Imagine if, as in Atlas Shrugged, the greatest among us decided they would no longer be sacrificial victims to the various types of collectivism, mysticism and statism that are rampant in today’s world.
If a real-life John Galt were to lead a strike of the world’s prime movers, in the present, what places could work as a modern-day Galt’s Gulch? Would there be one place, one shining Atlantis of reason and capitalism? Or would there be many such places scattered across the globe?
How heavily armed would such a retreat have to be? And would a strike of the men of the mind be likely or even possible?
Imagine if, as in Atlas Shrugged, the greatest among us decided they would no longer be sacrificial victims to the various types of collectivism, mysticism and statism that are rampant in today’s world.
If a real-life John Galt were to lead a strike of the world’s prime movers, in the present, what places could work as a modern-day Galt’s Gulch? Would there be one place, one shining Atlantis of reason and capitalism? Or would there be many such places scattered across the globe?
How heavily armed would such a retreat have to be? And would a strike of the men of the mind be likely or even possible?
I would hope that it would turn out better than Rapture! But seriously, where would be a promising location for a real-life Galt’s Gulch? The mountains of Colorado would be too close to the scrutiny of both the US government and various ecofascist groups.
But seriously, where would be a promising location for a real-life Galt’s Gulch?
Seriously? Nowhere.
You just can’t hide industrial activity, not nowadays. Consider, you need a steady inflow of raw materials in vast quantities to even support a small community of, let us say, a couple of hundred people. You need oil and a source of water, too. Now, if oil is available in the valley and there is a river, too, you may think you’re set. You aren’t Rivers are undependable. You’d need to build a dam and make a reservoir. That would be noted downstream.
Your indusrtial activities would draw notice, too. Simply heat and industrial exhaust would give you away to any observer. these days military satellites and earth resource satellites ahve a great view of 100% of the planet. Someone would see you. Other things can be seen from space, too. Land cleared for crops, the cropland itself, irrigation channels and ditches. Francisco’s mine may escape srutiny, but the foundry never would. And once Rearden sets up a steel mill, forget about it.
So let’s say you move underground. Well, there isn’t a vast space underground. And digging one out would be as conspicous as an 800 lb gorilla at a five star restaurant. Even if there were some vast cavern (say an abandoned mine), you’d still need a reservois nearby, you’d need to vent industrial exhaust out, and you’d need to vent heat out as well (or make your cavern as hot as hell). All that can be detected by satellite, too.
I think the best idea would be a cellular system, something like Stalin’s sleeper cells, but on a workable level. I’m afraid I can’t see a unified society existing in secret these days.
Why live in secret? As others have pointed out it would be impossible. What is required is not a place where you could live secretly but one where you could live freely.
Why live in secret? As others have pointed out it would be impossible.
In the novel the place was secret to begin with because it was Midas Mulligan’s private property in which he chose to retire. Later he offred refuge to men who were hunted by the looters, like Ellis Wyatt, Andrew Stockton, etc. This wouldn’t apply today.
What is required is not a place where you could live secretly but one where you could live freely.
Right. As of now there isn’t such a place, either. So short of claiming Mars (which would take centuries to show a profit), we have to keep working to change this world.
In the novel the place was secret to begin with because it was Midas Mulligan’s private property in which he chose to retire. Later he offred refuge to men who were hunted by the looters, like Ellis Wyatt, Andrew Stockton, etc. This wouldn’t apply today.
I’ve read the book, Thanks.
Right. As of now there isn’t such a place, either. So short of claiming Mars (which would take centuries to show a profit), we have to keep working to change this world.
Centuries? Do you really think so? I would think that the first time some Martian pioneer sold a block of ice or bartered it to another, tax free… it would have already generated the best profit of all.
Guy’s isn’t the answer obvious? The internet. We are already there. The last ten years or so our philosophy has been spreading like wildfire via the internet and places like this. Very few if any of us are ready to go into hiding so we do our thing here. If you sit back and think about it this is the perfect technology to expand and fuel are ideals. And it’s working. Slower than most of us want but much quicker than pre-internet days. I’m sure if there were a way to take a census of the numbers of Objectivist leaning people in the world today versus pre 1995(?) the numbers would be skyrocketing. This is a direct result of the internet. The thing is we don’t need to go hide in some valley somewhere, we need to use technology such as this to make more and more people aware of us. And I don’t mean that PC type of “awareness” like breast cancer or spotted-owl awareness–I mean the wide scale intellectual advocacy via the internet and mass-media. That is our way to the future.
Guy’s isn’t the answer obvious? The internet. We are already there. The last ten years or so our philosophy has been spreading like wildfire via the internet and places like this. Very few if any of us are ready to go into hiding so we do our thing here. If you sit back and think about it this is the perfect technology to expand and fuel are ideals. And it’s working. Slower than most of us want but much quicker than pre-internet days. I’m sure if there were a way to take a census of the numbers of Objectivist leaning people in the world today versus pre 1995(?) the numbers would be skyrocketing. This is a direct result of the internet. The thing is we don’t need to go hide in some valley somewhere, we need to use technology such as this to make more and more people aware of us. And I don’t mean that PC type of “awareness” like breast cancer or spotted-owl awareness–I mean the wide scale intellectual advocacy via the internet and mass-media. That is our way to the future.
Imagine if, as in Atlas Shrugged, the greatest among us decided they would no longer be sacrificial victims to the various types of collectivism, mysticism and statism that are rampant in today’s world.
If a real-life John Galt were to lead a strike of the world’s prime movers, in the present, what places could work as a modern-day Galt’s Gulch? Would there be one place, one shining Atlantis of reason and capitalism? Or would there be many such places scattered across the globe?
How heavily armed would such a retreat have to be? And would a strike of the men of the mind be likely or even possible?
There are two libertarian groups that are already trying something less drastic. They pledge to move to a specific area and slowly “take over” and change the place via running for office and/or voting for libertarian candidates and bills. Checkout:
Outside the US, I hear Costa Rica and parts of Mexico around the Sea of Cortez have ex-pat enclaves with libertarian atmospheres. The one in Mexico raises some concerns due to the drug wars in the country; Costa Rico less so
(Yes, I realize Objectivism and Libertarianism are not the same - but I think adherents of each could co-exist nicely…)
There are two libertarian groups that are already trying something less drastic. They pledge to move to a specific area and slowly “take over” and change the place via running for office and/or voting for libertarian candidates and bills. Checkout:
Outside the US, I hear Costa Rica and parts of Mexico around the Sea of Cortez have ex-pat enclaves with libertarian atmospheres. The one in Mexico raises some concerns due to the drug wars in the country; Costa Rico less so
(Yes, I realize Objectivism and Libertarianism are not the same - but I think adherents of each could co-exist nicely…)
There have been many threads so far on that project, and I believe the sentiment for it is almost universally bad. Try doing a search.
My suggestion? The men of the mind can all become self sufficient farmers, so that they won’t even have to participate within the economy and the government would be forced to look else where to commit plunder.
You just can’t hide industrial activity, not nowadays. Consider, you need a steady inflow of raw materials in vast quantities to even support a small community of, let us say, a couple of hundred people. You need oil and a source of water, too. Now, if oil is available in the valley and there is a river, too, you may think you’re set. You aren’t Rivers are undependable. You’d need to build a dam and make a reservoir. That would be noted downstream.
Your indusrtial activities would draw notice, too. Simply heat and industrial exhaust would give you away to any observer. these days military satellites and earth resource satellites ahve a great view of 100% of the planet. Someone would see you. Other things can be seen from space, too. Land cleared for crops, the cropland itself, irrigation channels and ditches. Francisco’s mine may escape srutiny, but the foundry never would. And once Rearden sets up a steel mill, forget about it.
So let’s say you move underground. Well, there isn’t a vast space underground. And digging one out would be as conspicous as an 800 lb gorilla at a five star restaurant. Even if there were some vast cavern (say an abandoned mine), you’d still need a reservois nearby, you’d need to vent industrial exhaust out, and you’d need to vent heat out as well (or make your cavern as hot as hell). All that can be detected by satellite, too.
What about a volcanic island then? It would certainly have water from streams or the worst case scenario - rainfall. Next, you can hide artificial industrial activity by the natural volcanic activity there. Next, oil is not so neccessary since you can use geothermal energy. Food may be gathered from the ocean - no irrigations neccessary, or vegetables grown under the trees, so they will not be spotted too. In the end, only a way of extracting iron from volcanic debris is needed to create a self sustainable system difficult to spot.
Maybe people have forgotten that the valley was effectively *cloaked* (a la Star Trek) in Atlas Shrugged. At the time surveillance would have been through overflights and photography. Ayn Rand simply did not imagine spy (or earth resources) satellites, able to image at all sorts of different wavelengths. (They can for instance tell old growth forest from new just from subtleties in the color not apparent to the naked eye.)
Site Note: As marevelous as our eyes are, the data they report to the brain is simply a mix of responses on three frequencies (that happen to be particular hues of red, green and blue). If we see a pure yellow beam of light, our eyes report a certain mixture of red and green–even though there is no red and green light in the source–and our brain “assembles” it and interprets it as yellow. Our computer monitors and televisions are designed with that in mind; the phosphors simply match the three frequencies our retinas are most sensitive to, and can duplicate our color responses. The yellow would be formed by lighting the red and green phosphors in the proper proportions; our eyes take that in and report exactly what they would report if we saw the yellow beam of light. Voila, even though the nature of the light is *totally* different, we see the same thing. Some species have four frequences, others only two, some just have monochrome vision. But any species that had *different* frequencies of sensitivity would probably look at a photograph displayed on a computer monitor and wonder what kind of acid trip we were on, the colors would all be screwy. (Interestingly, hearing does not have this issue; we have hundreds of thousands of frequencies of sensitivity, all very narrowly responsive. A mix of two tones doesn’t lead to an artificially generated tone in between the other two like it would for light; we hear a chord.)
Thanks.