that is equally true of any political
or governmental system…

but let us look at the GOP/MAGA solution to government…
which is take away energy, time and effort from the government…
which is just another way of killing the institutions of government
before their time… which according to conservatives is the point…
recall Grover Norquist, who has said this;

"I’m not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to
shrink it down the size where we can drown it in the bathtub’’

this approach, which is to remove the energy from the government,
is to, in fact to abolish the government… now energy here refers
to money… which is just another form of energy… as is time
and effort…and we know from Hobbes any attempt to
abolish the government has the effect of bringing about
a ‘‘state of nature’’… to bring about the war of all against all…
where only the strong have any rights or as Hobbes himself
wrote that life is ‘‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’’
remove the government and we return to a ‘‘state of nature’’
and that comes from removing energy/money from the
institutions/governmental system…

one of my adaptations to the Kantian questions is this:
what are we to spend our energy on? Not just ''What am I
to do?" but on what should we/I spend my time/energy on, in life?

I hold that removing energy from institutions, governmental
institutions damage us in ways we can’t even foresee…
that our very way of life is damaged and if enough institutions
are damaged, the government itself will fall…

are you ready for that? what energy are you prepared to bring
back into the government to save it from entropy?

Kropotkin

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I can hear certain people around here saying, yes, everyone
knows this, what is your point? the point is that part of
the equation of being human, of making decisions and acting
upon those decisions, must take into account the impact
of energy upon what we are acting upon…both collectively
and individually…

collectively, we must think of the impact of the loss of energy
within the system… so, what does the impact of war have
on our political/institutions/governmental systems?
Wars are a negative impact on systems given how much
energy they take… for example, if you are taking energy/money
from social agencies to fund wars, you are damaging
our domestic life… money spent renewing people lives
get paid back by their use of energy… in other words, if we
raise a family out of poverty, they contribute back in taxes
and energy spent on the state…if we spend that same money on
war, materials for example, we will have wasted that energy/time
because it can’t be replaced with other energy… buying a gun,
has no other value and it can’t create energy… whereas spending
money on people has value because that brings people into
spending time, money and effort back into the state/society…
bringing people out of poverty creates more effort, money and energy
in the end… much more than the costs of war creates…

that gives us some idea of the course of actions, we should be
taking… not feeding the industrial-military complex, but
in helping people overcoming poverty or low income brings
back way more money and energy into the system we have…
it becomes far more beneficial to help people than to wage war…
as Putin is learning in the Ukraine… that war has bankrupt Russia…
removed energy and effort into the system Russia has… and taken
that energy and effort in the war in the Ukraine… where it is wasted…

we can see firsthand how the misuse of energy can bring about
failures on a very large scale… to be successful, we must
use our resources, energy, time, money and effort on
things that will increase effort and energy, not decrease it…

wars decrease time and energy, social programs increase energy
and effort…

Kropotkin

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Each dollar of initial spending on Medicaid expansion for children yielded $1.78 in future tax revenue and savings on government transfer programs.
Which government programs provide the most benefits per dollar spent? Nathaniel Hendren and Ben Sprung-Keyser examine 133 historical policy changes in the United States over the past half century to explore this question. In A Unified Welfare Analysis of Government Policies (NBER Working Paper No. 26144), they analyze policies spanning health and disability insurance, education and job training programs, taxes and cash transfers, and in-kind transfers such as housing vouchers and food stamps. Their analysis shows that direct investments in the health and education of low-income children yield particularly high returns.

The researchers draw upon a wide body of existing research to estimate the benefits each policy provides to its recipients and the net costs of the policy to the government. For the benefits, they sum a number of benefits, the largest of which is the present discounted value of the change in beneficiaries’ future income as a result of program participation. For the costs, they measure the present discounted value of the program’s current and future costs to the government, including any effects on tax revenues and government benefits. The ratio of a policy’s benefits to its net governmental cost forms what they call the Marginal Value of Public Funds (MVPF). The MVPF measures the benefits per net dollar spent by the government.

The figure plots the MVPF ratio for a variety of policies, arrayed by the age of each policy’s beneficiaries. The clustering of estimates in the upper left reveals that direct investments in children have historically had the highest ratio of benefits to net government cost. Expansions of health insurance to children, investments in preschool and K-12 education, and policies increasing college attainment all yield high returns.

The estimated MVPF is generally high for policies targeting children, regardless of their age. This finding challenges the notion that opportunities for high-return investments in children decline rapidly with age.

In some cases, the researchers found that the policies did not actually cost the government any money in the long run. This is the case for spending on early childhood health intervention, which reduced subsequent Medicaid-financed health care needs and raised future earnings and taxes. In present discounted value terms, spending money on this program improved long-run government finances. In the case of four major Medicaid expansions studied in previous literature, the researchers estimate that each dollar of initial spending was fully repaid and that the policy returned an additional 78 cents to the government. This means the policy has a higher return than other policies with positive costs. The researchers represent this as an infinite MVPF, shown at the top of the figure.

Another example of a policy that did not cost the government money in the long run is government spending on public universities. Using evidence from Florida, estimates suggest that raising enrollment in public colleges pays for itself over the long run through increased tax revenue and reduced transfer payments.

For policies that target adult beneficiaries, the researchers generally find lower MVPF ratios than for programs targeting children, but often benefits are approximately equal to costs. For example, for health insurance expansions to adults the researchers find MVPF ratios of 0.8 to 1.6. This means that every dollar of net government spending delivers 80 cents to $1.60 of benefits. There is a wide range — from 0.1 to 1.2 — for tax credits and cash welfare programs for low-income adults. Many of these policies were associated with lower earnings for beneficiaries, and a thus a decline in government revenue. There is some heterogeneity across specific policies, and some policies targeting adults have higher MVPF ratios, particularly if they generate spill-over benefits for children. A complete summary of the estimated MVPF ratios by program may be found at www.policyinsights.org.

K: to bolster my point

Kropotkin

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This passage comes from The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats, a poem written in 1919, in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution. The lines express a deep anxiety about societal collapse and chaos, reflecting Yeats’ sense of a world spiraling out of control. Here’s a breakdown:

  • “Turning and turning in the widening gyre”: The image of a gyre (a spiraling, widening motion) suggests that events are spinning further and further from a stable center. Yeats believed in cyclical patterns of history, and the gyre symbolizes a civilization in decline, moving away from order.
  • “The falcon cannot hear the falconer”: The falcon and falconer symbolize control and guidance. As the falcon flies higher and farther away, it loses touch with its master, symbolizing the growing disconnection between society and its guiding principles, or people losing control of the forces they’ve unleashed.
  • “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”: This line encapsulates the idea that social, political, or moral order is disintegrating. The “centre” that should provide stability no longer holds, leading to chaos.
  • “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”: The collapse of order unleashes widespread chaos, suggesting an overwhelming sense of societal breakdown.
  • “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned”: Violence and destruction (symbolized by a tide of blood) overwhelm innocence, suggesting the loss of moral and ethical standards amid widespread conflict.
  • “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity”: This contrast highlights Yeats’ fear that those who are capable of good or who should lead are passive or paralyzed, while those driven by destructive or immoral ideals are fervent and forceful, pushing the world into turmoil.

In essence, Yeats is commenting on the sense of impending catastrophe that comes when the structures holding society together—moral, spiritual, or political—begin to fail. It reflects a world in crisis, where chaos and the forces of destruction seem to be winning over reason and goodness.

You could use this poem to describe the chaos we are experiencing now. But is anarchy the solution? The poem goes on to propose a hope that the second coming could relieve us of these problems. But, again, this has always been evoked to no avail.

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And, in the context of PK’s positions, it should be noted that Yeats had issues with the Enlightenment. He was spiritual, even pagan, while respecting the moral traditions from Christianity. He attributed the collapse in large part to the de-enchanting of the world, the loss of spirituality and the break from trational Abrahamic morals. In other words, he seriously disagrees with some of PK’s ideas: such as spirituality and religon be animal traits - and in a pejorative sense, no less .

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That is a valid point, although I also lament the de-enchantment of the world, the magic that enthuses children, the awe, and the intimation of a sacred “what-ever-is.”

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I did get the impression from somewhere that you did.

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Wow ! @Bob wonderful summation of poetry, so good !
When you read this poem, your interpretation of it the much beaten statesman “ yeats is so much relevant to present times “ comes to full life