Number of people in Atlantis

[gio]

I heard a lecture where Ayn Rand was answering a question where she was making a hypothesis about the number of people in Atlantis (it was about a thousand I think, but I have to check) in Atlas Shrugged.

I can not refind it, does that tell you something?

Thank you.

[BaalChatzaf]

11 minutes ago, gio said:

I heard a lecture where Ayn Rand was answering a question where she was making a hypothesis about the number of people in Atlantis (it was about a thousand I think, but I have to check).

I can not refind it, does that tell you something?

Thank you.

Atlantis  is the fictitious city appearing in a science fiction story by Plato (See Timeaus and Critias).  He never said how many people lived there.

 

[gio]

I'm talking about Atlantis in the novel Atlas Shrugged ! Of course !!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

39 minutes ago, gio said:

I can not refind it, does that tell you something?

Gio,

It tells me you are looking?

 

(Sorry, I couldn't resist...  )

As to your question, I might be able to help from being at a Ford Hall Forum talk back in the early 70's. I remember someone asked Rand about turning Galt's Gulch into a country or something like that and she rejected the idea because, as she said, in the novel Galt's Gulch was a private estate owned by Michael Mulligan. I recall some details being mentioned, but I don't recall if the population size was. Something's ringing a bell in my mind, though.

You might try running down that Q&A and see. I think it was the 1971 lecture, "The Moratorium on Brains." I'm going on memory so don't hold me to it.

Michael

[gio]

54 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

It tells me you are looking?

Sorry I used a french expression, I don't know if it works in english.

Anyway I found my answer in Ayn Rand Answers, page 75. She answered in 1972 in the lecture "A Nation's Unity".

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

11 minutes ago, gio said:

Anyway I found my answer in Ayn Rand Answers, page 75. She answered in 1972 in the lecture "A Nation's Unity".

Gio,

That's the answer I remember, so it must have been that lecture I was at. In fact, now that I think about it, it was.

I heard "The Moratorium on Brains" on the radio. I was studying at Boston University at the time. I had gone down there by bicycle with a girl I was hitting on at the time who was also into Rand.   We got a little late and the crowd was huge. Even the overflow crowd. So we rode our bikes back to the dorm and listened to it on the radio. I preferred that to the overflow space where they were piping the sound to because I thought I could double up, hear my lecture and have a better chance with the girl since she would be right there in my bedroom. (Alas, that romance was not to be, but not because I didn't try. I guess I sucked at being Galt.  )

I recall the title "The Moratorium on Brains" because I recorded a cassette version off the radio that I carried with me for years. (I even took it to Brazil when I went down there to live.)

The next year, having learned my lesson, I biked down to Ford Hall much earlier and got a seat. Oddly enough, I no longer remember if the girl was with me that time. Man did I have a thing for her back then, though. Her name was Lynn Vermeer and she played organ. (My God! I just looked her name up and found her still in Boston and listed as organist. No pictures, though. Damn...  )

I pretty sure that's the correct sequence.

Anyway, some personal history for whatever that's worth...

Since we hardly know each other, not much, I imagine...

Oh well...

 

Michael

[Peter]

On ‎6‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 1:30 PM, gio said:

Sorry I used a french expression, I don't know if it works in english.

Anyway I found my answer in Ayn Rand Answers, page 75. She answered in 1972 in the lecture "A Nation's Unity".

It would take a lot of resources to sustain a thousand people, many of them simply growing their own food, and using it for sustenance and as something to trade. I remember a discussion about how those people would need to be homogenous or very much alike, for Atlantis to work.

From AS: The rectangle of light in the acres of a farm was the window of the library of Judge Narragansett. He sat at a table, and the light of his lamp fell on the copy of an ancient document. He had marked and crossed out the contradictions in its statements that had once been the cause of its destruction. He was now adding a new clause to its pages: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade . . ." end quote

This may not be as relevant to people from other countries but we take our Constitution very seriously and by living here in America we are giving our “consent” to be governed under it, every time we take a breath.   

whYNOT (Tony) wrote: Makes sense to me - well explained. "Being there" (and staying there) is sufficient consent. Existence (of a form of governance) precedes consciousness (one's choice.) . . . In the last resort, we vote with our feet. end quote

To change our Constitution, a “Constitutional Convention” needs to be convened to fix specific portions, or to “add to” the Constitution.

George H. Smith wrote: First, the 1936 Supreme Court decision "United States v. Butler" would need to be overturned. This is where Alexander Hamilton's broad interpretation of the "general welfare" clause was explicitly adopted, thereby gutting the enumerated powers doctrine advocated by Jefferson and other strict constructionists . . . . Second, the Supreme Court would need to wake up to the fact that we have a Ninth Amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." end quote

So, our President, Legislature, or a Constitutional Convention can never change it to go against the preamble and the Bill of Rights. So far it has worked, but court cases are always going all the way to the Supreme Court and some Presidents act beyond their expressed powers . . . and they get “shot down.” Peter

[Wolf DeVoon]

3 hours ago, Peter said:

George H. Smith wrote: First, the 1936 Supreme Court decision "United States v. Butler" would need to be overturned. This is where Alexander Hamilton's broad interpretation of the "general welfare" clause was explicitly adopted

An excellent reason never to listen to George. U.S. v Butler struck down FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act. Reversing Butler would grant Congress infinite power.

Treasury Secretary Hamilton never said anything about general welfare. He advanced the doctrine of implied powers for a government to sustain itself. Secretary of State Jefferson argued there was no explicit power to charter a bank, and the matter was settled by George Washington. "General welfare" never existed as a grant of power because the Preamble was held not to be law (overbroad and undefinable) until Helvering v Davis, 301 U.S. 619, reversed a previous decision and upheld Social Security as a broad constitutional prerogative of Congress to spend money. The most horrible and lasting damage was done in U.S. v Carolene Products.

Moving on to Altantis, there is no God given or logical reason to constitute a government. I've argued that government is an illusion.

[caroljane]

19 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

An excellent reason never to listen to George. U.S. v Butler struck down FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act. Reversing Butler would grant Congress infinite power.

Treasury Secretary Hamilton never said anything about general welfare. He advanced the doctrine of implied powers for a government to sustain itself. Secretary of State Jefferson argued there was no explicit power to charter a bank, and the matter was settled by George Washington. "General welfare" never existed as a grant of power because the Preamble was held not to be law (overbroad and undefinable) until Helvering v Davis, 301 U.S. 619, reversed a previous decision and upheld Social Security as a broad constitutional prerogative of Congress to spend money. The most horrible and lasting damage was done in U.S. v Carolene Products.

Moving on to Altantis, there is no God given or logical reason to constitute a government. I've argued that government is an illusion.

OK, I'll bite, in what sense is it an illusion? Do you mean that if at any given moment, the populace devolved into resistance and riot, the mechanisms of government would cease, proving that they never had the power to govern? Or what?

[Wolf DeVoon]

19 minutes ago, caroljane said:

OK, I'll bite, in what sense is it an illusion? Do you mean that if at any given moment, the populace devolved into resistance and riot, the mechanisms of government would cease, proving that they never had the power to govern? Or what?

Hogeye was kind enough to archive it. http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/GovernmentQuack-DeVoon.html

This excerpt was quoted about a thousand times: "Government does not exist of necessity, but rather by virtue of a tragic, almost comical combination of klutzy, opportunistic terrorism against sitting ducks whom it pretends to shelter, plus our childish phobia of responsibility, praying to be exempted from the hard reality of life on life's terms."

[caroljane]

8 minutes ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

Hogeye was kind enough to archive it. http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/anarchism/library/GovernmentQuack-DeVoon.html

Interesting. I stuck at "If the American  government had disbanded in 1910, the problem of Adolph Hitler would not have arisen."  Very breezy dismissal  of the other major variables in the arms buildup to WWI. I assume you mean that Germany would have won that war without American aiding the Allies. It is in some ways a more attractive alternative to Hitler, but in a German victory my grandfather would likely have been killed so I would not exist, so I am prejudiced.

Alternative history is  terrifically enjoyable in fiction and nothing in reasonable argument. .Whether government  exists is a semantic exercise you've constructed. Does a landlord exist? Skip the rent and find out.

[Peter]

2 hours ago, Wolf DeVoon said:

An excellent reason never to listen to George. U.S. v Butler struck down FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act. Reversing Butler would grant Congress infinite power.

Treasury Secretary Hamilton never said anything about general welfare. He advanced the doctrine of implied powers for a government to sustain itself. Secretary of State Jefferson argued there was no explicit power to charter a bank, and the matter was settled by George Washington. "General welfare" never existed as a grant of power because the Preamble was held not to be law (overbroad and undefinable) until Helvering v Davis, 301 U.S. 619, reversed a previous decision and upheld Social Security as a broad constitutional prerogative of Congress to spend money. The most horrible and lasting damage was done in U.S. v Carolene Products.

Moving on to Altantis, there is no God given or logical reason to constitute a government. I've argued that government is an illusion.

I am so sorry to hear one of Barbara Brandon’s favorites has died: Charles Krauthammer. I really thought he was exceptional too.

Government is an illusion, Wolf? I will be voting for the county illusion this month.

Debate! Debate! Debate! Wolf and Ghs. Just kidding. I saw the Atlas Society is going to have a debate between Adam Smith and Ayn Rand. So, the prelim could be  . . .

[Wolf DeVoon]

2 hours ago, caroljane said:

Very breezy dismissal  of the other major variables in the arms buildup to WWI.

Not what I had in mind. Formation of the Federal Reserve and suspension of gold standard caused a global crisis before, during, and after WWI.

Two little excerpts from Wikipedia:

Quote

By the end of 1913, the classical gold standard was at its peak but World War I caused many countries to suspend or abandon it.^[17] According to Lawrence Officer the main cause of the gold standard’s failure to resume its previous position after World War 1 was “the Bank of England's precarious liquidity position and the gold-exchange standard.” A run on sterling caused Britain to impose exchange controls that fatally weakened the standard; convertibility was not legally suspended, but gold prices no longer played the role that they did before.^[18] In financing the war and abandoning gold, many of the belligerents suffered drastic inflations. Price levels doubled in the US and Britain, tripled in France and quadrupled in Italy.

Quote

Alan Greenspan wrote that the bank failures of the 1930s were sparked by Great Britain dropping the gold standard in 1931. This act "tore asunder" any remaining confidence in the banking system.^[47] Financial historian Niall Ferguson wrote that what made the Great Depression truly 'great' was the European banking crisis of 1931.^[48] According to Fed Chairman Marriner Eccles, the root cause was the concentration of wealth resulting in a stagnating or decreasing standard of living for the poor and middle class. These classes went into debt, producing the credit explosion of the 1920s. Eventually the debt load grew too heavy, resulting in the massive defaults and financial panics of the 1930s.

 

[Peter]

How about this for a novel?

I own several buildings in New York City. I live in my largest building, Wolf Tower, though it is far from being the tallest in the City. One World Trade Center has one hundred and four floors, and the Empire State Building has one hundred and two. Trump Tower has fifty eight floors. My building is in between and rises to eighty stories above ground.

The Sears Tower in Chicago has three stories underground. There is a plan to build an “underground skyscraper” to be called “Above Below” to fill in a nine hundred foot deep, and three hundred acre wide crater left by the former Lavender Pit Mine outside Bisbee, Arizona. I think that is a brilliant idea. My building has eighty stories above ground and 40 stories below . . .  

Notes. As we deplete our natural resources, we are left with huge gaping holes in the ground - scars from our open-pit mining exploits. Matthew Fromboluti of Washington University in St. Louis has a plan to heal those scars with an underground skyscraper that fills the hole and creates a self-sustaining community in its place. His proposal, Above Below, is proposed to infill the 900-foot deep and nearly 300-acre wide crater left by the former Lavender Pit Mine outside of Bisbee, Arizona.

An entry in next year’s eVolo Skyscraper Competition, the inverted skyscraper is a completely self-sufficient underground city capable of producing its own food and energy and creating a climate-controlled environment in the middle of the desert. From above, the skyscraper and open pit are completely covered by a dome faceted with skylights. Over time, the dome covering the hole in the ground will blend in with the surrounding environment.

Below ground is a 900 foot-deep skyscraper that contains areas for living, working, farming, and even recreation. A light rail system connects the self-sufficient community to the nearby town of Brisbee, and solar and wind energy will be generated. Daylighting will stream in though the skylights to light up the lower parts of the tower, and the entire structure acts as a solar chimney that ushers hot air out through the top of the dome. As the entire complex is located underground, it will not be subjected to the intense heat that above-grade buildings face in the desert. Growing terraces near the top soak up the light from the skylights to grow produce for the entire complex.