James Randi and Objectivism

[Twiler]

No, it isn''t force. What it is is an admission that you are sufficiently naive to expect that a neighborhood or city or metropolis would not already have a network of voluntary deed restrictions (enforced by the government) that would preclude the possibility of someone doing this.

Of course, in your frantic quest to slander Rand, you overran the obvious question you should have asked yourself first: just how could a society protect itself from this without violating anyone's property rights? The implication of your question insults humanity by presuming that men would be unable to cope with such a situation—which implies a view of yourself as well.

No, this would be libel, it's written.

 

[tsig]

No, it isn''t force. What it is is an admission that you are sufficiently naive to expect that a neighborhood or city or metropolis would not already have a network of voluntary deed restrictions (enforced by the government) that would preclude the possibility of someone doing this.

Of course, in your frantic quest to slander Rand, you overran the obvious question you should have asked yourself first: just how could a society protect itself from this without violating anyone's property rights? The implication of your question insults humanity by presuming that men would be unable to cope with such a situation—which implies a view of yourself as well.

You do realize that "voluntary" and "enforced" are contradictory terms?

 

[tsig]

No, it isn''t force. What it is is an admission that you are sufficiently naive to expect that a neighborhood or city or metropolis would not already have a network of voluntary deed restrictions (enforced by the government) that would preclude the possibility of someone doing this.

Of course, in your frantic quest to slander Rand, you overran the obvious question you should have asked yourself first: just how could a society protect itself from this without violating anyone's property rights? The implication of your question insults humanity by presuming that men would be unable to cope with such a situation—which implies a view of yourself as well.

It's your belief system, he pointed out a problem and now you want him to solve it too?

 

[tsig]

And the answer is that they can't. These "deed restrictions" you posit are nothing more than zoning laws by another name.

Yep, now we've got government, police, armies, judges and now zoning laws.

O'ism looks more and more like what we already have.

 

[Cactus Wren]

Just out of curiosity, I've seen a lot of talk about contracts being developed to define and formalize various agreements and arrangements.

How is contract enforcement handled?

In one thread here a few years ago, someone argued quite vociferously for the employment of competing privately-owned court systems, maintaining that the Invisible Hand would naturally select in favor of the fairest. He never did realize that if I'm called into court, I don't necessarily want the fairest jury or judge: given a choice, I'll pick the one that will rule in my favor. He also favored replacing "government" police forces with competing, privately-owned police forces -- and never did explain how we were to distinguish between "private police forces" and "hired goons".

 

[eerok]

Yep, now we've got government, police, armies, judges and now zoning laws.

O'ism looks more and more like what we already have.

Except for the ostensibly noble, heroic, and moral act of not wanting to pay for any of it.

 

[tsig]

Except for the ostensibly noble, heroic, and moral act of not wanting to pay for any of it.

Everyone will be more than happy to contribute for the common welfare. Examples follow.

 

[joesixpack]

Yep, now we've got government, police, armies, judges and now zoning laws.

O'ism looks more and more like what we already have.

Yes, but magically without taxes.

As I said before, Objectivism is a philosophy by and for people who's only issue is taxes. No search for meaning, no questions of existence, no examination of the make-up of the universe. Just taxes. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise? Well, to an objectivist, it's irrelevant unless the answer involves the morality of collecting taxes.

 

[joesixpack]

Except for the ostensibly noble, heroic, and moral act of not wanting to pay for any of it.

Well said

 

[marplots]

Since Rand's ideas offer nothing more than demented woo, have you checked the Icke forums?

They tend to ban those who don't drink the kookaid, though likely a dedicated Randian forum would as well.

Thanks

 

[Hellbound]

So,

The basic idea is that all the things that are now done by and that we call government, would instead be done via contracts? So if you don't have the wealth (and therefore power and validity...because remember, if you're poor it's because you aren't working hard enough), you don't have power, and have a lesser voice in government. Your "vote" is based on your wealth.

So a Randian Utopia is, essentially, a capitalistic plutocracy.

Yeah, I don't think I've been operating under much of a misunderstanding of the philosophy.

 

[joesixpack]

It's even worse than that. I once tried to take someone to court to force specific performance on a contract that he had signed. By stonewalling me I ran up about $12,000 in legal fees and got nothing for it. So contracts are only about as good as the integrity of the parties who sign, as things are now. Think how worthless they'll be in a world without any consumer protection?

In any business transaction, the parties are never on equal footing. There is no true "free market" without force of law behind it.

 

[Flo]

So,

The basic idea is that all the things that are now done by and that we call government, would instead be done via contracts? So if you don't have the wealth (and therefore power and validity...because remember, if you're poor it's because you aren't working hard enough), you don't have power, and have a lesser voice in government. Your "vote" is based on your wealth.

So a Randian Utopia is, essentially, a capitalistic plutocracy.

The funny part is that those who promote it are persuaded they'll systematically be the beneficiaries of such a system ...

 

[MarkCorrigan]

No, it isn''t force. What it is is an admission that you are sufficiently naive to expect that a neighborhood or city or metropolis would not already have a network of voluntary deed restrictions (enforced by the government) that would preclude the possibility of someone doing this.

Of course, in your frantic quest to slander Rand, you overran the obvious question you should have asked yourself first: just how could a society protect itself from this without violating anyone's property rights? The implication of your question insults humanity by presuming that men would be unable to cope with such a situation—which implies a view of yourself as well.

Well duh, people are morons. I'm an intelligent person and I do and say stupid things all the time, and I believe stupid things as well.

So, what about healthcare? Who would regulate the hospitals? Who would pay for the poor to get treated?

ETA:

And the answer is that they can't. These "deed restrictions" you posit are nothing more than zoning laws by another name.

Exactly. If you replace all laws against monopolies, what is to stop someone from dicking about with it? If I had Bill Gate's billions, why couldn't I just do what the hell I wanted? I could hire the local police force entirely out of my bankroll and use them to crush any protests surely?

If I had enough money to screw everyone over, without a centralised (or fedralised at least) system of law and order no-one could actually stop me. Objectivism claims to be able to stop this but there isn't any mechanism to do so.

 

[Hellbound]

Yep.

It requires that all humans are always rational actors, always act with full information, and always see both the long and short term goals when they decide on actions. It also ignores the problems of inherited wealth..which (if allowed) gives lie to the idea that those who make more are inheritly better/more productive due to any ability.

In reality, humans are emotional actors that are sometimes capable of rationality. We rarely act with full information (in fact, we're pretty good at guessing things on partial info). Individuals consistently and overwhelmingly sacrifice long term goals for short term gains. And the idiot that inherited the $100 million estate (which allows him to hire someone to tie his shoes...he could never figure that part out) is going to make more money than I would ever be capable of making, barring some random event..regardless of my abilities or potential productive value compared to his.