Tabernac

This is influenced by my experience in the North American mining industry with regards to Chinese state investment. An extreme scenario for sure, but theoretically possible? Imagine Country A has a strong, booming economy, an internationalist culture and a totally free market. Country B has a planned economy and a clandestine desire for empire-building. State-owned businesses and agencies from Country B start to buy out companies, and buy shares in companies, in Country A. Eventually these state agencies from B are in control of A's largest companies, and have considerable influence over the workings of the economy in A. B's dealings in A have always had a nationalistic undertone, and B now works to lower productivity and gradually shut down A's economy to reduce A's economic competition with B, so that B can reign supreme on the world stage. A's economy is manipulated in such a way so that upstart competition is made extremely difficult, so that B's control is secured. B's ultimate aim might be to eventually destroy A. Is there any defence against this from a totally free-market perspective? Or does it even really matter?

Can't believe I didn't mention O'Brian myself, considering I'm reading the Mauritius Command now! Maturin is one of my favourite literary characters - a scholar of anything and everything - there could be no better role model in life. Maturin does seem to have some concern for individual freedom - he has a few bust-ups with Aubrey over the order, control and punishment he witnesses in the Navy, etc.

Not any kind of philosophical work, but inspiration fiction: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. An ode to pioneering spirits, ingenuity and innnovation, and the fight against oppression. And it's sci-fi, so win-win for me!

What would happen re animal intelligence? The other apes, as well as some cetaceans, birds and even cephalopods display varying amounts of intelligence - should they be given any rights on this basis? What would happen if it was ever proven that an animal possessed intelligence approaching that of humans?

Am I an Objectivist? Don't know. I am a scientist though, and someone who thinks critically about everything. I'm also pretty successful in life which has entirely been my own doing. It was my own motivation that led me to learn English. Naturally I strongly admire other "self-made men" and to a large extent don't blame them when they object to the idea that they should support people who show no interest in achieving anything. I guess you're poking towards the idea that those who display Objectivist-style self-entitlement are not actually self-made men. True in some cases no doubt, but not so in many others that I know of.

Apparently he opposes abortion - even in incest and rape cases. Screw this primitive!

on that note... here's an article about possible pioneering private ventures aimed at Mars colonisation. Quite an uplifting article. PROGRESS! http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/12/reality-tv-humans-on-mars-earth

Interesting thread. But, nuking?! How about targeted assassination of key leading figures? In oppressive states, huge amounts of power rest on the shoulders of a very small number of people. The middle-ranking agents of oppression only engage in oppression out of fear of retribution from those at the top. Take them out and the system would collapse.

Amazing book, and one that I agree with 110%. I really hope humanity gets its act together and starts to colonise space within my lifetime. Or, at least, I hope we start to harvest space resources e.g. asteroid mining. The future! Not sure that communism, in its original form, saw humanity as vermin. Didn't it see humans as heroic, but valued them en masse more than as individuals? Marx certainly had a low opinion of Malthus for precisely the same reasons as this book lays out. Of course, communist states in practice did end up seeing humans as vermin. I've heard arguments that the Indian and Irish famines could have been averted, but instead were left to run their course to avoid "interfering with the market"... I've heard some say that limiting reproduction would preserve individual freedoms. Fewer people = more land per person, etc.

Is there anything fundamentally wrong with that standpoint, though? If an artform brings a person joy isn't that all that matters? The original meaning or purpose that the creator of that art intended it to have shouldn't be relevant to the uses the consumer puts it to.

I'd say they're definitely an obstacle to rationality - and in that I'd include lust for money or material gain. Are you trying to acquire items out of a rational desire or out of lust? Will it actually improve your happiness or lead to innovation - or will it just satisfy your irrational lust? I can see it being very possible that some of the more wealthy proponents of objectivism support the philosophy not out of rationality, but merely because they consider it to be a justification for their irrational lust. Perhaps the way to tell is by seeing whether or not those people are innovative and productive.

Excellent news from my point of view... That was one of my main concerns with objectivism - that it shunned collective/grassroots efforts, etc. Apologies if that seems like a stupid assumption - that's just how objectivism was explained to me, by someone who purports to be an objectivist - and being in such a remote location at the moment hinders any efforts of mine to actually read objectivist literature for the time being...

If secession were totally about the generic claim to states' rights, as opposed to the specific claim to states' rights to enslave people, then yep, 100% justified. What the actual motivation was, that's another matter...

Apologies... I'm extremely short on time at the moment so sorry if my posts seem a bit rushed! And likewise apologies for any ignorance. I'd love to have some long, enlightening discussions with people here, but I honestly don't have the time at the moment (or a decent internet connection) I'm afraid :-( I'm assuming you'd agree that notions of membership of a society/community being mutually beneficial to its members are inherently "collectivist", am I right? I guess my intended question was, is collectivism seen as inherently bad, or only bad if it's enforced?

I would love to go to this!

Interesting points - but my concern is with the way the market is simplified to mathematical fundamentals - and yet it is clearly more complex than that, and includes all sorts of human actions and emotions. For example: if there was a resource that humanity depended on for a huge number of uses, which was being exploited by a company or group of companies, and this resource was fast approaching depletion - who knows how the heads of the companies would act? Even if they're aware of the state of the resource, who's to say they wouldn't continue with exploitation until the resource was totally depleted, to serve their own self-interest and continue their own profit-making until the last minute, without telling wider society the facts regarding the state of the resource. In doing so they would enrich themselves but the final depletion would cause large-scale inconveniences to huge numbers of people. And by "inconveniences" I mean not just price rises but significant degradation to the functionality of infrastructure, transport etc. Is this a scenario that should actively be avoided, or is it just something people would have to adapt to if it happens? You could say that in disrupting their energy supply service the companies have violated rights or contracts, but legal protection might not be of much practical use in such a situation of breakdown. Perhaps it's an irrational fear, but it's still a possible scenario. Oh I know that - fossil fuels aren't really the object of anyone's desires themselves (except to us geologists!) and alternatives may one day become economical. I just hope that should a major switch ever become economically necessary, there is enough time for the massive technological changeover to occur without disruption to human endeavours.

Have you read Climbing Mount Improbable by Dawkins? In it he discusses the concept of a fitness landscape - whereby evolution can develop a trait to its maximum functionality, but that maximum level is limited by the fundamentals of the trait. E.g. some arthropods have eyes that are about as good as arthropod eyes can possibly get, but are still crappy in comparison to vertebrate eyes due to the fundamentals of their makeup (i.e. they have climbed a peak on the fitness landscape, but not the highest peak possible). Likewise perhaps you could get a company with a monopoly, that for some reason relating to their fundamental makeup or operational style, has flaws that limit its productivity. The company occupies a lower peak on the fitness landscape. Other more innovative people realise this and wish to act upon it to create a company that can climb to a higher peak on the fitness landscape by using different methodologies, etc. But the monopoly prohibits the innovators from getting off the ground. Thereby productivity is kept in a stranglehold and prevented from rising to its maximum potential by a dinosaurian monopoly that, while providing services well enough, shows no interest in innovation or improvement.

Imagine a company develops a monopoly over the land ownership and services provided to an area, so that there are no realistic alternatives. For example: a town exists as an enclave within a very large parcel of land owned by a company - the company provides services to the enclave and controls access corridors to the wider world through their land. The company charges high rates for the use of roads leading through their land - these roads need to be used for the survival of the town's inhabitants, but the usage fees are so high that it impacts the townsfolks' lives to a great negative extent. Imagine that they are unable to relocate out of the enclave area for lack of money, perhaps because of the high fees they have h to pay to the company their whole lives. Would anyone here support or propose a mechanism to avoid this kind of monopoly, or is it just tough luck to the townsfolk?

But is this not essentially just collectivism? Or is collectivism acceptable when it exists for the mutual benefit of the individual members?

Funny, I would have considered that to be one of mankind's crowning achievements to date. What else captivates the human spirit of adventure and ingenuity more?

Thanks for the reply! Oh I know, I'm not complaining there! Either way, I win. I get your points that technological efficiency etc has improved greatly. I just consider it to be a bit of an article of faith that the market will always have the solution (maybe I'm wrong of course) - can it act quickly enough to avoid unpleasant transitions? Also a problem I have with fossil fuel exploitation, as a scientist, is that it strikes me as a huge exercise in thinking inside the box - sure, we can increase the efficiency of fossil fuel collection and usage, but it's still just ploughing along the same old track - not blazing a new path. My mind craves for true innovation - new energy sources, new applications for other energy sources etc. Although it's not like no one is working towards such things, I guess.

That's insane. It's anti-racism gone so far it's come out at the other end.

Nice example. I agree that we should be using nature as a tool. I'd love to see the day when we have totally GM organisms doing jobs for us - whether unusual-looking pets or GM techno-plants producing energy for us! Although I'd love for some of the natural examples to be preserved so that the comparison you make, can continue to be made.

It's totally unscientific to claim that fossil fuels will never run out... As a geologist it concerns me that humanity is currently so reliant on a resource which will eventually run out, regardless of when it happens. To look the other way and not think about the obvious geological facts is anti-scientific. I emplore people to support research and development of nuclear and renewable energy purely to ensure that humanity can continue to prosper in the long-term. There is an anti-environmental dogma within many fossil-fuel supporters that denies the obvious truth that they will eventually run out, and I fear that if fossil fuel reserves become appreciably depleted within the next century, pure market forces will not be adequate to innovate a transition to long-term energy sources and a path of long-term prosperity. But hopefully there are enough true innovators out there who are supporting energy R&D and will have the answers for us when we eventually need them. I hope that in my line of work I'm contributing to this!

I think that's unfair. There are, of course, hordes of superstitious nutters that seem to be saying that all technological civilisation is bad. But there are many many more who simply enjoy the natural world for what it is, and want to preserve it for the enjoyment of humans today and in the future. Is there anything wrong with that, from an objectivist standpoint? There are also many scientists who want to preserve natural ecosystems for the scientific discoveries that they may yield in the future - to me, science is the noblest endeavour of humanity, so that line of thought gets my stamp of approval. Who knows what medicines, foods and genetic oddities lurk around the world that could be utilised to improve the human world?