Welcome

[kiaer.ts]

Idealized Capitalism vs Unresolved History (meaning, How do we overcome current inequities caused by harsh barbarism in the past by enabling these legacies to simple transfer their ill-gotten gains into the new system?)

Hi, Jake. A commie, eh?

Well, to address the one issue I quoted above, all things human are finite. All human activities have a cost. Political justice is not absolute in the sense of infinite. Wew cannot right all past wrongs. evidence is lost, issue a clouded. Time passes on. This is why there are statutes of limitation. This is why traeties and leases are made for 99 year periods (Look at the WTC lease or the Panama Canal treaty.) So you think slaves should get reparations? Then how about the Slavs? Do my Danish ancestors owe my Irish ancestors reparations for pushing the proto-Celts out of Denmark? Do we give the plains back to the Sioux, or do the Sioux give it to the Algonquins from whom they stole it? Do we trace reparations back to the chimps in Africa? Things that happened before anyone who is alive today was born are simply to far gone for civil and criminal justice to apply. Objectivism aims for justice for living people who suffer actual loss. And sometimes amnesties and the like become necessary when past injustice becomes so muddled that any attempt at rectifying them will cause more harm than good. Objectivism doesn't promise anyone a rose garden.

Welcome.

[Chris Grieb]

Jacob; Ayn Rand once said the if fight for the new Renaissance to come you live in it today.

[arkon]

Jacob; Ayn Rand once said the if fight for the new Renaissance to come you live in it today.

Nice!

[arkon]

Idealized Capitalism vs Unresolved History (meaning, How do we overcome current inequities caused by harsh barbarism in the past by enabling these legacies to simple transfer their ill-gotten gains into the new system?)

Hi, Jake. A commie, eh?

Well, to address the one issue I quoted above, all things human are finite. All human activities have a cost. Political justice is not absolute in the sense of infinite. Wew cannot right all past wrongs. evidence is lost, issue a clouded. Time passes on. This is why there are statutes of limitation. This is why traeties and leases are made for 99 year periods (Look at the WTC lease or the Panama Canal treaty.) So you think slaves should get reparations? Then how about the Slavs? Do my Danish ancestors owe my Irish ancestors reparations for pushing the proto-Celts out of Denmark? Do we give the plains back to the Sioux, or do the Sioux give it to the Algonquins from whom they stole it? Do we trace reparations back to the chimps in Africa? Things that happened before anyone who is alive today was born are simply to far gone for civil and criminal justice to apply. Objectivism aims for justice for living people who suffer actual loss. And sometimes amnesties and the like become necessary when past injustice becomes so muddled that any attempt at rectifying them will cause more harm than good. Objectivism doesn't promise anyone a rose garden.

Welcome.

If we don't learn from history, we are destined to repeat it, comes to mind. It's not past wrongs but current ones that I'm addressing. I'm talking more about functional resource management for increased economic growth and general opportunity, something that in an Objectivist sense(I realize I'm using the term without all the harshly defined politics!)would allow for these "disenfranchised" to more easily arise from the state inherited from their ancestors through effort, rather than needlessly cycling their efforts through a crude resource management system(I'm mainly speaking to availability here) in which they are buying the resources necessary for thoughtful production from the people that now own these property rights through the blood-soaked barbarism of their ancestors... This idea of mine speaks more to absolutes and possibilities. In capitalism, or at least Rand's version as I've understood it, private property is an absolute that should not be tampered with for any reason, and can be freely done with however the owner wishes. This is counter-intuitive to human life, especially when people can inherit vast resources and set any price or completely withhold them. This is the way I see it, if 5 people inherit all the rights to the resources of a society of 500, and through their private property rights decide to share nothing with the rest... keep in mind they "own" everything; land, buildings, etc, it doesn't work! It's not a social system at all at that point because the majority of the "society" are subordinate to extremely limited whim. This is exactly what a private property based trade system promotes, monopoly as opposed to rational competition, and it is already starting out on half a leg in terms of the very good ideology within it of free trade, to allow people that haven't even earned what they have to buy into it. Ideologically it is validating the worth of anything, regardless of how it is owned, it admits that murder, theft, and so forth while not currently condoned, are in fact perfectly legitimate ways to direct our societies future. It's this :poke: allowed to continue, filtered through our current law structure.

[Mikee]

JWC:

All it takes is a work ethic to become wealthy in this country. Thomas Sowell has written extensively on this subject. Private property rights are not negotiable if you want to have a flourishing economy. If people are not motivated by being able to keep what they earn, they will not work. Capital, whether as real estate or other holdings, cannot be held if it is not well managed. If well managed it is the wellspring for innovation and prosperity for all who participate in the economy. The key word is participate. Your work ethic determines how successful you are. Inspiration through role models is helpful, but not necessary. You are the driving force.

[arkon]

JWC:

All it takes is a work ethic to become wealthy in this country. Thomas Sowell has written extensively on this subject. Private property rights are not negotiable if you want to have a flourishing economy. If people are not motivated by being able to keep what they earn, they will not work. Capital, whether as real estate or other holdings, cannot be held if it is not well managed. If well managed it is the wellspring for innovation and prosperity for all who participate in the economy. The key word is participate. Your work ethic determines how successful you are. Inspiration through role models is helpful, but not necessary. You are the driving force.

Ok, I'll continue my argument. When we talk about unlimited private property and no ethical element to its distribution, it throws out the window the idea of considering the cost of what you buy when even the basic elements of survival have to be had through an involvement in a convoluted system of finance. What if the cost is considered too high? I don't see an opt-out option available if you want to keep on living. Capitalism thrives on the idea of FREE trade, not coerced.

You got me! I am a "poor" layabout, and so is most everyone to some degree depending on personal commitments, and they don't work when they don't have to. Why? Because the reality is far from keeping what we earn. We get small allotments to manage the resources of those that own them, and the only argument towards it is that it is the best thing available, not that it is free trade. When there is such a huge gap between people in terms of the availability of production resources, there is always someone "poorer" and more desperate that is willing to do the same work for less to avoid the realities of how limited their situation is.

Isn't that the whole idea? Successful producers are benefactors to humanity in that they provide something desired for the lowest cost. But how is cost factored when demand is guaranteed and coerced? Limiting access to these resources insures higher profits for the owners and continued control of the economy by making it unlikely that most people will ever have enough to offer a better alternative. Open-ended trade that allows for thieves, murderers or what have you to offer their ill-gotten gains as competition to ethical producers ensures its continued failure as a means for these ethical producers to improve life, wealth, etc, with some exceptions for the idealist to point to. Statistically, very few people see much change in their economic status from birth. Is that because they just don't have a good enough work ethic? Because they didn't try hard enough? Didn't participate enough? Such vague banalities may be the only balm available in reality, but I am loath to use them when discussing possible change for the better. You are the driving force? What does that mean? I get you to some degree, self-determinist and so forth, but the statement verges on a mystical pronouncement to quell thought, as if by "driving force" more effectively life will magically improve.

I believe Galt and crew left society to make the point that what is available to the rational man is often manipulated, coerced and so forth and that their continued involvement is actually what "props up" and maintains this society. :super: :angel:

[kiaer.ts]

I'm talking more about functional resource management for increased economic growth and general opportunity, something that in an Objectivist sense would allow for these "disenfranchised" to more easily arise from the state inherited from their ancestors through effort, rather than needlessly cycling their efforts through a crude resource management system in which they are buying the resources necessary for thoughtful production from the people that now own these property rights through the blood-soaked barbarism of their ancestors...

Look, your run on sentences are simply rhetorically intolerable. I had to stop after the one I've quoted above, and I quote it here with your parenthetical remarks removed. On average you should have one to two full stops per line of text, not three lines per full stop.

You smuggle in a whole lot of chareacterizations which I am simply not willing to accept. And you use floating abstractions that make it seem like the economy is something that's just "out there" rather than the sum effect of the actions of morally responsible individuals. You speak of crude and innefficient resource systems as if they were the weather. Economic realities are always the result of specific concretes. individual actions, individual people, individual transactions, specific laws, and specific criminal acts. ther is always a right and a wrong, always someone responsible, someone to blame.

You cannot say that you want only to deal with the present, then stipulate that some present actors are using criminally gotten goods. If they are, then who are the victims? Why don't they prosecute or sue? If there are no victims, then why do you speak of blood-soaked barbarians? Whose blood? I am not prepared to continue while these barbarians, if real, go about unpunished. I am no anarchist. Throw them in jail, reimburse their victims, and then lets talk about free individuals making their own choices in a society where specific crimes are individually punished. In that society, there is no atmospheric inefficiency. If you are inefficient that is your right and you are free to go bankrupt no matter how much I wish you would make better business decisions.

[Mikee]

"You are the driving force? What does that mean?"

Nathaniel Branden: "No one is coming".

You assess your strengths and weaknesses. You set goals. You set sub-goals. You reward yourself with self-esteem when you achieve your sub-goals. With your new-found self-esteem you reassess your goals and set them higher. Trade value for value. Don't expect anyone give you anything or to tell you what you want or how to get it. Aim high.

[Brant Gaede]

JWC:

All it takes is a work ethic to become wealthy in this country. Thomas Sowell has written extensively on this subject. Private property rights are not negotiable if you want to have a flourishing economy. If people are not motivated by being able to keep what they earn, they will not work. Capital, whether as real estate or other holdings, cannot be held if it is not well managed. If well managed it is the wellspring for innovation and prosperity for all who participate in the economy. The key word is participate. Your work ethic determines how successful you are. Inspiration through role models is helpful, but not necessary. You are the driving force.

Ok, I'll continue my argument. When we talk about unlimited private property and no ethical element to its distribution, it throws out the window the idea of considering the cost of what you buy when even the basic elements of survival have to be had through an involvement in a convoluted system of finance. What if the cost is considered too high? I don't see an opt-out option available if you want to keep on living. Capitalism thrives on the idea of FREE trade, not coerced.

You got me! I am a "poor" layabout, and so is most everyone to some degree depending on personal commitments, and they don't work when they don't have to. Why? Because the reality is far from keeping what we earn. We get small allotments to manage the resources of those that own them, and the only argument towards it is that it is the best thing available, not that it is free trade. When there is such a huge gap between people in terms of the availability of production resources, there is always someone "poorer" and more desperate that is willing to do the same work for less to avoid the realities of how limited their situation is.

Isn't that the whole idea? Successful producers are benefactors to humanity in that they provide something desired for the lowest cost. But how is cost factored when demand is guaranteed and coerced? Limiting access to these resources insures higher profits for the owners and continued control of the economy by making it unlikely that most people will ever have enough to offer a better alternative. Open-ended trade that allows for thieves, murderers or what have you to offer their ill-gotten gains as competition to ethical producers ensures its continued failure as a means for these ethical producers to improve life, wealth, etc, with some exceptions for the idealist to point to. Statistically, very few people see much change in their economic status from birth. Is that because they just don't have a good enough work ethic? Because they didn't try hard enough? Didn't participate enough? Such vague banalities may be the only balm available in reality, but I am loath to use them when discussing possible change for the better. You are the driving force? What does that mean? I get you to some degree, self-determinist and so forth, but the statement verges on a mystical pronouncement to quell thought, as if by "driving force" more effectively life will magically improve.

I believe Galt and crew left society to make the point that what is available to the rational man is often manipulated, coerced and so forth and that their continued involvement is actually what "props up" and maintains this society. :super: :angel:

Who are you? Your profile is blank except for your name which doesn't Google but should. I think you're Victor Pross until you cough up some real info.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

The style sure is the same.

Victor recently finished his book of caricatures and had a third party let me know by email. I am very happy he did. It's what he should be doing. But I still don't want him here.

Now, coincidentally, a person with hard to verify information shows up with his style.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I think that Jacob should be asked to offer more info about himself. I think questions have been raised and should be answered.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

OK.

Jacob,

Please provide more information about yourself. I need a way to confirm who you are.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; That was a quick response!

[arkon]

"You are the driving force? What does that mean?"

Nathaniel Branden: "No one is coming".

You assess your strengths and weaknesses. You set goals. You set sub-goals. You reward yourself with self-esteem when you achieve your sub-goals. With your new-found self-esteem you reassess your goals and set them higher. Trade value for value. Don't expect anyone give you anything or to tell you what you want or how to get it. Aim high.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree completely.

[arkon]

OK.

Jacob,

Please provide more information about yourself. I need a way to confirm who you are.

Michael

OK! Glad I checked back in, don't want any confusion. When someone compared me to Victor Pross originally I assumed it was just some villian from one of Rand's novels whose name I had forgotten. I filled in all the required info in the Registration, what else do you want to know? I added my city, Bay City, MI... I know there is a regular poster who is from MI, perhaps if he knows the area you could ask him to quiz me on some landmarks? I'll be adding a quote soon once I get the wording right. Also email is open if you wish to contact me that way.

I don't claim my ideas are good or particularly well-thought, nor am I espousing any definitive system. I just like to talk and more or less am coming from my current level of understanding. Actually, it is a relief to be involved in some thoughtful dialogue after a long, perhaps life-long period of lack in that area. I stated in my first post that most of my stuff will come across as newb questions... that's why I'm here! Already my ideas are getting clearer simply being able to discuss them rationally with others.

I am currently unemployed, living with my parents in my 'ol home town. Being broke and living in one of the most economically depressed area of the states I have ever known does tend to color my thinking with perhaps a more defeatist tone than someone who has been surrounded by more opportunity(not saying everyone has been!) or support and is in an at least mildly desirable circumstance currently. Looking at it now, this is probably the seminal question which has led me to post on this site, as although being introduced to Rand's works a few years ago and being heavily influenced by them, I have yet to integrate the ideas properly or form a plan conducive to affecting desired concretes in my life. Hoping honestly that someone might have some practical ideas of how to live, or that I might recognize some fallacies in my thinking that have hindered my attempts to create a better life through self-analysis and action. I tend to jig-saw back and forth between hard-lined personal visions and compromise to what seems to be the most reasonable ways to maintain basic health and an ability to continue, ie; food and shelter. These compromises have done nothing to improve my enjoyment of life and have in fact been antithetical. It is just difficult to accept potential homelessness, and therefore lawlessness as possible answers to my vision of how I want to live. I'm at a point where my abilities outweigh my resume, and am stuck in the idea that to admit falsehood is to cloud judgment. In other words, I'm a long-time drifter and mystic who has learned some measure of how to reason, enough to see that my past life "direction" was rooted less in what I wanted then in assumed conceptions. Now though, I find myself trying to place objective value upon my abilities and my goals, and can't equate it with simply "participating" and working a minimum wage job for an extended period of time to increase my "social value". Also, I have a bad back which makes a lot of these low pay, low respect, manual labor jobs unreasonable.

So I'm trying to resolve my first reaction of being disgusted with the callousness of people that have already achieved something when they interact with me often as naught. Being treated that way also makes you notice more directly how lopsided the whole society seems, and that these callous attitudes are simply a mask from the obvious truth that so often people's "lacks" are exploited to run many businesses. A friend of mine with a computer repair business, a real go-to guy that owns his own business, recently intimated to me that a large part of his business agenda is to veil how simple many of the things his does are, so his clients will have to call him again! This is an understandable and realistic plan to me, yet it seems far from the desired... a trade-based system in which it is more effective to go to someone else for many things, as the value is higher because they do it better. Of course, at least having a simple home and food on the table are certainly goals of mine, so some compromise between ideal and real may be necessary to achieve them.

Well, there is a summary of my current conditions, if you want more questions answered I will happily do so, as I think this site is a great resource( a little schmoozing, doesn't hurt, right? ;) ) In exchange I wouldn't mind some sort of explanation of this Pross fellow that I'm so readily being compared with, and why it would be so bad if I was him.

[Chris Grieb]

Jacob; I'm satisfied that you are not Victor Pross.

On a different matter have you considered leaving Michigan? I don't think that state's is going to get any better.

Edited December 12, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[Brant Gaede]

Sorry about that, Jacob. It's just that VP did a tremendous amount of damage here some time back and you arrived out of the blue with an avalanche of posts in something of his high energy style only telling us your name was "Jake." VP made me hypersensitive to the idea you might be him. I don't think that now. Welcome here.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jacob,

Do you have any other web presence?

Michael

[arkon]

Jacob,

Do you have any other web presence?

Michael

No. This is the only site I post on currently, and I don't IM or myspace or anything like that.

[Peter]

Greetings, Humans.

I am still trying to navigate OL. Hope this gets thru.

This is an oldie but a goodie video. And one of my favorites.

www.symphonyofscience.com

Scroll down to 'Our place in the Universe,' with Carl Sagan. It's the first video you come to. Hit the start button.

What an extraordinary video for a scientist, or anyone looking for the spiritual and rational side of life! And you can download it for free.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Live long and prosper,

Peter

[Max Eichelberger]

Welcome to Objectivist Living.

I suppose I should ask: when did you first hear of Ayn Rand?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Peter,

Welcome to Planet Earth.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Welcome Pete!

[Peter]

I suppose I should ask: when did you first hear of Ayn Rand?

In 1964, when I was in High School. Someone gave me a copy of Anthem to read. Later, another person let me see their back copies of The Objectivist Newsletter. Then I read the rest of Rand. I think of Ayn Rand's years associated with the Branden's and NBI as "The Golden Years."

Three years later I was drafted into the Army and eventually sent to South Korea. I belonged to The Headquarters and Headquarters Battery Seventh Infantry Division Artillary. On our base there were three officers for every enlisted man like me. I had my copies of The Objectivist (The name had changed and it was now more like a magazine) mailed to me and they would arrive a week later than they should have, already well read and thumbed through. The officers were reading it first. I would be stopped a couple of times a day to discuss philosophy with the officers, which caused suspician among my fellow enlisted men.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[Selene]

I suppose I should ask: when did you first hear of Ayn Rand?

In 1964, when I was in High School. Someone gave me a copy of Anthem to read. Later, another person let me see their back copies of The Objectivist Newsletter. Then I read the rest of Rand. I think of Ayn Rand's years associated with the Branden's and NBI as "The Golden Years."

Three years later I was drafted into the Army and eventually sent to South Korea. I belonged to The Headquarters and Headquarters Battery Seventh Infantry Division Artillary. On our base there were three officers for every enlisted man like me. I had my copies of The Objectivist (The name had changed and it was now more like a magazine) mailed to me and they would arrive a week later than they should have, already well read and thumbed through. The officers were reading it first. I would be stopped a couple of times a day to discuss philosophy with the officers, which caused suspician among my fellow enlisted men.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

Peter:

Thank you for your service

Welcome to OL.

Good story.

So you are from Minnesota or Omaha Nebraska? How did you, or do you support the state now?

Adam