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Dustin86

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Everything posted by Dustin86

  1. At this point in the debate, I would say: 'I am actually one of the few conservatives who does not believe in American Exceptionalism. Too many of us in this country believe that there is something 'magical' about it that somehow negates the laws of economics and mathematics that exist everywhere else in the world. I hate to be the killjoy here, but this 'magic' does not exist. There are at least 20 countries in which "command-economy" socialism has failed and at least 6 in which "democratic socialism" has failed or is failing (most notably Greece and Venezuela). If adopted here, it will fail as well. Democratic socialism's "success stories" have all been located in natural resource states that effectively "live off" natural resource exports such as Norway (oil), Denmark (gas), Canada (oil), and Australia (minerals), and even being a natural resource state is no guarantor of the success of socialism, witness Venezuela. We are too large, populationwise, to live off the sale of natural resources to other countries, and we wouldn't want to anyway, because such an economy breeds all sorts of corruption.'
  2. I read this article in the news a while back, it is written by a poor person on the subject of why poor people make bad financial decisions. Ever since reading this article, I have been very, very curious to hear the Objectivist response to it. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-poverty-hand-to-mouth-extract
  3. At that point I would say that in the USSR even after Stalin died, although the quantity of horrible abuses went down, the "quality" (so-to-speak) never changed: people were still taken out of their homes in the middle of the night and shipped to Siberia for "political crimes", people were still executed for political dissidence, etc. I would then say that the 2008 bailout, which provided golden parachutes to all those failed corporations, although it was approved by majorities in both parties, was approved by a far larger majority of democrats than republicans, while the vast majority of the people who voted "no" being "small government" republicans such as Bob Barr and Ron Paul. I would say that every effort to inject more socialism into the economy has brought about an *increase*, not a decrease, of cronyism and golden parachutes for politically connected corporations and their executives. I would then bring up the failure of "democratic socialism" (which has been touted by socialists as "the better alternative" since the failure of the USSR), in places like Greece and Venezuela, where people now cannot get cooking oil, cannot get toilet paper, etc.
  4. Yes, from things like "A is A" and the Law of Causality. No, I honestly don't. It seemed to me that Objectivism somehow did claim to derive the Objectivist form of government from things like "A is A" and the Law of Causality. Otherwise I think it's odd why they would be mentioned over and over again in Atlas Shrugged, which dealt with Objectivism vs "Subjectivism" in government. Now you guys are saying that's not true. Ok, fine. Look, I think what you guys are asking for is intellectual honesty, like when Craig admonished Senator Reid's intellectual dishonesty in claiming that income tax is "voluntary". Would that be accurate?
  5. Craig, that's not quite what I asked for. That is a politician being weasely about the definition of "voluntary". That doesn't tell me how "A is A" leads to what Objectivism has to say about government.
  6. Sorry, but I still don't understand how "A is A" and the Law of Causality lead to what Objectivism has to say about government. Could you please go over again specifically how "A is A" and the Law of Causality lead to what Objectivism has to say about government.
  7. What I'm really wondering is whether Objectivism is a philosophical school of thought or a political movement or both. I agree with Objectivists that government should not be a behemoth, should not eat up 40-50% or more of GDP, should not provide universal health care, should not provide a cradle to grave welfare state. What puzzles me is that Objectivists claim to arrive at these conclusions about government from things like "A is A", the Law of Causality, etc. And people like Yaron Brook, who is the head of the Ayn Rand Institute, say that it is important not just to understand Objectivist conclusions about government, but how Objectivists use Objectivist philosophy to arrive at those conclusions. That is what I truly do not understand. I arrive at those conclusions by looking at what has happened every time socialism has been tried. The horrors of the genocides, famines, and red terrors of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The failure of so-called "democratic socialism" in places like Greece and Venezuela, where now people can't even get toilet paper. Etc.
  8. What is Subjectivism? Do Objectivists think that most people are Subjectivists? Is it possible to be neither an Objectivist nor a Subjectivist?
  9. ^Nicky, that's something different. You're conflating the question of the truth or falsehood of religion with the truth or falsehood of it being "possible for an individual to gain objective knowledge derived solely from the evidence of the senses", which is what New Buddha had said. I think you and other Objectivists are perhaps confusing those who affirm the existence of things not sensible with those who deny the existence of the material world as perceived by the senses. New Buddha, whom I responded to, was talking about the second group, whereas you are talking about the first group. The first group has no shortage of people: New Agers, Hippie Indigo Children, all that crowd, whereas of the second I personally only ever knew one person, and even he did not flatly deny the existence of the material world as perceived by the senses, he only said that there was a small probability that it may not exist. Like I said, even that was enough to prompt the professor to often spend half the class period arguing with him at the expense of the proper class agenda.
  10. Huh? Objectivists believe that "'most if not all non-Objectivists' deny that it is possible for an individual to gain objective knowledge derived solely from the evidence of the senses."??? Huh?? During my years of philosophy study at college, I ran into only one person who was of this opinion, and he was not a professor, he was a student. And the professor, far from "welcoming" this opinion, spent an inordinate amount of time, like half the class period many times, trying to divest him of this notion.
  11. StrictlyLogical, you cite Hegel as someone who did not believe that things are themselves, well most people don't even know who Hegel is, and even when it comes to most educated people (outside Philosophy), they might know Hegel's name, but they know nothing about what he believed. As for philosophy professors: I majored in math and philosophy as an undergraduate, and none of my philosophy professors throughout the four years of those studies denied that "A is A". So really I'm still wondering why Objectivists seem to think that most if not all non-Objectivists deny that "A is A".
  12. Nobody, not even the most ardent communist, denies that "A is A" or denies that a thing is itself. It's a stupid little theorem that truly impacts nobody's life. Unless you are a professional academician in math or a related field, which very few people are, it does not impact your life at all. Also, Aristotle did not invent the notion that "a thing is itself". Do Objectivists seriously think that every single human being before Aristotle thought that things weren't themselves? Even the claim that Aristotle was the first person to formally formulate this (as "A is A") is extremely dubious, given that most works from that time period and earlier did not survive to the present.
  13. Thank you everyone for your posts. Dante, I don't dispute what you've said about how all the truly evil governments (outside of insignificant tinpots like North Korea) no longer exist. However, that begs the question even more. None of the resistence to these governments took the form laid out in Atlas Shrugged. The "Atlases" living in these states never disappeared to hidden Objectivist valleys. At most, they hopped the Iron Curtain border to the West. Also, when Communism finally fell in formerly Communist societies, none of them became Objectivist societies. They along with the rest of the world are instead living in that "middle ground" between Objectivism and "Subjectivism", that "middle ground between extremes" which Rand so despised. So my question becomes: Was the Nazi/Communist Era the missed opportunity for an Objectivist society to come about? Are we now at an "End of History" (at least as far as Objectivism is concerned) which will never see an Objectivist society happen?
  14. **Warning: Potential Atlas Shrugged Spoilers Ahead** Note: The original title of this thread was If Objectivism Is So Desirable to the World's "Atlases", Why Hasn't it Happened? but it was truncated by the system. The whole premise of Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" is that the producing "Atlases" finally get tired of the taxes and regulations passed by the "looter parasites" and leave the "looter society" in order to create their own society in "Galt's Gulch", a hidden valley protected from the "looters and moochers" by a high-tech "ray screen". This scenario sounds like it makes sense on paper, but when you consider that it has never happened, it calls not only itself, but all of Objectivism, into serious doubt. Firstly, you would not even need any high-tech "ray screen" to create a "Galt's Gulch". There are roughly 190 countries in the world as of now. Surely some Objectivist billionaires who feel they're being oppressed by too many regulations and taxes could pool their money to simply purchase sovereignty over a small area from one of these 190 potential sellers, making the world's 191st country the first Objectivist country. Even if no-one is willing to sell, couldn't these Objectivist billionaires simply build a "Sealand"-style artificial platform in the middle of the ocean, indeed even much bigger than Sealand, to create an Objectivist country? Why hasn't this happened? Secondly, I have never actually heard of a wealthy "Atlas" who has succeeded in the current "Subjectivist" society "going Galt" even on a strictly individual basis. On the contrary, all those who have actually "gone Galt" have been people whom Objectivists would consider highly Subjectivist: Hippies, monks, people who quit the money system, etc. So why are the biggest Subjectivists leaving, if they are the ones benefitting the most and it is the biggest Objectivists who are truly the most oppressed?
  15. *** Atlas Shrugged Spoilers ahead *** (added by sN) Note: The title of this thread was meant to be "Wouldn't John Galt Put Ellis Wyatt Out of Business? What Happens to the Jobless in an Objectivist Society?", but it was truncated by the system. Let me first preface this by saying that I think John Galt's motor, which uses no power source other than "atmospheric static electricity", is a scientific impossibility. However, if the possibility is entertained, John Galt would quickly drive Ellis Wyatt out of business. This is because if people could simply put one of John Galt's motors in their cars and trucks, who would ever pay for gas again? Nobody. They wouldn't need it. Ellis Wyatt, being the shale oil magnate of Galt's Gulch Valley (a hidden location in Atlas Shrugged where the "producers" all moved to escape the "looter" society), would obviously be the loser here. Now, Objectivists may reply that Wyatt's shale oil business would still survive, albeit on a smaller scale, since people also need plastics and petrochemicals, which come from oil. However, what if Ken Dagganer (who also lives in the Valley) were able to produce synthetic oil from coal at a cheaper price than Wyatt was able to produce shale oil, and Dagganer was able to produce enough of it to fulfill the Valley's needs for plastics and other petrochemicals without seriously eating into the coal he had to produce for other purposes. (In reality, vastly less oil goes into producing plastics and petrochemicals than into our cars and trucks.) Ellis Wyatt, now out of business, would have to hunt for a job. However, what if Wyatt found that there were simply no job openings in the Valley. Ellis Wyatt would find himself a jobless man inside an Objectivist society. It seems his only realistic choice would then be to leave the Valley and rejoin the "Subjectivist" society outside.
  16. The biggest problem with Objectivism is that there is only so much oil, only so much natural gas, only so much lithium, only so many rare earth metals, etc. in the Earth's crust. And even as new resources are discovered, these are almost always more difficult and expensive to extract than the old ones that just got extracted and used. Economically, what this finite resource reality means is that for every Hank Rearden who "makes it", there are many more who are just as talented and just as hardworking who are just barely hanging on, and still more who are completely unemployed, because there simply are not enough resources (oil, natural gas, lithium, rare earths, etc.) for the world's 7.2 billion people to live the lifestyle of a middle-class American, let alone a Hank Rearden, no matter how smart, talented, and hardworking they are. (By the way, this is fundamentally why so many Americans have gotten dumped out of the middle class since 2008.) This is why I find Hank's callous attitude toward the underprivileged (p. 42, Atlas Shrugged) quite disturbing. Rand tries to defend this attitude in terms of meritocracy when really it can't be. Eventually what will happen is that industrial society will wholly cease to exist as the remaining resources will be too difficult to extract by any reasonable method. I know not whether this will happen in my lifetime, my children's lifetime, or many centuries hence, but happen it will.
  17. In 1944, when The Fountainhead was published, the world was locked in a bloody battle between the forces of fascism, communism, and the "free world". In 1957, when Atlas Shrugged was published, Stalin had taken almost all of Eastern Europe and significant parts of Central Europe for Communism just 12 years prior, and Mao Tse-Tung had taken all of China, the world's most populous nation, for Communism just 8 years prior. Today, fascism is no longer in power anywhere in the world, and communism is only in power in a couple of tinpot rogue states that no-one cares about. Also, there is no government of any country (with the possible exception of the tinpot rogue states) that is proposing anything resembling Directive 10-289, or even anything resembling the much "milder" Equalization of Opportunity Law. In a very real way, Atlas Shrugged's prophecy about "People's States" came true. Of the many reasons given for the Fall of Communism, the Chernobyl disaster is by far the most convincing one. This disaster parallels those which happened in the latter half of Atlas (such as the Taggart Tunnel disaster) in that it was caused essentially by communist party good old boys, their inept appointees, and indeed also Stadler-like scientists (i.e., Comrade Dyatlov) who knew better, but who wanted to curry favor with the Party by doing the tests fast rather than doing them safely and well. That disaster spoiled, and continues to spoil, some of the best farmland of Ukraine and Belarus, and it will not be usable again for thousands of years. it was not a hit the Soviet Union could take again, so they knew they had to reform. When reform to such a system proved impossible, Soviet Communism simply fell apart. Ok, so maybe the end result wasn't quite what Objectivists wanted. The world, even the ex-communist world, did not become Objectivist. Rather, it now seems to be in that "middle ground" between total free market capitalism and collective ownership of the economy. In light of that, is Objectivism still relevant today, or is it only a movement that belonged to a particular time in history reacting to particular horrific realities such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Maoist China.
  18. Dante, I still do not understand why Dr. Stadler was worse than the others. He did not know what Project X was for the vast majority of the book. The fact that his sound equation was used in its design cannot in and of itself mean that he was responsible. (This would be like arguing, as some liberals do, that gun manufacturers bear personal moral responsibility for every crime committed with their guns.) His responsibility for Project X, rather, lies in creating the venue that hosted its development, namely the State Science Institute. For that he does bear moral responsibility, I get that. However, I still do not understand why Stadler's moral responsibility is greater than those who designed and built the device, or he who wielded its power, namely Mr. Thompson, or he who actually activated the device, namely Cuffy Meigs.
  19. One thing that really disappointed me about Atlas Shrugged was Dr. Robert Stadler's 1 1/2 page incoherent rant to John Galt (pp. 1117-1119) containing such hysterical lines as "Don't look at me, God damn you! I'm not afraid of you any longer!" and "Oh yes, you're going to be killed! You won't win! You can't be allowed to win! You are the man who has to be destroyed!". It seemed totally out of character of this prim and genteel professor; what I expected was a real discussion between Stadler and Galt with arguments, counterarguments, and a real debate between the two views. I don't know why that didn't happen and instead we got this completely out-of-place hysterical rant. Frankly, I think the reason is that Rand didn't have a real argument as to why we should see Stadler as "guiltier" than other villans such as James Taggart and Cuffy Meigs. He is certainly in no way guiltier than those who held real political power during the situation, such as Mr. Thompson and Wesley Mouch. The one argument I have heard from objectivists (and Rand herself, on p. 1066) trying to establish Stadler's greater guilt is that he had the intelligence to "know better". I do not accept this argument, as even a fool should have known that the ridiculous laws they were passing (Directive 10-289, for instance) could only make things far worse (e.g., by forbidding anyone from inventing anything new, from writing any new books, etc.). Please don't think I am defending Stadler; he was a coward and really no better than the others, but I cannot understand how he was somehow worse than the others. I certainly cannot see how he was worse than those who wielded real political power during the novel.
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