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The world is socialist

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Re: The world is socialist

#111

Post by wissler »

dev_jim wrote: post #107
wissler wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HOA is just an example of how creative solutions can be found, it is not an answer to every problem. Did you really expect me to provide a full theory with all solutions to all problems in this post? Your tacit premise is: "Since you didn't show me how to solve every problem, then your general solution is false." This is like blaming calculus for not having worked out all possible calculus problems.

As with most libertarians when you point out fundamental flaws in their reasoning, they deflect the conversation and try to talk about an ideal as opposed to anything based in reality.

Well first of all you didn't point any fundamental flaw in reasoning; you engaged in it yourself. Second of all this is just pure ad hominem. On top of that you've failed to respond to the point at hand, i.e. my underscoring of your fallacious mode of reasoning, namely that you can't rationally reject a general method on the grounds that the method didn't spell out all applications for you.

Re: The world is socialist

#112

Post by foobarbazqux »

kaoD wrote: post #109
yummyfajitas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The libertarians of her era were closer to the anarchists that this essay is attacking. Rand explicitly disagreed with them on issues like blizzard cleanup. Both Ayn Rand and most modern libertarians have little objection to the government provision of public goods like blizzard cleanup. They simply object to the government provision of private goods, such as diabetes treatment.

How is blizzard cleanup public and diabetes treatment private?

Obviously blizzard cleanup affects everyone and so is public. Diabetes treatment is private because if you get diabetes it doesn't affect me. You just have bad genes or ate too much sugar, not my fault and I'm not suffering for it. Really though it doesn't affect me because I basically don't care about anyone that isn't friends or family. Why should I help take care of your problems? Use your own bootstraps. I'd rather save my money for me and my own.

Re: The world is socialist

#113

Post by kaoD »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #112
kaoD wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is blizzard cleanup public and diabetes treatment private?

Obviously blizzard cleanup affects everyone and so is public. Diabetes treatment is private because if you get diabetes it doesn't affect me. You just have bad genes or ate too much sugar, not my fault and I'm not suffering for it. Really though it doesn't affect me because I basically don't care about anyone that isn't friends or family. Why should I help take care of your problems? Use your own bootstraps. I'd rath…

Blizzards are also localized. Why should I help take care of your blizzard if it didn't hit my location?

Everything is as private or public as you make it.

Re: The world is socialist

#114

Post by yummyfajitas »

kaoD wrote: post #109
yummyfajitas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The libertarians of her era were closer to the anarchists that this essay is attacking. Rand explicitly disagreed with them on issues like blizzard cleanup. Both Ayn Rand and most modern libertarians have little objection to the government provision of public goods like blizzard cleanup. They simply object to the government provision of private goods, such as diabetes treatment.

How is blizzard cleanup public and diabetes treatment private?

Blizzard cleanup is non-rivalrous (we can both simultaneously enjoy a snow free street) and non-excludible (if I pay to have the street cleaned, I can't tell you not to walk on it).

Diabetes treatment is rivalrous (insulin goes into your vein or mine, not both) and excludible (if you don't pay for insulin, you don't get any).

Re: The world is socialist

#115

Post by gnaritas »

trimbo wrote: post #26

I think I must be the only person ever who read Atlas Shrugged and thought it was a very entertaining book, but didn't either love it or hate it because of the politics. Is there anyone else out there who just loves the book like I do without applying the politics in real life?

She's a bad writer who tells bad stories with unrealistic and poorly written characters. The politics are the only reason the book is read by anyone rather than forgotten as bad writing as they should have been.

Re: The world is socialist

#116

Post by foobarbazqux »

kaoD wrote: post #113
foobarbazqux wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously blizzard cleanup affects everyone and so is public. Diabetes treatment is private because if you get diabetes it doesn't affect me. You just have bad genes or ate too much sugar, not my fault and I'm not suffering for it. Really though it doesn't affect me because I basically don't care about anyone that isn't friends or family. Why should I help take care of your problems? Use your own bootstraps. I'd rath…

Blizzards are also localized. Why should I help take care of your blizzard if it didn't hit my location? Everything is as private or public as you make it.

So don't take care of my blizzard. I'm sure almost everyone else in my town will agree to give money to a local government that takes care of it. Basically my philosophy is that only the individual matters. Society is for the weak, and it only makes sense when a collection of rational men decide that it doesn't infringe on individual ambition.

Re: The world is socialist

#117

Post by 6d0debc071 »

pandaman wrote: post #105
6d0debc071 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syphilis and child support payments aren't communicable by economic ideology in the same sort of way that lifestyles are by moral dictates. Without taking a side either way of the AR thing - taking advice on how to live your life from people whose character you detest seems like it might be a bad call. Living your life in the manner they approve of, at least if they did so themselves, stands a good chance of making y…

I don't think I understood. In the first paragraph you are saying that Marx's and Lenin's lifestyle choices are not going to affect their followers but in the second paragraph you are saying that following an ideology is going to make you like the ideology's leaders. I don't think both of these can be true simultaneously so I guess I did not get what are you saying right.

You've dropped several conditionals that I placed in there.

The general theme is that things like macro economic theories place fewer constraints on individual action than moral ideologies - and that, provided that the person expounding the moral ideology claims to follow it themselves, your perception of their character counts as evidence for whether it's a good idea for you to accept it or not.

Re: The world is socialist

#118

Post by gnaritas »

nmi32 wrote: post #17

I don't think I've ever read such a patronising dismissal of objectivism. >It's a beautiful story for a person caught between childhood and adulthood I could say the same thing about every religion, I doubt it would get a warm response.

But it'd be just as true.

Re: The world is socialist

#119

Post by yummyfajitas »

kaoD wrote: post #113
foobarbazqux wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously blizzard cleanup affects everyone and so is public. Diabetes treatment is private because if you get diabetes it doesn't affect me. You just have bad genes or ate too much sugar, not my fault and I'm not suffering for it. Really though it doesn't affect me because I basically don't care about anyone that isn't friends or family. Why should I help take care of your problems? Use your own bootstraps. I'd rath…

Blizzards are also localized. Why should I help take care of your blizzard if it didn't hit my location? Everything is as private or public as you make it.

True - there is no reason why people in Florida should pay for blizzard cleanup. Is anyone arguing that they should?

Re: The world is socialist

#120

Post by pandaman »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #117
pandaman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I understood. In the first paragraph you are saying that Marx's and Lenin's lifestyle choices are not going to affect their followers but in the second paragraph you are saying that following an ideology is going to make you like the ideology's leaders. I don't think both of these can be true simultaneously so I guess I did not get what are you saying right.

You've dropped several conditionals that I placed in there. The general theme is that things like macro economic theories place fewer constraints on individual action than moral ideologies - and that, provided that the person expounding the moral ideology claims to follow it themselves, your perception of their character counts as evidence for whether it's a good idea for you to accept it or not.

Ah, you believe that Marxism is a macro economic theory? Understood.
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