brian0918

Yes, that is the argument I was referring to. I have made that argument repeatedly, and have seen it made by others. I found this video from ARI in which Yaron Brook makes the same argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zukp_N7Mchs Why doesn't it apply? If nuclear energy is not actually a costly alternative, then why the need for government subsidy and cap on liability?

I guess I'm more interested in why the response by Objectivists to the BP spill has been different from their response to the Japanese reactor accident. The rebuttal to the environmental hysteria after the BP spill was to say that risky deepwater drilling wouldn't have occurred in the free market, without government manipulation of the markets. The latest response to the environmental hysteria from the Japanese reactor is to say that nuclear energy is actually *safe* - but that doesn't make it any more right, or any less the product of government manipulation than deepwater drilling. If the goal is deregulation, the proper argument should be two-pronged: show why the hysteria is unfounded, and also show why an accident was (at least partially) the result of government manipulation of the market. But I have only seen the former, not the latter. In this specific case, one could argue a nuclear reactor in a region that is densely populated, and lies on an active fault line, would have been the least feasible location in a free market.

His argument wasn't that it couldn't be *profitable*, but that it would be uninsurable, due to the high risk and uncertainty surrounding it. He claims that this actually occurred in the privatized energy sector of the UK. Most Objectivists have responded to the Japanese disaster by taking the opposite stance of the environmentalist hysteria, and pointing to the safety of nuclear energy. But knowledge of that safety (and how it should be achieved) has only come as the result of past disasters produced by government-created nuclear infrastructure. Current nuclear energy infrastructure worldwide is all or partially propped up by government intervention - likewise alternative energies such as coal, natural gas, oil, have been artificially hindered by government. I guess I would have expected the Objectivist response to nuclear energy to be similar to the response to risky deepwater drilling - that they are both the result of government intervention into the marketplace, and would not have been insurable in a free market without better knowledge of the risk (which comes either from better understanding of the world, or from learning from past mistakes).

Stefan Molyneux, who is a fan of Rand, and generally agrees with Objectivist views (apart from his opposition to the need for government), posted this video arguing that nuclear power would not be feasible in a totally free society, as the insurance liabilities would be too high, and he gives as a concrete example the UK in the '80s and '90s, in which he claims such a scenario occurred. He argues that it is the government's capping of corporate liability that has allowed the nuclear power industry to be artificially created and propped up, comparing it to the liability cap that BP received in exchange for risky deepwater drilling. Aside from the actual danger (or lack thereof) from radiation at the Japanese reactor, are there any thoughts on his arguments? (Go to 3:00 to skip the public education example)

New interview with producer Harmon Kaslow:

Yaron Brook continued the debate with the generic socialist on John Stossel's show today: (starts at 18:30) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mhHAMTd7ek

Yaron Brook discusses the ARI's [lack of] involvement in the film's production, and his opinion of the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ni2BxTPmgM

So far, they say only a few dozen dead. The islands that have been hit by the tsunami (e.g. Guam) say it was only a few feet high when it hit shore. Despite having a similar magnitude to the 2004 Indonesian quake, I guess the latter was much deeper, more sustained, and moved much more earth, causing a huge tsunami. Update: It looks like those initial estimates were low - they're now saying at least 1,000 dead.

Running away to avoid a vote discredits the rationale that Democrats are advocates of democracy.

Please use the search function to find similar topics that have already been discussed (e.g. 1, 2). The simple answer is that to observe an electron requires that you first shoot a photon at it. That photon interacts with the electron, changing the result. I highly recommend watching Richard Feynman's lecture on Quantum Mechanics here. It takes all the magic out of QM. And as an added lesson: don't learn your science from popular media. The animated video shows you a false reality (electrons moving as individual particles, or switching back and forth between particles and waves), and then reasons from that false reality.

If you haven't already, I would recommend checking out the first few chapters of OPAR, as well as David Kelley's The Evidence of the Senses. This forum section is open to any questions, no matter how simple.

He is attacking a strawman. An Objectivist would not answer "yes" to the second set of questions. It's not that it is "impossible" to prove an objective reality - it is that it is *nonsensical* to even consider such a feat, let alone to believe it to be a necessary requirement for truth and certainty. The idea of "proof" assumes an objective reality that can be known and understood. His argument against objective reality consists of words. Those words refer to concepts, which have as their ultimate referents objects in reality. Any statement claiming to refute objective reality must necessarily utilize and assume objective reality. The moment he opens his mouth and utters a word, or types a word on a keyboard, in order to communicate a meaningful statement to you, he assumes an objective reality that can be known and understood.

That is much the way individual neurons work - they have the ability to connect to thousands of other surrounding neurons, and are constantly changing their connections, as a person thinks about different things. Who would have thought that knowledge depends on how the brain works?

So then much of surrealist work is art, including Rand's favorite painting.

You are certainly free to hold such an arbitrary opinion, but it does not follow the evidence. Consider Rand's favorite painting, for example. Or consider the simple fact that the people who make surreal art certainly had a point in doing so, and certainly incorporated their values into the work. Your statements are not based on anything.

I also share your interest in surreal films, and would recommend checking out Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Hour of the Wolf or Fellini's 8 1/2. As for your actual questions, I will leave that up to others more familiar with the Objectivist theory of art. Not all surreal films deal with the same themes and motivations, so I don't believe they can all simply be rejected based solely on their lack of a structured plot.

Sorry if I jumped down your throat - I've just never seen the term "hyperinflation" used to refer to what happened in the 70s/80s in the US. The point of my post was to explain why hyperinflation is not simply "more inflation" (in terms of the cause), and why properly comparing the differences between the inflation of the 70s/80s and the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe - in order to determine the likelihood of future hyperinflation here - does not simply involve looking at the percentage of price increase (which is an effect). To determine the likelihood requires examining potential causes, not effects.

As for the original question: I bought some gold and silver during the financial crisis, and have been watching it rise in price since then - increasing almost 50% for gold, and almost 100% for silver. I did not buy it out of conviction that "gold is the One True Money", but merely because of uncertainty about how the government will manage our fiat currency. So long as they have the power to wipe out long-term value, I cannot rely on them to do the right thing for me. To make sure your bases are all covered, it makes sense to attempt to store value in a variety of sources, including the dollar. I have also been interacting more with local farms (find yours: 1, 2), in order to eat healthier, to stock up on certain foods, and to have more local and reliable connections to food sources in case there is a major economic disruption in the future. I have also stocked up on rice and beans in long-term food storage containers, to a very limited extent. Not much, but I would like to do more. I am not saying an economic collapse is a certainty - indeed nothing can be certain so long as our primary store of value is subject to the whims of politicians and Keynesian economists. But it is definitely better to be safe than sorry.

There is also a huge difference between the US of the 70s/80s and the US of today. We were much better prepared for economic disruption than we are today. We have since gone from being the largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation, and individuals now have little or no savings. Short of some technological innovation leading to major wealth creation, we are going to have to default on at least part of our promises to our citizens, and our debts to the rest of the world. How those citizens and those countries will react is uncertain. Hyperinflation is not simply "more inflation", so you cannot just compare US CPI to Zimbabwe, and say "we are nowhere near that". This ignores the rapidity with which hyperinflation occurs, and skirts the true cause: loss of faith in the currency as a store of value. That loss of faith may occur for a variety of reasons, not just from printing money. The sooner foreign countries recognize that their food crises are the result of the Federal Reserve and other central banks exporting inflation abroad, the sooner we will have to directly deal with the consequences of their monetary policies.

I believe it will be broadcast live through the ARC Facebook page, but am not sure.

I tried finding it again but couldn't. It was a positive reference. I only remember because my ex hated the fact that it was her show that got me interested in the philosophy.

While I cannot make much sense of your statements, I can state from my own personal experience, that the professors who relied heavily on PowerPoint were also the least effective at explaining the underlying concepts. Maybe they were just using it ineffectively, but I have always seen PowerPoint as a very poor tool for explanation of highly abstract concepts.

No, oil is not (easily) renewable. But that doesn't matter. For the explanation you are requesting, simply scroll up to softwareNerd's post, which lays it out pretty clearly. Decreasing oil supply --> increasing oil price --> decreasing oil demand --> increasing demand and funding for alternatives. So far, the "points" that you have presented are merely assertions - not arguments. Assertions cannot be convincing by themselves, without evidence or argument to back them up. If the movie has presented convincing arguments, feel free to restate them in this thread. Thanks, that is what we are looking for.

Assuming the unlikely case that your opponents correctly understand what you mean by "capitalism", it is likely that they are reaching their conclusion through an equivocation (either explicitly or implicitly) of two different conceptions of "power" - political power, and economic power. There is no doubt that corporations have a lot of economic power, but only in a mixed/statist society (like ours) can those same corporations also have any political power - i.e., the power to threaten/force individuals to do anything. In a free society, a corporation can never have any political power - there would in fact be no reason for lobbyists to exist.

You seem to have skipped over all of the replies (at least 4), which repeatedly explain why the fact that something is a finite resource does not mean it will run out. If you have an actual argument beyond "it is a finite resource", please present it. In fact, in our replies, we have even provided you with arguments you could have used to support your claim.