khaight
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Everything posted by khaight
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When Did You First Read Ayn Rand?
khaight replied to softwareNerd's topic in Introductions and Personal Notes
Well, I certainly wouldn't want that. I entirely agree that we are at war, and that we need to fight. There are two obvious follow-up questions: who are we at war with, and what strategy will bring us victory? I identify the enemy as a transnational ideological movement variously termed "Islamic jihadism", "radical Islam" or (my personal preference) "Islamic totalitarianism". This movement has control of some national governments, and uses terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. The movement has a complex internal structure and is split into competing factions along both ethnic (Persian vs. Arab) and religious (Shia vs. Sunni) lines, but all factions are united by a commitment to the establishment of a world-dominating state governing in strict accordance with Islamic law. So that's the enemy. How do we defeat them? The issues many Objectivists have with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars boil down to the claim that they are at best irrelevant and at worst counter-productive when considered relative to the goal of defeating totalitarian Islam. As a general rule, a necessary condition for defeating an enemy in war is identifying his center of strength and then destroying it as thoroughly as possible -- eliminating both the capacity and will to continue the fight. The centers of strength of the Islamic totalitarian movement are in Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Rather than moving against, or even pressuring these states, we are wasting time, money and lives trying to build democratic governments in nations that are at best marginal relative to our proper strategic goal. Rather than acting to defend ourselves and secure our own liberties, we are sending our troops into harm's way to enable populations that hate us to democratically vote themselves into the same kinds of governments that wind up supporting our enemies. We are, to put it short, fighting an altruistic war, and it's working out as altruism always does -- which is to say, it's killing us. I think it's a mistake to call it a "War on Terror". Terrorism is a tactic deployed in the service of a strategic goal. Declaring war on a tactic is nonsensical. World War I was not a "War on U-Boats"; World War II was not a "War on Blitzkriegs". I would support a "War on Islamic Totalitarianism", if we were actually fighting one, but pretending that what Bush did was even an attempt at that is wrong -- and pretending that Obama is waging a war on anything except freedom is simply ludicrous. It isn't that Bush tried to do the right thing but screwed it up; he fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the threat and wasted lives with irrelevancies. (Note that none of the above is self-evident. I supported Bush through 2005, largely because I thought he might be working up to the attack on Iran that needed to happen. Once I became convinced that he had no intention of doing that, I changed my evaluation. The signs were present earlier, but I underestimated the power of fundamental ideas and let my optimistic wishful thinking blind me to the reality. Live and learn.) Oh, one final thought. A book came out a month or two ago, called Winning the Unwinnable War. It's a collection of essays by various ARI analysts on the so-called War on Terror, what went wrong and what should be done to fix it. I haven't read the book yet, but I read several of the essays in it when they were originally published in The Objective Standard. I expect it will be the best source for an extended development of the Objectivist perspective of the War on Terror; if you're interested you might pick up a copy. -
When Did You First Read Ayn Rand?
khaight replied to softwareNerd's topic in Introductions and Personal Notes
I suggest you rethink your position here; Objectivists have serious issues with both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. And I very much doubt that there will be a war against the Iranian theocracy, no matter how warranted such an action might be -- Bush did too thorough a job poisoning the well, and the American military is too corrupted by just war theory to prosecute such a conflict properly. If American freedom is to survive, the first 'war' we have to deal with is the domestic one being waged against our individual rights by our own government. I'm not really sure why I'm bothering to say this, though... your tone makes me think your true purpose is to inject a meme painting Objectivists as redneck warmongers. If that is not your intent, my apologies, and you should work on your rhetoric. -
Chapman University puts up bust of Ayn Rand
khaight replied to softwareNerd's topic in Activism for Reason, Rights, Reality
If memory serves me correctly, Amy Peikoff currently holds an Anthem Foundation fellowship at the Chapman University law school. That plus the OAC thing suggests that Chapman views Objectivism as intellectually legitimate. -
Kentucky Senate race development
khaight replied to Craig24's topic in US Elections 2004/2008/2012/2016
Sounds similar in concept to the Personhood amendment in Colorado that Diana Hsieh fought so effectively against. -
I gather the show was suspended for retooling after the first four episodes. ABC just brought in a new showrunner. The conspiracy-minded will wonder whether this is politically motivated...
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Where to find past issues of Impact Newsletter?
khaight replied to The Individual's topic in Questions about Objectivism
I don't think the earlier issues have been made available online. It's likely they won't be; they're probably more of historical than intellectual interest. -
I certainly enjoyed watching Buzz Aldrin deck that "moon landing hoax" loony.
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Wow, that's just sad. It never ceases to amaze me how basic standards of intellectual honesty, accuracy and professionalism just go out the window when people are writing about Rand.
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A few problems I have with Objectivism
khaight replied to CJM's topic in Questions about Objectivism
Rand holds that perception is a valid means of knowledge, i.e. that it gives us an awareness of reality. She means something very precise here, though, and it is important to understand what. You say that our senses act "imperfectly". What exactly do you mean by that? Are there aspects of reality to which our senses do not respond? Of course. Rand never claimed that our senses tell us everything about reality -- only that what they do tell us about reality actually is about reality. -
Why is there something rather than nothing?
khaight replied to The Individual's topic in Metaphysics and Epistemology
The question as stated contains an implicit contradiction. "Why" is a request for a cause. A cause is something that exists. Existence is the total of everything that exists. Asking for a cause of everything that exists is a request for something (the cause) that exists, but which is not part of the total of everything that exists. Questions incorporating contradictions are invalid and can be rejected on that basis. You also have to understand the distinction between a rationally valid answer and an answer that will satisfy the committed theist. The above is the former but not the latter. The simple truth is that a serious theist is someone who, by accepting faith as a valid means of acquiring knowledge, has already committed themselves to rejecting rational arguments whose conclusions they find emotionally uncongenial. You will never be able to change the mind of such a person through rational argument because they've already rejected reason as the final authority of belief. That doesn't make them right, it just makes them not worth arguing with. -
I have no idea; you can email Greg and Diana and ask them if they have any plans along those lines. (I don't even know what would be required to do that.)
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You might look at Diana Hsieh's Rationally Selfish Radio, and Greg Perkins' Objectivism Seminar. (Full disclosure: I'm an active participant in the latter.)
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That's why I said "in some sense". Fundamentally, if two people are able to trade with each other then they are by definition part of the same economy, because the concept "economy" is built out of people who trade with each other. We subdivide this 'uber-economy' into subunits based largely on two factors: geography and government. Geography causes trades to fall into patterns based on propinquity -- I'm much more likely to trade with someone in my immediate geographical area than with someone in Japan. My trades with people in Japan are typically indirect, mediated by other individuals who run import/export businesses. Those trade patterns provide a basis for subdividing the economy into units which can be analyzed as though they 'stood alone' for many purposes -- but not all. Government causes trades to fall into patterns based on the degree and manner in which a given government interferes with trading that occurs under its jurisdiction. As with geography, those patterns provide a basis for subdividing the economy into units for specific analysis, in this case analysis of how government interventions harm individuals by preventing them from engaging in otherwise beneficial trades. It isn't illegitimate to look at the "American economy" or the "Japanese economy", but when doing so one must always keep in mind that the unit under examination is a subdivision of the true economy which consists of all individuals capable of mutual trade. Sometimes, depending on the question being investigated, the focus on the subdivision instead of the whole is distorting rather than clarifying.
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This is an excellent point, which should always be kept in mind. Austrian economics advocates methodological individualism, and we should take that seriously. In reality, there is no such thing as the "American economy" trading with the "Japanese economy". Ultimately, there are only individuals in America trading with individuals in Japan. And if an 'economy' is simply the aggregation of the trading behaviors of individuals, this implies that the division between the "American economy" and the "Japanese economy" is in some sense completely artificial.
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This seems like another case where it would be clarifying to talk about individuals instead of "economies", since the latter is just the collective result of the actions of the former. In a sense, all trades are symmetrical. I have some value to offer, you have some value to offer, we swap. The law of marginal utility means we are both better off after the exchange, which is why we do it. A "trade deficit", if my understanding of the term is correct, is the situation you get when one party to an exchange is offering a physical good or service and the other party is offering money. In the context of a single transaction, viewing this as problematic is absurd. I'd be running a trade deficit with the grocery store, because every time we trade they give me a physical good and I just give them money. Where this becomes potentially problematic is when this activity is sustained over an extended period of time, because it raises the question of what happens when I run out of money. As an individual, I have to go off and produce some value that I can exchange with other people for money, so that I can later use that money to exchange for other values. If I don't do that, eventually I run out of money and can't buy groceries any more. If I'm a government, I have another option for getting more money -- I can create it ex nihilo. This leads to inflation, as other trading partners become increasingly reluctant to accept my money in exchange for stuff. That's the grain of truth in the 'trade deficit' argument -- you can't keep exchanging money for other values indefinitely without creating some values yourself with which you can obtain more money. Money gets its exchange value from that other production; if the production does not occur the money eventually loses its value.
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Perhaps I need to review macroeconomics 101 then, because this seems fishy to me. It implies that the productivity of one economy depends on the actions of another. Country A can be chugging along building widgets, trading them for framitzes from Country B, running a trade surplus. A's economy is 'productive'. Country B then starts making doodads too, and the balance of trade shifts. Suddenly Country A's economy is no longer productive, even though they are making exactly the same number of widgets now that they were before? Something seems wrong about that.
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For that matter, I'm an American and I produce things of value. Frankly, I resent the presumption of somebody with no knowledge of what I do flatly asserting that I'm not doing it when I know perfectly well that I am. All that does is make me lose respect for Andrew's judgment.
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The term "economy" here needs to be unpacked, I think. An "economy" is not some kind of collective organism; it is an aggregation of the voluntary exchanges of the individuals who make it up. When we say that an economy has a "manufacturing base", what we mean is that there are some people in it who make physical objects and offer them for trade with others. A "service-sector worker" is a person who performs services in trade with others. That's all. Now, because human beings have physical needs that can only be met by physical objects with certain characteristics, it follows that if *nobody* is making the relevant physical objects then everybody is going to die. Duh. That's the grain of truth in your claim. But an individual who does not himself make physical objects can survive by obtaining them through trade with others -- as long as such trade is possible. If a person whose physical needs are met through trade rather than direct production is cut off from trading, he will need to shift to meeting his physical needs directly or die. I think this notion of the lack of a manufacturing base being problematic stems from the fear of trade shutdown. What if there's something you can't make yourself, and you can't get it by trading with others? You can do without services if you must, but you can't do without food, therefore the service producer is vulnerable in a way that the food producer is not. I think this objection proves too much, however. Merely because you are producing something physical ("have a manufacturing base") doesn't mean you will be able to trade whatever you have manufactured. In a sophisticated economy, the vast majority of manufacturers are just as vulnerable to trade breakdown as the service producers. And if there is no trade breakdown, there's no functional difference between value created in the form of physical objects and value created through services.
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It may also be helpful to read a more general survey of the intellectual history of western civilization. Having a framework that you can slot specific philosophers and issues into is very helpful. Something like A History of Knowledge by Charles Van Doren. Leonard Peikoff usually recommends A History of Philosophy by Wilhelm Windelband as a good one-volume history of philosophy. I haven't read it myself so I can neither recommend nor disrecommend it.
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If you truly believe that dollars are worthless, can I have yours? Right now? Not all fiat currencies are equivalent. The Zimbabwe dollar is worthless. I've seen a hundred trillion Zimbabwe dollar bill that could not be used to buy anything. I used US dollars to buy lunch yesterday. Clearly there is a difference here. Both currencies may be on the same kind of decay curve, for the same fundamental reason, but they're at different points. Ultimately the value of any currency, gold included, is what you can get in exchange for it. Since I can get things in exchange for American dollars, they are not currently worthless. None of this is to say that fiat currencies are good. The fact that they can be created ex nihilo by the political class means that they are likely to be inflated *into* worthlessness over the long run. But that isn't the same as being worthless immediately, and the long run can take a while.
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Family Religious Background of Objectivists
khaight replied to Old Geezer's topic in Introductions and Personal Notes
And it's just so cute that they believe that, really. Of course, theists by definition have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to believe truly bizarre things without rational grounding. If they're angered by a statement of a simple truth that's their problem, not mine. -
Family Religious Background of Objectivists
khaight replied to Old Geezer's topic in Introductions and Personal Notes
I know what you mean. I didn't 'become' an atheist. I simply discovered that 'atheist' was the concept that described the (non-)beliefs I'd held all along. -
The obvious inference would be that she has separated from Dr. Peikoff but not divorced him. Regardless, the details of her personal life are really none of our business.
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Color Blindness and the validity of the senses
khaight replied to MichaelH's topic in Metaphysics and Epistemology
The evidence provided by our senses is always "incomplete", in the sense that there are aspects of the identity of the things we perceive to which our senses do not respond. Normal human beings cannot see into the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, or hear sounds above a certain frequency. Why do we believe that dogs can hear whistles that we cannot? Because the identity of the existent causes other effects, some of which we *can* directly perceive. The same is true of the color-blind case. -
In fairness, I was the one who first used the term "isolationist", not Andrew. As with him, I'd prefer to avoid debating foreign policy issues in this thread; the topic here is Peter Schiff and his views. Inside that context, I have to note that you can't dodge the question of what a proper foreign policy would consist of by claiming that the country can't afford an effective military. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if we can't defend ourselves militarily from hostile nations then we literally aren't a country at all. A government is an institution holding a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force inside a specific geographic region. A government without a functioning military cannot maintain that monopoly and is therefore a 'government' in name only. I also question the assertion on historical grounds. American participation in World War II was probably the largest sustained military expenditure in the nation's history -- and it occurred during the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse the nation had experienced to that time. Living standards dropped dramatically during the war, but fighting and winning it took priority. Paying for it was painful, but possible, and better than the alternative. My question for Peter Schiff boils down to what principles he would apply to analyzing questions of foreign policy and war, i.e. what standards he would use to determine whether or not military action is required in a given situation. Obviously, given the dire financial straits in which the economy and government now find themselves, we shouldn't be wasting wealth on non-essentials. But that leaves open the question of what is essential, what isn't, and why.