Technos & Social Philosophy: Robotics: EATR

I just had to link to this quick tech announcement that my brother found about self sustaining robots. Now when we can program them to repair themselves, we'll have some interesting times (click on the play button below blip.fm).

W: LP: LG: VH: LM: part 3c

As Victor Hugo introduces us to the character of Javert, a narrative is given of how Jean Valjean, under the name Madeleine, had used his shorted back pay from the nineteen years servitude and the silver from the Bishop of Digne to capitalize a business venture in the town of Montreuil-sur-mer. I want to quote a few excerpts here because, though it is fiction, it illustrates perfectly what Adam Smith wrote about that if government does not interfere with true free enterprise, someone with a little capital and a good idea can create wealth (putting the lie to the idea that wealth is only a static pie that only so many slices can be cut from). Here is the passage from book five of the first of five parts of the book, Les Misérables:

From time immemorial the particular occupation of the inhabitants of Montreuil-sur-mer had been the imitation of English jet beads and German black glass trinkets. The industry had always been slow because of the high price of the raw material. At the time of Fantine’s return to Montreuil-sur-mer a complete transformation had been carried out in the production of these “black goods.” Toward the end of 1815, an unknown man had come to settle in the city and had conceived the idea of substituting shellac for resin in the manufacturing process; and for bracelets, in particular, he made the clasps by simply bending the ends of the metal together instead of soldering them.
This minor change had caused a revolution. It had in fact reduced the price of the raw material enormously, and this had made it possible, first, to raise wages of the workers—a benefit to the district; secondly, to improve the quality of the goods—an advantage for the consumer; and third, to sell them at a lower price even while making three times the profit—a gain for the manufacturer.
Thus we have three results from one idea.
In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, which was good, and had made all those around him rich, which was better. He was a stranger in the region. Nothing was known about where he came from and little about his early history.
The story went that he came to the city with very little money, a few hundred francs at most.
From this slender capital, under the inspiration of an ingenious idea, made productive by order and attention, he had extracted a fortune for himself and a fortune for the whole region.

Thanks to the rapid progress of this industry, which he had so successfully recast, Montreuil-sur-mer had become a good-sized business center. Huge purchases were made there every year for the Spanish markets, where there is a large demand for jet work, and Montreuil-sur-mer, in this branch of trade, almost competed with London and Berlin. The profits…were so great that by the end of the second year he was able to build a large factory, in which there were two immense workshops, one for men and the other for women: Anyone in need could go there and be sure of finding work and wages.

All in all his coming had been a blessing and his presence was a providence. [Before his arrival], the whole region was stagnant; now it was all alive with the healthy strength of labor. An active circulation stimulated everything and penetrated everywhere. Unemployment and misery were unknown. There was no pocket so dark that it did not contain a little money and no dwelling so poor that it did not contain some joy.

Jean Valjean goes on to use the profits he has earned from his successful business to endow some beds in a hospital and finance several charities. It was a win-win situation because the product was improved and made less expensive benefiting the consumer, the workers had jobs at reasonable rates of pay, and the entrepreneur gained profits from an investment of his capital (with the a long-term view about investing instead of the short-term profit motive of your typical American capitalist).

W: LP: LG: VH: LM: part 3b

In the nineteenth century, the idea that one's personality could be somewhat determined from an analysis of one's physiognomy. Look for this element in this description of the character of Javert who is the personification of Law without mercy:

The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear that on growing up it would devour the other little ones.
Give a human face to this wolf's son and you will have Javert.
Javert was born in prison. His mother was a fortune-teller whose husband was in the galleys. He grew up thinking himself outside of society, and despaired of ever entering it. He noticed that society irrevocably closes its doors on two classes of men, those who attack it and those who guard it; he could choose between these two classes only; at the same time he felt that he had a powerful foundation of rectitude, order, and honesty based on an irrepressible hatred for that gypsy race to which he belonged. He entered the police. He succeeded. At forty he was an inspector.
In his youth he had been stationed with the work gangs in the South.
Before going further, let us describe Javert's human face.
It consisted of a snub nose, with two deep nostrils, bordered by large, bushy sideburns covering both his cheeks. One felt ill at ease on first seeing those two forests and those two caverns. When Javert laughed, which was rarely and terribly, his thin lips parted, showing not only his teeth, but his gums; a cleft as broad and wild as on the muzzle of a fallow deer formed around his nose. When serious, Javert was a bulldog; when he laughed, he was a tiger. Beyond that, a small head, large jaws, hair hiding the forehead and falling over the eyebrows, between the eyes a permanent central crease like an angry star, a gloomy look, a pinched and ferocious mouth, and an air of fierce command.
This man was a compound of two sentiments, simple and good in themselves, but he made them almost evil by his exaggeration of them: respect for authority and hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes theft, murder, all crimes were merely forms of rebellion. In his strong and implicit faith he included everyone with a function in the state, from the prime minister to the constable. He had nothing but disdain, aversion, and disgust for all who had once overstepped the bounds of the law. He was absolute, admitting no exceptions. On the one hand he would say, "A public official cannot be deceived; a magistrate is never wrong!" And on the other, "They are irremediably lost; no good can come of them." He fully shared the opinion of those extremists who attribute to human laws an indescribable power of making, or, if you will, of determining, demons, and who place a Styx at the bottom of society. He was stoical, serious, austere: a dreamer of stern dreams; humble and haughty, like all fanatics. His stare was cold and piercing as a gimlet. His whole life was contained in two words: waking, watching. He marked out a straight path through all that is most tortuous in the world; his conscience was bound up in his usefulness, his religion in his duties; and he was a spy as others are priests. Woe to any who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father if he escaped from prison and turned in his own mother for breaking parole. And he would have done it with that sort of interior satisfaction that springs from virtue. His life was one of privations, isolation, self-denial, and chastity--never any amusement. It was implacable duty, the police as central to him as Sparta to the Spartans; a pitiless detective, fiercely honest, a marble-hearted informer, Brutus united with Vidocq.
Javert's whole being expressed the spy and the sneak. The mystic school of Joseph de Maistre, which at that time enlivened what were known to be ultraconservative journals with pretentious cosmogonies, would have said that Javert was a symbol. You could not see his forehead, which disappeared under his hat; you could not see his eyes, which were lost under his brows; you could not see his hands drawn up into his sleeves, you could not see his cane carried under his coat. But when the time came, all at once would spring from this shadow, as from an ambush, a steep and narrow forehead, an ominous look, a threatening chin, enormous hands, and a monstrous club.
In his leisure moments, which were rare, although he hated books, he would read; so he was not entirely illiterate. This was also perceptible in a certain pomposity in his speech.
He was free from vice, as we have said. When he was satisfied with himself, he allowed himself a pinch of snuff. That proved he was human.
It will be readily understood that Javert was the terror of the whole class which the annual statistics of the Minister of Justice include under the heading "Persons without a fixed abode." To speak the name of Javert would put them to flight; the sight of Javert's face petrified them.
Such was this intimidating man.

This the description of the character of Javert; in the next entry for this novel that I am examining, I want to describe what Jean Valjean had done for the community of Montreuil-sur-mer. (Stay tuned...)

Picture of preamble of US Constitution

Edit (Here is the text of the preamble.):

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Note: this was written before standardization of spelling for English and before Americanized spelling for the version of English that we speak and write.

Lord's Day

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine;
Vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine,
Cujus latus perforatum fluxit unda et sanguine.
Esto nobis praegustatum mortis in examine.
O Jesu dulcis, O Jesu pie,
Jesu fili Mariae, in nobis miserere.
Amen.



Hail true body born of the Virgin Mary;
Truly suffered, sacrificed on the cross for man,
Whose pierced side flowed with blood and water.
Be to us food in the trial of death.
O sweet Jesus, O holy Jesus,
Jesus, son of Mary, be merciful to us.
Amen.