Dickens vs Rand

[Beerina]

But altruism would never have produced a Bill Gates, anyway, and I'm sitting here directly benefitting from his existence in simply being able to talk to you. So I'm glad he isn't a pure altruist. And he gives a lot to charity, so I'll shut up now.

Would you feel better on an operating system designed by the government, or at least, with all features defined by it, and nothing added without permission?

You'd still be back at a DOS prompt.

And don't even get into the hardware designs of processors.

 

[Melendwyr]

You'd still be back at a DOS prompt.

Considering what a memory hog GUIs are, that'd probably be for the best.

 

[Marc L]

I agree with you there, except for one thing: it is not the act of others telling you to feel guilty that is the bad thing; it is your choosing to accept and agree with that assessment and feel the guilt, that is the bad thing, in my opinion. Rand says, I think, that the bad thing is when you agree that it is your duty to be self-sacrificing, not just the fact that others try to make you be self-sacrificing.

Agreed. I should have been more clear.

If that's true, about the inherent right to have what you hold, then I disagree with Objectivism on one point: I don't think humans have inherent rights. I think rights are always created and imposed from without, not something a person is naturally born with.

Imposed on? That's a funny image. You will have freedom of speech, and you'll like it! To an extent, I agree with you, rights do come from the government. On the other hand, unless we say it's inherent, then it becomes easy to take them away. Yes, we gave you freedom of speech, but we've changed our mind, so, now you can't say anything we disagree with. By philosophically teaching that we have inherent rights, regardless of who is in power, then we have a place from which to defend them.


Marc

 

[slingblade]

Imposed on? That's a funny image. You will have freedom of speech, and you'll like it! To an extent, I agree with you, rights do come from the government. On the other hand, unless we say it's inherent, then it becomes easy to take them away. Yes, we gave you freedom of speech, but we've changed our mind, so, now you can't say anything we disagree with. By philosophically teaching that we have inherent rights, regardless of who is in power, then we have a place from which to defend them.

You're right: I haven't used my words properly to say what I mean.

I don't mean imposed as in someone forces them on you, but as in someone grants them to you. The idea of having rights doesn't exist unless another human mind first agrees with you that it exists: rights are recognized by others. If no one recognizes your right, you don't have it. Maybe I meant to use conferred, rather than imposed?

"Ah yes, ['life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness']... Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'?

As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

The third 'right'?—the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it."
Source: [Starship Troopers character] Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.), Page 119
Expanding on his statement that "a human being has no natural rights of any nature."

(all bold emphasis mine)

From the Wikipedia article on Heinlein's Starship Troopers
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers

That's where I first heard the idea, and I found from the first that I agreed.
We don't, as humans, have any inherent or natural rights, but only those rights which are recognized by others. That recognition implies an imposition, or a granting, by authority.

I don't think we can defend our rights by declaring them inherent. They can still be taken away, and I feel things like the Patriot Acts show us that.

(ETA: Eminent Domain negates Rand's idea of the right to hold what you have (in America), especially in recent months.)

 

[slingblade]

Would you feel better on an operating system designed by the government, or at least, with all features defined by it, and nothing added without permission?

You'd still be back at a DOS prompt.

And don't even get into the hardware designs of processors.

I don't feel bad, so I don't need to feel better.
I just sometimes wish I could have some of Bill Gates' money by simply asking him for some of it, and that he was a great enough altruist that my asking for it would prompt him to give it to me.

Which is, of course, silly.

But I feel it's obvious he wouldn't even have that money to give away, if he had been a pure altruist. The Microsoft Monopoly would never have existed, and little Billy would have been wearing a "free source code for all!" T-shirt, wouldn't he, if he'd been a pure altruist?