Going Galt

[Brant Gaede]

"Quit and leave" raises the question, answered in the novel, of leave what for what? It's like a bad relationship. Quit and leave and get a better one. If one considers "quit and leave" atomistically then there's nothing to go on to for everything has been quit which makes the criticism work but it works off a fallacy. It can only work if something bad is quit for something worse. Before we talk about "quit and leave" we need to talk about the quit and leave of something respecting another something or "quit and leave" is, frankly, nothing at all.

--Brant

[moralist]

Quit and leave and get a better one.

Yes.

"Quit and leave" for a better world..

But that is only possible when we first become better people who are worthy of building a better a better world around us. There are two worlds right here and right now.

The news shows you only one of them...

Greg

[moralist]

If the 80% have no moral scruples against looting the 20%...

The 80% can only loot their own kind

who also have no moral scruples.

Greg

"The top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes," If, as you say, "the 80% can only loot their own kind," then the top 20% would not be paying 86.3%.

...and yet successful American producers keep getting richer, while unproductive government benefits dependent failures keep crying "income inequality". There always exceptions, but they do not invalidate the principle that those who are successful in business are ethical and deal with their own kind, while the failures aren't, and they also deal with their own kind as they deserve.

I refuse to do business with people who complain the government is robbing them...

...because that means that they are robbing someone else.

I would never do business with you.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Yep--they're successful since they're getting richer and if they aren't getting richer they aren't successful.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

If the 80% have no moral scruples against looting the 20%...

The 80% can only loot their own kind

who also have no moral scruples.

Greg

You're not following what was said earlier. "The top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes," If, as you say, "the 80% can only loot their own kind," then the top 20% would not be paying 86.3%.

One can observe the world--or one can close his eyes and make a wish.

Strikes me as bad argument vs. bad argument. "Can only loot their own kind" seems incomplete or just wrong therefore, but you can't counter a moral argument with data so that's wrong too. There's real truth in each but neither can match up with the other.

Greg's on stronger ground for morality is basic and Francisco's weaker because it's not and also of much narrower import, meaning there's little to be gained by parsing economic data for it flows by like water in a wild river.

--Brant

[moralist]

Yep--they're successful since they're getting richer and if they aren't getting richer they aren't successful.

--Brant

Does this mean you disagree with what I said?

Wealth creation is contingent upon successful production. Capitalism 101. Any decent businessman knows that.

People can get richer without being successful.

They're called cheats, frauds, and liars.

Success has an implied moral component linked to it.

Greg

[moralist]

If the 80% have no moral scruples against looting the 20%...

The 80% can only loot their own kind

who also have no moral scruples.

Greg

You're not following what was said earlier. "The top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes," If, as you say, "the 80% can only loot their own kind," then the top 20% would not be paying 86.3%.

One can observe the world--or one can close his eyes and make a wish.

Strikes me as bad argument vs. bad argument. "Can only loot their own kind" seems incomplete or just wrong therefore, but you can't counter a moral argument with data so that's wrong too. There's real truth in each but neither can match up with the other.

Greg's on stronger ground for morality is basic and Francisco's weaker because it's not and also of much narrower import, meaning there's little to be gained by parsing economic data for it flows by like water in a wild river.

--Brant

It is impossible for any business transaction to take place without a prior agreement of values... a "meeting of the minds" so to speak. Every businessman seeks his own kind (for better or for worse) to do business. Like attracts like. It's the law.

You are free to disagree with it if you wish, but you along with everyone else remains inescapably subject to it nonetheless...

...because it is utterly objective.

"The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered:

THAT NO MAN MAY BE SMALLER THAN HIS MONEY."

--Ayn Rand

Frank is smaller than his money. That's why he complains of being robbed... just as he robs others.

Greg

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I do deny that normative and cognitive can be divorced from each other, you do not have to hold back saying that by any means.

This statement has bothered me on a cognitive level.

I don't know where the idea of divorcing cognitive and normative abstractions came from, or even divorcing cognitive and normative thinking processes (if this is what was meant), but divorce is not how I think about thinking.

Maybe the way my words were put together led to the conclusion that this is what I propose.

The truth is, we cannot divorce any one part of our mind from the other so long as we use it. For example, we cannot divorce the medulla from our mental processes if we want to commit suicide and force our heart to stop beating, nor can we turn off the amygdala from its constant scan of things that scare the bejeezus out of us, no matter how deep in abstract thought we are.

All of the brain is running all of the time. Some parts are running more than others, though. Look at any fMRI scan for different mental processes and just see the different areas light up.

The closest we can come to the idea of "divorce" is during sleep, where we turn off our volitional conscious awareness. But even then, enough of a sliver of awareness is running for us to make choices during dreaming and even remember our dreams.

Focus, not severing, and choice

In other words, we focus on what we process, but we do not sever what we process from the whole. Obviously we need previously installed memories, language learning, logic, etc., in our brain in order to make cognitive identifications as we go up the conceptual hierarchy. And the process of installing those over our lives do come with a normative load.

So in that sense, when we decide to do the cognitive before normative routine of higher mental processing and suspend judgment as we focus on making as correct an identification from observation as we are able to, we do not lobotomize our brain. It's silly to even imagine that. We merely put the light on the rational parts and let them operate unimpeded by prejudices, core storylines, emotional contexts, previous value judgments, and all the other normative abstractions that have formed strong neural pathways in our brains.

Once we have correctly identified the thing, we then shine our inner awareness light on the parts of the mind that deal with how that thing matters to us (the normative part). Once again, when we do that, we do not amputate major parts of our left brain. We merely allow our inner focus to shift, to situate the identified thing within our knowledge, memories, values, storylines, etc., and create mental relationships with it.

When Rand kept saying the fundamental choice for humans was to think or not to think, I believe this is what she was talking about. She didn't express it in the terms I use (well... sometimes she discussed normative abstractions), and sometimes she herself was guilty of judging things she had not correctly identified through reason, but after going through her literature over decades, including the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology God knows how many times (both completely and looking up specific items), I am pretty sure the conscious choice to identify reality correctly through observation irrespective of prejudice, then connect that new identification to the automated underneath part of the mind is what she was talking about.

This is a long discussion because you can do this not just with outside reality, but also with creativity (believe it or not), with higher abstractions, with meta-cognition (thinking about thinking as you are thinking), with automatic body processes like breathing, heartbeats, etc., and maybe some other stuff that does not come to mind right now.

Using knowledge

For using knowledge (i.e., acting on it), the choice to think means--in this order:

Identify --> Judge --> Act.

This is contrary to the autopilot unchosen mode of thinking:

Judge --> Act --> Identify only what relates to the judgment // or Judge --> Identify only what relates to the judgment --> Act

In other words, you can't turn identification off when you do the normative to cognitive routine. But you do remove choice from it by simply choosing not to think. Therefore you only look for the stuff that reinforces or deals with your beliefs and blank out (ignore) the rest.

Humans do both modes of thinking, choosing to think and letting their thinking run on autopilot. Frankly we need both. But the only on-off thing involved is volition--the choice to think or not to think. The rest (cognitive and normative) is focus, not severing.

Higher learning

Notice that all higher learning involves the cognitive to normative approach. Granted, you build on previous knowledge, but the cognitive rules and the cognitive parts of the concepts you learned are what you work with, not your evaluations.

You have to use cognitive to normative approach for higher learning because there is no way to soak up, say, calculus by osmosis. You have to choose to learn it in order to learn it regardless of how you value it or what you feel about it. If you can align everything, great. It becomes easy and a pleasure. Maybe even exciting. If you hate math, learning calculus becomes tedious, unpleasant and even torture, but you can still do it.

Why?

Because you chose to.

And what did that choice entail?

Identifying the rules, formulas, etc., correctly first, then fitting them in with previous evaluations--not in a lobotomized brain, but in a fully functioning one.

Incidentally, I'm not dealing with repetition here because I'm merely talking about a thinking process, not a skill acquisition. You have to practice to gain a skill, but that's another discussion. There is one interesting aspect, though. After enough repetition, your skill level will reach a plateau and you will not get better. Focused practice (with focus held in place by the conscious choice to think throughout the practice session) is the only way you can exceed your plateaus.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

As an added thought to the above, Daniel Kahneman makes a similar division from a different angle in his System 1 and System 2 modes of thought. See here: Thinking Fast and Slow.

The reason I'm mentioning this is that he constantly hammers the idea that System 2, the higher level of thinking, the one you have to choose to get it to kick in, is lazy.

Maybe that's why so many people don't like to do it very much.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Yep--they're successful since they're getting richer and if they aren't getting richer they aren't successful.

--Brant

Does this mean you disagree with what I said?

Wealth creation is contingent upon successful production. Capitalism 101. Any decent businessman knows that.

People can get richer without being successful.

They're called cheats, frauds, and liars.

Success has an implied moral component linked to it.

Greg

It's circular reasoning I believe.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Frank is smaller than his money. That's why he complains of being robbed... just as he robs others.

Greg

Hard to get my brain around how he's smaller than his money--you seem to be thinking morally. It's even harder to know how he "robs others." That strikes me as a vicious ad hominem swipe in lieu of a good argument and is a specialty of yours.

--Brant

[moralist]

Frank is smaller than his money. That's why he complains of being robbed... just as he robs others.

Greg

Hard to get my brain around how he's smaller than his money--you seem to be thinking morally. It's even harder to know how he "robs others." That strikes me as a vicious ad hominem swipe in lieu of a good argument and is a specialty of yours.

--Brant

It's not personal, Brant. It's the law. Franks' complaining just offers an excellent demonstration of how he makes himself the victim of his own complaint.

It's self inflicted.

People who complain that the government is robbing them are robbing others. It's their own lack of values that makes them fair game for the government to rob them. What goes around comes around. No one escapes... not me... not you... not anyone.

Greg

[moralist]

Yep--they're successful since they're getting richer and if they aren't getting richer they aren't successful.

--Brant

Does this mean you disagree with what I said?

Wealth creation is contingent upon successful production. Capitalism 101. Any decent businessman knows that.

People can get richer without being successful.

They're called cheats, frauds, and liars.

Success has an implied moral component linked to it.

Greg

It's circular reasoning I believe.

--Brant

Does saying it's circular mean that you see no connection between ethics and success in business?

The principle is either true or it's a lie.

So. in your opinion, which is it?

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

 

 

 

If the 80% have no moral scruples against looting the 20%...

 

The 80% can only loot their own kind

who also have no moral scruples.

 

 

Greg

 

 

 "The top 20 percent of income earners paid 86.3 percent of all federal income taxes," If, as you say, "the 80% can only loot their own kind," then the top 20% would not be paying 86.3%.

 

...and yet successful American producers keep getting richer, while unproductive government benefits dependent failures keep crying "income inequality". There always exceptions, but they do not invalidate the principle that those who are successful in business are ethical and deal with their own kind, while the failures aren't, and they also deal with their own kind as they deserve.

 

I refuse to do business with people who complain the government is robbing them...

 

...because that means that they are robbing someone else.

 

I would never do business with you.

 

 

Greg

 

 

There are retailers who do well despite theft by shoplifters. Like some high income earners whose wealth increases despite government looting, some retailers manage to increase net revenues despite criminals who take something for nothing. But without looting, high income earners and retailers would be richer still.

 

When I have a choice, I refuse to do business with people, like Harry Reid, who say taxation is voluntary.

 

 

 

 

Now to examine the statement "people who complain the government is robbing them ... means that they are robbing someone else." Generally, in civilized societies, accusations of criminality are backed up with evidence. If not, the accuser is regarded as "bearing false witness." So where is your evidence, Morrie?

[Brant Gaede]

Greg, and people who don't complain aren't "robbing others"? I detect a lack of universality in your claim. All you're really doing is bashing Francisco.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Yep--they're successful since they're getting richer and if they aren't getting richer they aren't successful.

--Brant

Does this mean you disagree with what I said?

Wealth creation is contingent upon successful production. Capitalism 101. Any decent businessman knows that.

People can get richer without being successful.

They're called cheats, frauds, and liars.

Success has an implied moral component linked to it.

Greg

It's circular reasoning I believe.

--Brant

Does saying it's circular mean that you see no connection between ethics and success in business?

The principle is either true or it's a lie.

So. in your opinion, which is it?

Greg

The construct does not support the proposition for it needs two aspects while that which are stated is actually one aspect in two different sets of clothes. Hence it's circular.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

...and yet successful American producers keep getting richer . . . .

To de-clutter the conversation, I had reversed this to if you're not getting richer you aren't a successful producer to illustrate circularity in reasoning. One side of the statement supports the other but without any data. Not getting richer and not a successful producer only refers to one possible person embodying both. To generalize off that creates the fallacy. The reason that that person is not produced is that would illustrate only a particularization, not a generalization.

--Brant

I may be wrong to say this fallacious reasoning is circular; it may need another name also fallacious

[moralist]

There are retailers who do well despite theft by shoplifters

Of course they do... because the cost of theft is built into every product they sell.

I do well despite government taxation because it is already factored into the cost of every product and service I sell. And that's why I don't complain of being robbed like you do. I don't regard myself as a victim like you do, because i don't make myself a victim like you do. Your victimhood is self inflicted. You'll never see that as long as you need something else, like the government, to blame (unjustly accuse) for your own moral failure.

Face it Frank. Because we each live by completely different standards, our two views will always be irreconcilable... and that will never change.

So have a nice day.

Greg

[moralist]

Greg, and people who don't complain aren't "robbing others"?

Yes.

All perpetrators first view themselves as victims who blame (unjustly accuse) others... because that's from where they get the justification to prey upon others.

Psych 101.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

"All"? You know, you've never demonstrated "all" as opposed to some or most or almost all. You replace logical reasoning by mere asseveration. Then you say you see it or you don't or you're scum or you aren't, considering. Etc. Ayn Rand frequently misused "either-or" in my estimation, but you've made her a piker by comparison. She kept to the deductive, usually--can't think of an exception off hand--but you've chucked both the deductive and the inductive. This is a religion you are visiting on us. It can't be anything else. Albert Ellis wrote a book, a screed, Is Objectivism a Religion? Well, either it is or it isn't, except it is and it isn't. Implicit misuse of either-or by him. He was just highly pissed off at Rand and Branden, maybe for good reason. I was still in Vietnam when he and Branden had their "debate" in May 1967 in front of about 1000, most of them "Students of Objectivism" in the Hotel New Yorker at 8th Ave and 34th. Branden's estate must still have a copy of the complete audio which has never been released.

--Brant

[Francisco Ferrer]

There are retailers who do well despite theft by shoplifters

Of course they do... because the cost of theft is built into every product they sell.

I do well despite government taxation because it is already factored into the cost of every product and service I sell. And that's why I don't complain of being robbed like you do. I don't regard myself as a victim like you do, because i don't make myself a victim like you do. Your victimhood is self inflicted. You'll never see that as long as you need something else, like the government, to blame (unjustly accuse) for your own moral failure.

Face it Frank. Because we each live by completely different standards, our two views will always be irreconcilable... and that will never change.

So have a nice day.

Greg

A retailer cannot raise prices to cover losses from theft without affecting sales and thus his own bottom line. If Store A raises prices to cover a $10,000 theft and Store B, which had no theft, keeps its prices the same, customers will quickly abandon A for B.

I have previously exposed your fallacious logic in contending that taxes can be covered through price increases. If, for example, the federal government doubles the taxes on automobiles, car makers cannot add another $5,000 to every vehicle without affecting total sales volume and thus the car makers' bottom line. This is simple economics, to which you appear to be fiercely resistant.

Other than automakers, there are millions of Americans who are financially dependent on income that cannot be adjusted with a quick price mark up. Crowing about how little taxation affects you is the equivalent of a Catholic in Mary Tudor's England bragging about how little he is affected by the burning of Protestant heretics.

If, as you claim, my "victimhood is self-inflicted," then provide details of what I did to bring about the federal excise tax on gasoline.

But you can work on that after you have submitted some evidence for your accusation in Post #103 that "people who complain the government is robbing them . . . are robbing someone else."

Why not start with Ayn Rand? She recognized that taxation is robbery: "the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force." So whom, exactly, did Ayn Rand rob?

[moralist]

There are retailers who do well despite theft by shoplifters

Of course they do... because the cost of theft is built into every product they sell.

I do well despite government taxation because it is already factored into the cost of every product and service I sell. And that's why I don't complain of being robbed like you do. I don't regard myself as a victim like you do, because i don't make myself a victim like you do. Your victimhood is self inflicted. You'll never see that as long as you need something else, like the government, to blame (unjustly accuse) for your own moral failure.

Face it Frank. Because we each live by completely different standards, our two views will always be irreconcilable... and that will never change.

So have a nice day.

Greg

A retailer cannot raise prices to cover losses from theft without affecting sales and thus his own bottom line.

The price of everything you buy has every cost of business already included in it. The playing field is perfectly level.

You're obviously not a businessman, Frank.

Because you think like an employee.

Greg

[Francisco Ferrer]

The price of everything you buy has every cost of business already included in it. The playing field is perfectly level.

You're not a businessman, Frank.

You think like an employee.

Greg

Your response does not address the point that prices are not infinitely elastic. As I explained to you months ago, if all taxes could just be passed forward, the U.S. could retire the debt in one year just by raising tax rates accordingly. To put it another way, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

High taxes (and inflation, which is a form of taxation) take a toll on a society's prosperity, productivity and (eventually) stability. Ancient Rome, Peron's Argentina and Zimbabwe are just a few examples.

The playing field will not be level until all forms of theft are criminalized.

You know nothing about my business affairs and apparently even less about economics.

What you appear to be quite good at, however, is evading any responsibility to prove your accusation in Post #103 that "people who complain the government is robbing them . . . are robbing someone else."

[Derek McGowan]

There are retailers who do well despite theft by shoplifters

Of course they do... because the cost of theft is built into every product they sell.

I do well despite government taxation because it is already factored into the cost of every product and service I sell. And that's why I don't complain of being robbed like you do. I don't regard myself as a victim like you do, because i don't make myself a victim like you do. Your victimhood is self inflicted. You'll never see that as long as you need something else, like the government, to blame (unjustly accuse) for your own moral failure.

Face it Frank. Because we each live by completely different standards, our two views will always be irreconcilable... and that will never change.

So have a nice day.

Greg

A retailer cannot raise prices to cover losses from theft without affecting sales and thus his own bottom line.

The price of everything you buy has every cost of business already included in it. The playing field is perfectly level.

You're obviously not a businessman, Frank.

Because you think like an employee.

Greg

gonna have to agree with Greg on this one

[Francisco Ferrer]

gonna have to agree with Greg on this one

How would a soldier in the U.S. Army cover higher taxes by raising his "prices"?