Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on November 4, 2011 at 1:33pm

LOL!

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on November 4, 2011 at 2:06pm

It's bound to happen eventually.

Permalink Reply by Jason Edwin DeLeo on November 4, 2011 at 3:57pm

socialism

A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates

that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned

or regulated by the community as a whole

Therefore all businesses are owned or regulated by the government

as is all the money .

Is this not correct? Is this what you advocate Joseph P?

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on November 4, 2011 at 4:08pm

Ownership or regulation, by the community as a whole, of the means of production, distribution, and exchange is not even vaguely synonymous with "government ownership of all the property," as you said earlier.

 

Is this what you advocate Joseph P?

Go and reread the second to last paragraph of my last post.  I don't think you got it the first time.

Permalink Reply by ShashankA on November 5, 2011 at 7:20am

Ayn Rand was an atheist, but she clearly was not scientific. Altruism has been central to the development of species during biological evolution. Besides, it does not cause much harm to me or other living beings, hence I don't need to quit it.

 

Rand's thought process is appreciable, but I would not endorse her ideas.

Permalink Reply by Jason Edwin DeLeo on November 5, 2011 at 2:20pm

Altruism has been central to the development of species during biological evolution. Besides, it does not cause much harm to me or other living beings, hence I don't need to quit.

 

In what fashion has altruism been central to the development of any other living being than man?

 

By it's very nature a theory of human behavior such as altruism assumes humans involved and therefor by definition can apply to no other species .

 

  It doesn't cause harm to you ? Fine . But others , come on you can't really believe that let's examine that question for a moment the 70 to 80 year experiment in the U.S.S.R was pure Marxist dogma with everyone's interests sacrificed to the interest of the state and that led to a totalitarian government that killed ten's of millions of it's own people largely through purges and starvation . Nazi Germany was all about a combination of two separate altruistic creeds the so called Will to Power or anything for the people and Hitler himself instituted policies that encouraged blood and muscle over thinking . He wanted all for the people all sacrificed to all . All under the banner of an altruistic creed . England voted itself into socialism where the highest income tax rate is at 90% or higher to pay for their huge welfare state all in the name of altruism . How many more examples do you need ?  Let's not forget the altruistic wars this country has involved itself in over the last 60 years . Vietnam and Korea anyone ? We as a county had no legitimate worries over there. What do we care if one more county with an inadequate military base self destructs ? Altruistic wars with no firm goals and look at the end result . How many of our people were forced to fight in those wars take your opion and talk to a Vietnam veteran and see how far you get. There you go .

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 5, 2011 at 5:24pm

There is a lot of revisionism these days about the Nobility of the VietNam war.  I don't know how many of the revisionists are actual veterans, but since Iraq started they have been very vocal about how we tried to help those people fend off a brutal dictatorship, and how it would have worked if not for those durn hippies.

I don't quite follow the connection from altruism to Nazism or Stalinism, but I think animal kingdom altruism occurs when the herd circles around the young in the face of predators.  Adults protect young other than their own.  I think I have also seen nature shows where orphan young have been adopted by other adults in the group.

This Wikipedia page, Taxation in the UK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Income_tax

shows a top level of 50%.  A lot to be sure, but not 90%.

Keep it coming, Jason.  Fact checking your claims is fun.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on November 6, 2011 at 10:32am

This Wikipedia page, Taxation in the UK:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_Kingdom#Income_tax

shows a top level of 50%.  A lot to be sure, but not 90%.

Keep it coming, Jason.  Fact checking your claims is fun.

Heh, I knew that sounded like total crap, but I figured I would read through the rest of the comments before looking that up.  Nice.

Permalink Reply by ShashankA on November 5, 2011 at 6:09pm

I perfectly do agree that maybe there is pseudo-altruism around which is nonsense (although I could not see the connection in many of your examples). However, the greater problem there is the division of the human race into what we call 'nations', which is neither natural nor scientific nor beneficial. Altruism is not the real problem there.

 

It is not easy to see that altruism is very natural even to non-humans and is in fact a part of biological evolution. But here is a link to detail it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals. Charles Darwin was among the first people who discovered some of this.

 

I don't like objectivism at a general level, because it ignores the evolutionary-biological perspective, which indicates that limited altruism is in fact good for overall sustenance. Perhaps Rand's thoughts were based more on her observations of the human civilization than on the general evolution of species. There is no denying that her ideas were thought-provoking and she in fact did far better than many philosophers of her time, for doing which she deserves all credit.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 5, 2011 at 6:25pm

Great link to Altruism in Animals, thanks so much.

It makes me think of the Cooperation and Competition speech in A Beautiful Mind, but I'm not going to start posting links to game theory.  I think you made the point pretty well.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on November 6, 2011 at 5:48am

I have it - cells in a body.  Only when Altruism breaks down do you have true Growth.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on November 6, 2011 at 10:33am

Sounds like the metastasis of cancer.

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