mfgreaves

Michael, I was as angry as you were when I first heard the news. "Murderers" was the word that (wrongly) came to my mind. Calming down over several hours, and then following Lessig's twitter feed to Swartz, I found many confused and concerning ideas. It was only a matter of time till he got in trouble with the government. Also it is wrong to suggest that the only property which he had no regard for was the JSTOR stuff. I can find no evidence of any regard for any property. I also don't agree that he was a genius. RSS is important but simple, lots of people could have invented it at 14. Thousands. It's still very sad to me.

It's incredibly sad. I can't imagine his parents' pain right now. Unfortunately, from what I have read, I cannot conclude that Swartz was a good person; in fact destructively mis-guided; and it is ironic that he was persecuted by an appointee of a President whose policies he seemed to strongly support. He appears to have had no regard for property or material values, was strongly biased against American corporations and opposed any role for money in politics. His view on economics and government spending seemed to be left-of-Krugman. In fact he seemed like a classic socialist anarchist. He wanted the Democrats to spend without regard for the debt limit and for Obama to feel no power from the Tea Party or congressional Republicans. He seemed sympathetic with the Occupy movement, Assange and may have been targeted because his actions were similar to Bradley Manning's. I can't imagine too many around here would approve of these characteristics. It's too bad that so many bright, bright kids think that they know better than the whole world that came before them. And too bad that this one killed himself. Wish I could be kinder.

Excellent work by Harris. I was pleasantly surprised by his reasoning; perhaps I shouldn't have been.

Adam, Serious issues indeed. Also, it's amazing the kind of material that one can "produce" and actually get paid for; that there are publications which would pay for that kind of nonsense. Are the people running the NYT this stupid? ...OK, I take back the question. Mike

One can only wonder if Ms. Dowd has ever used her mind for thinking. This kind of bubbling stream of evasive drivel seems to be the only thing that many on the political left can issue from their minds at all. I am too flabbergasted to try to follow it. Mike

Nice. Thanks for the pointers. Mike

Anyone got a link to a transcript? Mike

That's because I *wasn't* arguing for it's legitimacy. I was (and do) contest your assertion that the coup led to anti-western sentiment. I assert that you have it backwards: there already *was* anti-western sentiment; the US and UK feared communist influences, and that led to the CIA intervention. You are parroting the line that the coup led to anti-western feelings; and that is false. On the other hand, I am sure that it did nothing to dissipate them... Mike

Well, if we are looking for the "full context", please remember what triggered the 1953 coup: The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, after a period of great difficulty and fruitless exploration (they nearly gave up on ever finding oil in Iran and had burned through their cash), finally struck oil in 1908, and single-handedly turned Iran into a major producer. Mossadegh thanked them by attempting forced nationalization of their company, with broad public support. It is probably the case that AIOC (formerly APOC, now BP) should have offered Iran a better deal by 1951. In any case, anti-western feeling led to the 1953 coup, not the other way round. Mike

I want to start by saying that I appreciate that both LM and the cleric issuing the Fatwa are trying to save innocent lives. This is good. Some here have expressed doubts as to the efficacy of such declarations; I will not add to this negativity. Instead I will positively assert that Objectivist values include the Responsibility of Independent Judgement. The very essence of a Fatwa stands in diametric opposition to this value. We each have within us all that we need, to see evil for what it is, without needing some central authority to spell it out for us; or to contradict our independent conclusions. Mike

Dr. Morbius, I figure they could use your help over at ARI around about now; their "monsters from the id" are getting seriously out-of-hand... ("The Forbidden Planet" is one of my old favorites too. Watch out for that "brain boost"! It's a doozy!) Mike

Actually it *is hard* to end up thinking that, if you're actually thinking clearly and reading carefully. For those with muddled thinking, or knee-jerk emotional reactions, of course, reaching almost any conclusion is possible; and that is the real problem: readers who become irrational when confronted with ideas contrary to their assumed, ingrained norms. Mike

Mandelbrot's greatest contribution to human knowledge was his demonstration of how great complexity can emerge from simple rules. I sometimes fear that most laymen do not get this, and are merely taken with the "trippy" imagery. The most striking example of this principle at work in nature is the human brain. The amount of digital data in our DNA, that holds all of the rules for the construction of our brains, is tiny compared to the complexity of the result. The mathematics of fractals is involved in this amazing translation. Ultimately this kind of emergent complexity is a powerful point in any scientific refutation of the need for a Creator. The primitive idea that anything that could have given rise to us, must be greater than us, is precisely backwards. In nature, complexity arises from the mud and ascends to the heavens; not the other way around. Mike

I just want to say that I found Robert's post #50 to be really valuable. Thank you, Robert. Mike

Bill, You're wrong about that. You may have missed a third possible funding model, besides science-for-profit and public funding: philanthropic endowments, such as for universities and research foundations like HHMI. Government has no place funding research unless it relates to a proper function of the state. Rand did allow for the legitimacy of charity, but it is true that she did not emphasize it's importance enough. It is certainly true that science-for-profit will not answer all of our questions for us. Mike

Ahh. Now I get the drift. Thanks. Mike

The story of our lives! Books jump on my reading list faster than I now retire them... Daniel Boone was my very favorite hero, when I was 7. And I'm not even an American! Thanks for your thoughts, Michael. Mike

Ted, I've probably had too much wine, but what is it that you're referring to with the 2nd part of that sentence (the LGBTQ bit)? Thanks very much. Mike No, I didn't need a RuPaul video as an LGBTQ illustration. I was wondering about the "invention of the Roman empire" keeping RuPaul down, if you will. (I got the "God created the fossils" conspiracy, just not the 2nd conspiracy.) Thanks very much. Mike

Ted, I've probably had too much wine, but what is it that you're referring to with the 2nd part of that sentence (the LGBTQ bit)? Thanks very much. Mike

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca Michael you said that: "if their own words prove that, then that is what we have to accept." They were politicians, right? Their lips were moving, right? What conclusions can we draw? Only that that is what they said; not that that is what they believed. Washington obviously believed that religion could be usefully leveraged to promote public order. That is the only thing that we can be sure of; not his religious beliefs. Mike

I know. I began to suspect that you were a software engineer when your opposition to patents became clear. Mike

Fascinating. An Objectivist (I presume, perhaps incorrectly); an engineer (I understand); and you're opposed to patent rights. I guess, eventually, I've seen everything. 8-) A patent-less, corporation-less West, organized on Rothbardian principles, would have surrendered it's world to communism and/or fascism. You'll never convince me otherwise. We are about 2 centuries too far into the experiment, benefiting from patents, to imagine how the 20th century would have played-out without such property constructs. I'm betting that you wouldn't have liked it, Shayne. The context in which you can create things, with your own mind and property, is what you are not addressing. All the patents on all of the things which you can create in any historical context, eg. a screwdriver, have already expired. What is protected by patents now, are things like field-effect transistor variants, which never would have come into existence without patents and corporations. Unless perhaps by State Science Institutes. Respectfully, Mike

I am an Objectivist who would prefer that industrial capitalism should survive, and not perish. How would this survival happen if communists could share knowledge by confiscation, but capitalists could not share it by ownership and exchange? If corporations could not be created to tackle projects at the large scales that states can? I am on very firm moral ground here. In the absence of patents, natural rights would be in greater danger, not less. (Thank you for splitting off the thread, we were very OT.) Mike

Rothbard hasn't won anything. Are you an AnCap, BTW? Natural rights are violated by patents. There, happy? Secure borders also violate natural rights. We could go on. Patents violate natural rights less than any alternative, however. Specifically, permitting the 2nd inventor to use the new idea, without compensating the 1st inventor, will cause all invention to be done in secret. Boy will natural rights be buggered then. A USA (I am Canadian, BTW) without a patent system would have lost the Cold War and we'd both be arguing in a Gulag about now. Talk about having a gun to your head. Rand was wrong about some things but this isn't one of them. Mike