Okay, I give up.
Apr. 3rd, 2003 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI'm not taking any more webquizzes that have to do with White Wolf's Mage game. I'm not. You know why? Because I know what the answer would be, if they ever got things right. They only ever seem to offer Tradition options, and I really don't think that's ever going to happen for me. When it comes right down to it, if I were a Mage in RL... I'd be Syndicate.
NB: I have not ever, and will not ever, read the Syndicate convention book. I stopped reading Convention books after CB: Void Engineers, because as far as I was concerned they simply could not improve upon it. So if the book indicates that Syndicate mages are all mafiosi, or own Lorillard, Liggett, Altria, and the like, or what have you - I don't wanna hear it. That's not appropriate to the image of the Technocracy as a world-spanning organization out to impose what they see as the grandest Marshall Plan ever for the sake of the human race... no, not in the slightest. The Syndicate might well have a number of organized crime branches, if only because such organizations do control vast tracts of economic power, but that's not where their core lies.
If you've ever played INWO, you remember the Gnomes of Zurich. That's them. Every grey suit who ever participated in the vast and sprawling systems of international finance? That's them. Every SEC agent who ever muttered over Millikan and Boesky and needing more evidence, then cheered when they got busted? That's the Syndicate. The Vatican Bank, the financial system of the Cayman Islands, Price Waterhouse Coopers - that's them. Come on, we're talking about the holders of the most powerful Mind rote ever - Full Faith and Credit.
Don't believe me? All right, find an American $20 bill. It says right on the bill that it's backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Joke about how little that's worth if you like, but if it's such a meaningless statement, why can't you set fire to that bill and let it burn to ash? Because you believe.
That's the Syndicate. They go back to Kroisos of Lydia, the legendary inventor of money in the Western world. They understand what most of the rest of the world does not: that economics is a game, a vast and dreadful and beautiful and terrible game, and that it only works so long as everyone plays by the same rules. It only works as long as everyone believes. And the measure of their power is that people do believe.
Economics as a science is terribly flawed because it wants to be a hard science. It wants to say 'look! I am based on numbers! I am quantifiable and testable!'. But it's not. Economics is a social science that happens to have more numbers than others. It's as much a measure of what people believe as what they actually ought to believe, a study of the irrational decisions that people make when they ought to be behaving according to principles. Policy, desire, and superstition each play as much of a part as the supposed economic self-interest that professors teach about. It affects and touches every aspect of a person's life, even if only at a distance. It ultimately boils down to a single premise at its very heart: people are innately selfish, and want more for themselves, unless other conditions prevail to change their priorities.
It is beautiful and terrible and it sucks men's souls out and replaces them with grey suits and power. And gods, but I love it so. How do we play the game? How do we use its premises to change our world, or the worlds of other people? Would an Economic Bill of Rights guaranteeing every American family a basic annual income covering living needs and the beginnings of extra necessary to pursue happiness be a good idea, or would it attract so many unforeseen consequences that it would collapse the tax base? How do laws passed in 1932, 1935, 1947 affect the lot of the everyday worker and the everyday employer in 2003, and what needs changing to benefit them both? Is it even possible? What laws are necessary to protect the status and voice of workers' interests at the bargaining table given that both sides have a nasty tendency to be faithless? What do people want, and what are they willing to do to get it?
*sigh*
I didn't take psychology in high school because there were things about human thought that I never wanted to understand. I wound up coming to understand those things all too well, thanks to anthropology, religion, and Model UN sessions in college. I turned aside from the Silicon Path in college because I did not want computers to dominate my life; within a year of graduation, I was sucked right back in. I've been fascinated by economics since high school, although I was too busy studying other things to really notice. But I've taken Managerial Economics as part of my master's degre, and I had macroeconomics at County College of Morris, and now I've turned in my term paper for Management and Labor Relations. I enjoyed writing that paper. I enjoyed the midterm for the class, where I argued for nearly two pages in single-spaced ten point type that an Economic Bill of Rights such as I described above could easily become a disaster if the tax base weren't worked out first. The professor gave me back the midterm covered in raving compliments, because I did such a good job of analyzing...
I want to study economics instead of running away, like I did with so many other subjects. If I don't do it of my own accord, it will catch up with me sooner or later. I just don't want to buy into the game the way so many economists and politicians do, to such a degree that they lose their souls. It's far too easy a way to lose yourself, all in the name of making world-spanning changes.
I have seen the future and it holds a grey suit and a briefcase. Syndicate represent, yo. Well, either that, or the Etherists had better consider opening up a branch for Mad Economists.
NB: I have not ever, and will not ever, read the Syndicate convention book. I stopped reading Convention books after CB: Void Engineers, because as far as I was concerned they simply could not improve upon it. So if the book indicates that Syndicate mages are all mafiosi, or own Lorillard, Liggett, Altria, and the like, or what have you - I don't wanna hear it. That's not appropriate to the image of the Technocracy as a world-spanning organization out to impose what they see as the grandest Marshall Plan ever for the sake of the human race... no, not in the slightest. The Syndicate might well have a number of organized crime branches, if only because such organizations do control vast tracts of economic power, but that's not where their core lies.
If you've ever played INWO, you remember the Gnomes of Zurich. That's them. Every grey suit who ever participated in the vast and sprawling systems of international finance? That's them. Every SEC agent who ever muttered over Millikan and Boesky and needing more evidence, then cheered when they got busted? That's the Syndicate. The Vatican Bank, the financial system of the Cayman Islands, Price Waterhouse Coopers - that's them. Come on, we're talking about the holders of the most powerful Mind rote ever - Full Faith and Credit.
Don't believe me? All right, find an American $20 bill. It says right on the bill that it's backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Joke about how little that's worth if you like, but if it's such a meaningless statement, why can't you set fire to that bill and let it burn to ash? Because you believe.
That's the Syndicate. They go back to Kroisos of Lydia, the legendary inventor of money in the Western world. They understand what most of the rest of the world does not: that economics is a game, a vast and dreadful and beautiful and terrible game, and that it only works so long as everyone plays by the same rules. It only works as long as everyone believes. And the measure of their power is that people do believe.
Economics as a science is terribly flawed because it wants to be a hard science. It wants to say 'look! I am based on numbers! I am quantifiable and testable!'. But it's not. Economics is a social science that happens to have more numbers than others. It's as much a measure of what people believe as what they actually ought to believe, a study of the irrational decisions that people make when they ought to be behaving according to principles. Policy, desire, and superstition each play as much of a part as the supposed economic self-interest that professors teach about. It affects and touches every aspect of a person's life, even if only at a distance. It ultimately boils down to a single premise at its very heart: people are innately selfish, and want more for themselves, unless other conditions prevail to change their priorities.
It is beautiful and terrible and it sucks men's souls out and replaces them with grey suits and power. And gods, but I love it so. How do we play the game? How do we use its premises to change our world, or the worlds of other people? Would an Economic Bill of Rights guaranteeing every American family a basic annual income covering living needs and the beginnings of extra necessary to pursue happiness be a good idea, or would it attract so many unforeseen consequences that it would collapse the tax base? How do laws passed in 1932, 1935, 1947 affect the lot of the everyday worker and the everyday employer in 2003, and what needs changing to benefit them both? Is it even possible? What laws are necessary to protect the status and voice of workers' interests at the bargaining table given that both sides have a nasty tendency to be faithless? What do people want, and what are they willing to do to get it?
*sigh*
I didn't take psychology in high school because there were things about human thought that I never wanted to understand. I wound up coming to understand those things all too well, thanks to anthropology, religion, and Model UN sessions in college. I turned aside from the Silicon Path in college because I did not want computers to dominate my life; within a year of graduation, I was sucked right back in. I've been fascinated by economics since high school, although I was too busy studying other things to really notice. But I've taken Managerial Economics as part of my master's degre, and I had macroeconomics at County College of Morris, and now I've turned in my term paper for Management and Labor Relations. I enjoyed writing that paper. I enjoyed the midterm for the class, where I argued for nearly two pages in single-spaced ten point type that an Economic Bill of Rights such as I described above could easily become a disaster if the tax base weren't worked out first. The professor gave me back the midterm covered in raving compliments, because I did such a good job of analyzing...
I want to study economics instead of running away, like I did with so many other subjects. If I don't do it of my own accord, it will catch up with me sooner or later. I just don't want to buy into the game the way so many economists and politicians do, to such a degree that they lose their souls. It's far too easy a way to lose yourself, all in the name of making world-spanning changes.
I have seen the future and it holds a grey suit and a briefcase. Syndicate represent, yo. Well, either that, or the Etherists had better consider opening up a branch for Mad Economists.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-04-03 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-03 11:49 am (UTC)'Well, partly for the love of a good woman and partly because they have one HELL of a health plan.'
To paraphrase Cicero... "Follow the money."