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I've always said that Phil isn't completely wrong in his criticisms. The trouble with being so intelligent George is that you are capable of pulling off dishonest spin that others can't get away with. When a less intelligent person tries to spin, he gets caught. But when you spin, you often get away with it. The more intelligent you are, the less you get social cues that alert you to being dishonest with yourself, and therefore you need to take even greater care to be honest, lest you develop a habit of constantly distorting everything and becoming completely deluded. Shayne

Careful George, if you go too far in your spin you just might reveal that all your remarks are self-serving, and the self they are serving is not very admirable. It's clear at least to me that you have only one motive when you interact with me: to make George look bigger. You act like you are intimidated by me. Since you are the better writer, and by my estimation, more intelligent, I can only guess at why you feel this way. Why don't you just stick to the facts and drop the ad hominem? You don't understand how X connects to Y here. Fine. Just say that. Ask for help connecting things. You don't need to incessantly attack me, and it makes you appear weak. Shayne

One final remark on George's wrongheaded stance here. If a guest were staying at my house, and I noticed that jewelry had gone missing, that's not enough to assign blame. But if his fingerprints were on the jewelry box, and if he were snooping around where he didn't belong, and if his story didn't make any sense, and if the jewelry was in his backpack, well then it's beyond reasonable doubt: the guy is a thief. Now suppose I find that money is missing too, but I have no other evidence than that it went missing the same week he was staying. That's concomitant with the other things I know he's doing wrong, and whether or not some other thief sneaked in and stole the money, he'll get blamed for the theft in a just court of law, and rightly so. Likewise, we do not need to trace the precise cause-effect chain that's leading to the concentration of media ownership. All we need to know is the variety of specific laws and regulations that would in principle lead to it, and to know that these are in fact vile rights-violating laws, and we've found the thief that deserves the blame. If it turns out that we put the thief away, and still end up with concentrated media ownership, then that would be interesting, but we have no duty to predict what will happen on a free market in order to assign plausible blame for what appears to be a bad outcome on the rights-usurping system. It is enough to know that the ways in which it is violating rights would in principle lead to the untoward effect we are observing. Just as it is sufficient to know that a thief who had motive, means, and opportunity should get the blame even though we didn't catch him on video. Shayne

Here's a starting point in case George wants to actually research the issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership One theory blames "deregulation", but libertarians should know better than to accept that explanation. Another angle of this that is quite relevant: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html?pagewanted=all As Rand said, it's very convenient to have "one neck ready for one leash." Shayne

That's the most accurate thing you've said so far. To make it more accurate: you have too little imagination to connect what you do know to what is depicted by the graph. And you're also too impertinent to have anyone else walk you through it. And perhaps, you're too old to really care one way or another -- after all, what difference is it to you if civilization falls to this kind of thing after you're gone, right? Wishful thinking. I think there are at least a few people here besides me who, given what they already know, who could fill in some details for you. I don't have much interest in interacting with an impertinent foolish old man who sees only what he wants to see. You're emotionally committed to me being wrong about the connections here, and you'll twist any evidence I'd put forth. Let someone else suffer with your dogmatic behavior. Shayne - One neck ready for one leash.

I think part of why George lacks imagination is that he happened to choose a line of work that does not require intensive interaction with laws and regulations. If you are truly creative and choose from a variety of fields outside of writing or other media, you rapidly bump into government interference. Your preferred business plan may well be impossible, or too risky for you personally, given the legal context. George has never in his life had to suffer from any of this to a great degree, so it's easy for him to sit back and be dogmatic when I try to point out the problems. He blames the victim. Shame on you George. Shayne

Subtracting out George's empty-headed ad hominems, let's see what substance he has to add: True. But concomitant rights-violating government forces that would be expected to result in the concentration adds the meaning. You are ignorant (or willfully evasive?) of these concomitant forces, ergo you get no meaning. You lack vision and imagination George. You're also a bit dogmatic, which makes you immune from learning new ideas from others. In combination, these are particularly bad traits. Shayne

I have a somewhat opposite opinion from John's. Consciousness in all animals is primarily an integrative faculty: it is the faculty that makes what's "out there" be available to the action-oriented aspects of the organism. Therefore, a correct integration is the natural, default state, the one that natural selection would select for. Irrationality on the other hand actively seeks to destroy this natural purpose of consciousness. Humans can take control of the integrating mechanism itself, they can train it and direct it, and to abstract purposes. It is the fact that humans are in control of the integrating mechanisms of consciousness that distinguishes them from the animals. But this very fact creates the possibility that they can choose to subvert it. In other words, the potential for irrationality is a side-effect of being in control. The (obvious) advantages of being in control are the primary evolutionary driver. An individual that stays true to his nature will always seek truth. But as Rand pointed out, such seeking is generally not rewarded by today's social systems nor was it in the known past. In the Dark Ages you were burned at the stake, Galileo was imprisoned. Nowadays you are mocked or ostracized, and if you act on truth, you will be imprisoned just like Galileo. So an individual that remains true to his nature is punished by society. You do not need more explanation for widespread irrationality than that -- most people can only put up with so much punishment before they give in. All that needs to be explained is why, historically, mankind got stuck into a vicious cycle of irrationality, but I think that if we broke the social cycle, then most individuals who were born and raised in a sane household and community, one that encouraged rationality and discouraged irrationality, would naturally tend to be rational. Which is to say, I think the natural state of man (i.e., one where he is not threatened by other men) is to be rational. Shayne

Reminds me of this in some regard: Of course, the woman here deserved it for her vile actions, but it struck me that having her on the air should have been beneath H&C. She's obviously mentally ill, and having them both attack her on air like that looked like what it was: grabbing a mental patient, and then mentally kicking the tar out of them. Seems akin to beating a paraplegic. Likewise, Beck picking on some unknown nerd strikes me as unseemly bullying. Also, don't they have more important things to do? Beck gets paid a lot for what he does. I guess this is "entertainment", but entertainment for what kind of mentality? Shayne

The technology itself isn't bad. You might want something like this in an HOA. But when you've got a government that's usurped your rights in various respects, then it looks like 1984. Shayne

A lot of people are trying to stop things like this but it's simple numbers: 1 person is no match for ten. Shayne

Translation: Fascism is A-OK, we have the internet! The issue here isn't whether there are alternatives (and besides, "the internet" does not replace a professional journalism staff); the important matter is: what is causing the reductions in alternatives? Note that the trend started long before the internet, so that's not the cause. It is easy to discern fascist trends underlying the reduction, ergo it is a reasonable assumption that things like fiat money, political manipulation of media outlets, regulations, out of proportion liabilities, etc. are causing this, and that's not a good thing. I would think that an individualist would not like the fact that journalists are being corralled like this, so I don't understand George's response. He's evidently extremely naive. Shayne

Most of the economists I've seen talk about the changes in income inequality are not talking about the top 1%, they're talking about the top ~.01%. I this 99% talk is mostly a catchy marketing phrase, the knee of the income curve changes happens in a much smaller group than 1%. http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html Shayne

One irrational ideology is the one that supports the patent system. Whoops. The root issue is: individual rights vs. various forms of attacks on them. I've never claimed that fascism/corporatism exhausts the set of rights-violating ideologies. But if you are talk about Objectivism, then it's natural to talk about one of its biggest blind spots a bit more than you'd talk about the things it gets right. Shayne

In other news, "Apple granted patent on slide to unlock, even though it existed 2 years before they invented (sic) it": http://www.androidcentral.com/apple-granted-patent-slide-unlock-even-though-it-existed-2-years-they-invented-it It's a sick, sick world... Shayne

Excellent post Michael. The primary motivations for my book were twofold. First, ever since reading Atlas and not unlike most Objectivists, I've had a passion for individual rights. Second, I enjoy theoretical thinking. This is purely selfish; I simply enjoy trying to get to the bottom of things. As it happened, I spent a good deal of time riding my bike and wanted something interesting and different to think about, so I thought about the theoretical underpinnings of rights and came up with the core of what you find in my book. Deciding to turn what I thought into a book was a separate more complicated decision, but my main thought was that it'd be a shame not to write down my position after I'd reached it because, in my judgement, it wasn't represented elsewhere. I had no prior motive to actually write a book, but after having thought the thoughts, they kind of dragged me, reluctantly, into the book project. So you're right, the idea of public acceptance was not a motor. Shayne

Again with the fact-devoid generalized retort. The paragraph was long because I was referring to specifics. You on the other hand have been too cowardly to be direct and specific. It's as form of passive-aggressive behavior that you seem to repeatedly indulge in and it's annoying. (However, it's not as annoying as Dennis's total evasions.) Shayne - If you don't have anything to say, don't say anything.

For the record, my view is not contrary to Rand's fiction. See the Roark quote. His motive is to build, he has clients in order to build. Rearden wants his metal used as far and wide as possible -- not because it is his, but because it is good. Profit is the means to that end. If someone came up with a better metal, we can be sure that Rearden would congratulate him and drop production of Rearden metal if it had no relatively better aspects. He wouldn't appeal to the government to block the other party (Microsoft and Apple suing Google over Android), or to figure out some way to profit by misdirection of the public (e.g., Thomas Edison's electrocution of dogs to sway the public from Tesla's AC). My view may be contrary to some of Rand's big business emphases in her non-fiction, and it is definitely contrary to later interpretations by many Objectivists. But it is very true to her fiction. Shayne

I think you mean a "for free market", not a "free market." Shayne

Yes, that's my verdict as well. Slave contracts are unenforceable. I expand on why in my book (basically: justice means, if you break a contract, putting the other party back to where they were, taking into account various changes since it was originally made; it does not mean forcing the parties to adhere to the contract). Not all libertarians conclude this, e.g.: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block134.html Debt adds a complex aspect to this that I'll just not touch on for now, maybe later. Shayne

A Randian hero can have imperfections. I think they exist, but they don't rise to the top of industry in today's very mixed economy. Indeed, Rand was a Randian hero. She chose a pursuit that didn't depend on creating a large infrastructure of people, and so could exist as a Randian hero. Businessmen have a more difficult time. Wozniak added another element that Rearden had and Jobs was missing: tenacity at solving engineering problems. Shayne

You're wrong. But why do you insist on beating your dead horse? It has nothing to do with the thread. Did you bruise your ego? Are you ashamed that you went over the top and are now trying to save face by pretending I did worse than you? You're the one that needs to stop Brant. Or if you won't, how about you do something new for a change and squarely deal with the matter rather than throwing off generalized, unsubstantiated, self-serving remarks. You took exception to how I framed the insult Dennis earned. I went so far as to clarify for you that your interpretation is not what I meant, even though the clarification was not necessary. I'm not married to the particular form of insult, so I even offered Dennis to rewrite it if that's what he wanted. Evidently he didn't care as much as you do. Evidently he believes that I appear so foolish, that my opinions, which are clearly uninformed of actual experience with him, won't hurt his business. Seems a rather sane response given the premises. Yours on the other hand makes no sense. I don't know what you want. You seem to want me to tell you were right when in fact, you went way over the line. Maybe my insult was in bad taste, but your response went far further than bad taste. Shayne

I don't know what to say... it's good that he knows who counts in his company: Microsoft is certainly involved with significant unjust market activity, especially of late, where it is profiting (via corrupt patent law) on something it didn't even create: Android. Shayne

Roark and Rearden are better than Jobs in this important respect: both were intimately familiar with the details of their creations. They knew not only what they wanted as a final result, but how to accomplish their ends. Rearden depended on others not because he couldn't do each of their jobs, but because he was only one man. Jobs was utterly dependent on people like Wozniak. I don't see that a Rearden would be able to exist in today's very mixed economy, just as in the end, his company didn't survive to the end of Atlas. Some argued that Bill Gates was comparable to Rearden (I don't agree, but for the sake of argument...) and that his going into philanthropy was him retreating from the unjust attacks on his company. I'm sure there is some truth to this. (There's a lot of truth to Jobs' criticism of Gates as well.) Jobs was the one with just the right about of mix of contradictions, and some great luck concerning his return to Apple, that he was able to combine the creator personality with the corporate realm and achieve some great things. He's not a Randian hero. I'd like to see a Randian hero thrive in this corporate setup, but I think he'd have an even harder time than Jobs. Shayne

Enough with the ad hominem Brant. Be a man. Stick with the subject. Or put your tail between your legs like Ninth or Dennis and scurry off. But knock it off with this self-serving spin of yours. Shayne