[548] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: "Watch me pull laissez-faire capitalism out of this
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Prez H. Cannady)
Sat May 5 14:51:53 2001
Message-Id: <200105051851.OAA24468@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 14:51:08 -0400
To: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>, mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: "Prez H. Cannady" <revprez@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <200105051633.MAA02714@dichotomy.dyn.dhs.org>
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At 12:33 PM 5/5/01 , Sourav K. Mandal wrote
>
>Not a sociological theory, but a social theory. I see no compelling
>reason why social science should contribute towards the development of
>ethics or the resulting politics. By contrast, sociology as ethics is
>a cornerstone of secular humanism.
It is also a false god. Select sets of ethics are the functions
of social contracts, but they are not value weighted across
each other. Furthermore, as societies grow more complex, so
do the contracts and by extension ethical matters and the
social morality. Secular humanism is the sickest joke of
atheistic nonsense in this century because it simply declares
choice of such ethics rational a priori and then goes out
says they're the only ones doing it right.
In the words of Charles Bronson, "Bullshit!"
>How can you get more flexible than by having granularity at the level
>of the individual? True, collective action requires that everyone
>involved buy into it and act of their own free will; but, would any
>other way be morally tolerable?
Many other ways would be morally tolerable, including me holding
a gun to your head: "Your watch, run it."
Objectivism is the greedy man's anarchy; provided you manage
to get society to collectively agree to its tenets (which is
impossible in a snapshot, let alone over time).
>In every day life we have many
>instances of people joining groups to work together to meet personal
>goals, such as business, cultural organization, activist groups, etc.
>Forcing anyone to join particular endeavours is deplorable. (This is
>why I think the military draft should be abolished, by the way.)
Hardly deplorable at all. Here's a very quick example.
I'm your platoon leader and your a snotty little spec-4 who
got to walk ambush with us one night. Charlie's manages to
ambush OUR ambush, and we start taking fire. Now, Charlie
is walking past some Bouncing Betties you set up about ten
minutes before. All of a sudden, your Objectivist reasoning
reminds you that being forced to pursue an endeavour is
deplorable and you don't particularly feel like triggering
the mines.
Since I'm the LT, and you ignore my order to do what I tell
you to, I shoot you dead and order a more reasonable member
of our team to do the honors.
To reduce this. I'm person A and your person B. We're
put in a life threatening situation where my life depends
on yours. If you die, I live. If you live, I die.
You want to live. So do I. I kill you because I can.
I've just choose life or death on your behalf.
And so we get to the point, your above statement is not only
completely at odds with reality, but also at odds with the
Objectivist view of competition. Forcing an individual
to do something he or she doesn't want when that individual
is a competitor or that individual's actions are necessary
to achieve your goals is entirely without the moral realm of
Objectivists.
>If the government were to get its mitts out of private pocketbooks,
>research dollars might be more rationally allocated, driven by economic
>rather than largely socio-political considerations;
At the expense of strategic concerns? The simplest example
is that any nation that does politically marshal the force
of its resources can and probably will use those to acquire
the economic value of other areas through non economic means.
This is what people on my side of the river like to call
"war."
>I would
>characterize the billions poured into the International Space Station
>to be money down the tube.
I don't. It's a step towards the development of orbital weapon
systems that will give our nation complete aerospace dominance
and unprecedented global reach. That will be my last friendly
comment directed towards the Air Force. ;)
>I'm not surprised NASA balked at allowing a
>_paying_ tourist onto their publicly-funded territory.
I'd be concerned to if my publically funded territory
was at risk of being cut into smaller pieces should
the usually very reliable and incredibly safe Russian
program somehow failed to deliver that American tourist
to the ISS in one piece.
>I agree -- basic research is fundamental to sustainable, long-term
>technological development. Again, companies (esp. pharmaceuticals)
>realize this, and fund projects accordingly.
Oh really. Support this.
>It's debatable how effective the USSR and the general socialist
>economic theory is; there's plenty of empirical evidence that it's not.
Remember, the prime tenet of Marxism-Leninism that allowed
the Soviet Union to last so long is democratic centralism;
essentially dictatorship thinly veiled in egalitarian
doublespeak. On the other hand, I have yet to see the
Objectivists come up with anything so elegant to disguise
the totalitarianism needed to further their agenda.
> However, even if it were, it should have no bearing on the
>determination of what is _ethical_.
Shyeah, that'll last a whole minute.
>Just as sociology should not sway
>principle when it comes to civil liberties, economics should not affect
>matters of economic liberty.
And how is that rational?
Rev Prez
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Presley H. Cannady, Class of 2002, Electrical Engineering
Acting Chairman, College Republicans
CR Website <http://web.mit.edu/republicans/www/>
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