Objectivism and Environmentalism

Mike,

Idea that enviromentalism is bad makes little sense. Enviromentalism is a reflection of certain issues that soicety is concerned about. One of this issues is to address a fact of changing, or as a case often is, degrading environment. To brand this issue as good or bad is oversimplifing the issue.

Okay, oversimplification. I just realized that when you gave me a choice of 3 options, you were implicitly discounting two of them (the "good" and "bad" options). It was kind of a rhetorical question, then, not a question necessarily seeking an answer (at least any answer other than the 3rd option). I'm okay with discussing the 3rd option.

In a crude way, the argument goes like this: "I dont care about enviromentalism, because for me the issue of degrading enviroment is outweighted by technological advance". Then your opponent says the opposite "I care about enviromentalism because degrading enviroment is not justified by technological advance". At this point conversation stalls. ... both are right, they just talk from two different prospectives.

Let's try something. Let's name these two different perspectives. For instance, the technology-enthusiasts could be called human-centered thinkers (or "human-firsters") and the environmentalists could be called earth-centered thinkers (or "Earth-firsters"). You could say that the human-firsters evaluate their life choices against the standard of man's life and that the Earth-firsters evaluate their life choices against the standard of a pristine, "untouched" nature or Mother Earth (nature without a human "footprint"). My question is:

Are they really both right, but just from two different perspectives?

... for the other person it is important to make sure that the world is still an enjoyable place to live in for his children (because for some strange reason this person enjoys places of wilderness

But most folks enjoy non-degraded wilderness, whether they are fervent capitalists or fervent environmentalists. In fact, fervent capitalists often surround their homes with non-degraded wilderness, as is evidenced by the high amount of non-degraded wilderness in the pictures below:

Indeed, some of the most pristine areas of wilderness are found on the private grounds of the mansions of super-rich capitalists. Because they own the land, they take great care of it and preserve its purity. Another example of fervent capitalism preserving wilderness is the pristine upkeep witnessed at numerous golf courses (thousands of acres of non-degraded wilderness). So, it makes little sense to divide people up into the following camps:

1) those that enjoy places of wilderness
2) those that want to see the whole world burn in flames -- as long as technology advances

You, yourself, have -- in this one instance, at least -- oversimplified this issue.

From what I ve seen in my life time, issue of degrading enviroment (as the issue of money managament) is important to address, and it is more pressing today.

Above, we agreed that good conclusions follow from (but never precede) good investigations. You are arguing for a conclusion, but it is not clear that you have performed a good investigation. So far, all you are saying is "what I've seen in my life time" -- which is something which, when offered without any further qualification, has to be viewed as subjective (a limited, partial, one-sided view of the matter). So far, all it seems is that you've performed some subjective investigation, with some unknown amount of rigor.

I dont care how many books are written on the subject, or how many people try to persuade you that "let it all be free, and unregulated and it will work itself out, because men are honest heroes, chained by the laws and regulations". It wont.

I think that you should care about books written on the subject, and about the kinds of persuasion (i.e., the "reasoning") behind something so important. It goes back to the idea of "investigation-before-conclusion."

Oftentimes, books include verifiable data which can be used in order to reach an objective conclusion. It may not be a conclusion you immediately like, or subjectively feel comfortable with, but it would still be a good conclusion (because it came from good investigation). Also, reasoning is really important.

To be fair, you can persuade someone into accepting a conclusion by actually subverting reason -- as when someone persuades you by use of a fallacy, such as the appeal to emotion -- but that is probably not a good conclusion to accept. A better conclusion to accept would be one that is based on a robust use of evidence-based reasoning. What's important is that you can -- we all can -- examine any attempted persuasion and evaluate it logically, checking for contradictions or for lapses in the use of evidence-based reasoning.

So far, you have reached a conclusion about the consequences of a free market, but you are doing so based not on evidence-based reasoning, but only on "first principles." I will attempt to "syllogize" (create a syllogism for) your argument. After my attempt, you may respond to let me know if I missed something, or if I improperly formulated the syllogism -- at which point you could offer your own correction. Here it is:

In order for a free (unregulated) market to work, all men would have to be "honest heroes."
All men are not "honest heroes."
_____________________________
Therefore, it is not possible for a free (unregulated) market to work.

Is that an accurate depiction of your reasoning? I will hold off on criticizing this argument right away, giving you a chance to amend it to your own liking.

Too much regulation will destroy economy, and make it miserable for everyone (apart from very few). Not enough regulation will create great injustice in wealth distrubution (not distribution of someones earned profits, but distribution of physical resources, "God given" for all to enjoy), making life miserable for everyone as well, again, apart from very few. The right course of action would be somewhere in the middle.

Apparently, you have come to the conclusion that a "mixed economy" (a partially-regulated one) is the right course of action for man living in society. Do you base that conclusion on evidence, or are you limiting yourself to just first principles? The reason I ask is because there is a lot of evidence tracking economic freedom with prosperity overall, even prosperity for "the poor." The reason I put "the poor" in scare quotes is because the "chronically" poor are only 3% of the population -- and even they benefit from economic freedom.

AR has created a kind of antidote to collectivism. Used properly it is a cure, used in excess it is a poison. It did help me a lot. She did however attacked a straw man, not a real villain, but its substitute. Who is the real villain? I d rather let everyone to figure it out themselves, which is the only way to figure out anything anyway.

I agree that the only way to figure anything out is to figure it out yourself. This doesn't mean that you have to avoid testing your ideas against those of others -- or letting your ideas compete in a free marketplace of ideas -- but only that it is you and your mind that need to figure things out, rather than to go along with a crowd (or with your emotions) without thinking. That said, to whom do you refer as the "straw man" when you say that AR only attacked a straw man? When you say that it was a "substitute", what is that "substitute" that you are referring to?

Suffice to say that extreme practical application of Individualism in todays world (the world of imperfect men who have faults and weaknesses) will lead to plutocracy, or just another kind of rule by minority. This time they will (and already do) use not guns or sacred scripts, but money.

This allows for the creation of another syllogism for you to acknowledge or reject:

In order for extreme Individualism to work, all men would have to be perfect -- without faults or weaknesses.
All men are not perfect -- without faults or weaknesses.
_____________________________
Therefore, it is not possible for extreme Individualism to work.

Is that an accurate depiction of your reasoning?

Also, you argue that reducing political or state power down to almost nothing -- where bureaucrats couldn't force any businessmen to do things -- would lead to control by the rich (plutocracy). But if political bureaucrats can't force businessmen to do anything, then why would some businessmen try to take over politics or state power? Businessmen are interested in profit maximization and if political control doesn't lead to profit maximization (because there's no regulatory apparatus to hijack and use for personal gain), then why would they expend resources trying to acquire political control? There appears to be an internal (i.e., insurmountable) contradiction in what you are saying.

It is only if and when there is a bunch of regulation (a financial incentive) that it becomes feasible for there to be the kind of investing/lobbying/etc. required for a plutocracy to take over.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/16, 4:29pm)

Post 81

Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 7:51am

Ed:

"Let's try something. Let's name these two different perspectives. For instance, the technology-enthusiasts could be called human-centered thinkers (or "human-firsters") and the environmentalists could be called earth-centered thinkers (or "Earth-firsters"). You could say that the human-firsters evaluate their life choices against the standard of man's life and that the Earth-firsters evaluate their life choices against the standard of a pristine, "untouched" nature or Mother Earth (nature without a human "footprint"). My question is:

Are they really both right, but just from two different perspectives?"

What you are doing above is presenting the issue as black and white. There are few people who ever think about "evaluating their life choices against something". But lets say that some do. This two opposite conflicting views, as you present them above, merely reflect radical nature of ones beliefs. Few enviromentlists would advocate that man must be sacrificed to nature, without human footprint. Most argue that care must be taken in preserving things that they believe have intrinsic value (with which I personally happen to agree. There is no research possible that will prove that something has no value to me, it would be an absurdity, wouldnt you think?), and in managing of the environment. To collide two opposite points of view head on is what the ancients would call "unwise".

The pretty houses you show do not illustrate any point at all. We dont know who owns them, we dont know how they got their wealth, could well be stolen, or inherited, but even that is all beside the point. Little lawns and golf courses are not wilderness, and in no way are part of food chain, or environment for all to live in and enjoy.

Fully unregulated market is a fallacy no matter how much I try to stretch my imagination. Maybe, in some rose bud future where all men are conciencess and somehow able to coexist without interdependency, but ones imagination is sure not enough to base a sound political or economical programm to address current issues. First of all where does this premise that "government is a nessesary evil" comes from? Government has a job to do, like everybody else. If the job of managing societie�s affairs is done badly, government is doing a bad job, that is all. This is how works, or should work, in civilized societies, forget about Cuba, USSR, and the like. It has nothing to do with what has to be regulated and what not. Somethings have to be regulated, full stop. There got to be road rules, air traffic separation schemes, care of old and sick, laws, courts, education, defence, etc, whatever is needed for functioning of society. You can delegate some of it to private corporations to manage, but this is not always feasible, nor is it nessesary. Govrnment IS in business of taking care of things, and they get paid for it. If along the way they remove your wealth and freedoms, they are crooks, but it does not mean that concept of goverment (elected representatives that govern and manage public affairs) is false.

Poor people 3%? Well if that is the case (which it is not) we must have a very successful world economy, and there is no reason to change anything.

Regarding application of extreme Individualism:

Mike: Suffice to say that extreme practical application of Individualism in todays world (the world of imperfect men who have faults and weaknesses) will lead to plutocracy, or just another kind of rule by minority.

Ed: Also, you argue that reducing political or state power down to almost nothing -- where bureaucrats couldn't force any businessmen to do things -- would lead to control by the rich (plutocracy).

You are twisting my comment to fit your theory. Let me illustrate my point. Ed (or Mike) is a clever guy who has good grasp of accounting. He arrived to the land inhabited by people who dont have paper money, but use sea shells instead. He demonstrates to them the advantage of paper money, as lighter and more convenient way to facilitate trade. People give him their shells to store in exchange for paper currency called ED or MD (Ed's Dollar or Mike's Dollar respectively). Before too soon Mike or Ed start to lend money at interest, using fractional reserve system. Astonished tribesman find that with passage of time they get poorer, and Mike and Ed get richer, slowly accumulating not only all their money, but their lands, houses and future of their children. When angry natives arrive to Eds and Mikes doorstep demanding explanation, Mike and Ed tell them that its their own fault they lost everything because they are stupid and ignorant of basic principles of accounting. Natives go mad and decapitate Mike and Ed and dry their heads to preserve them as a lesson for future generations.

Mike

Post 82

Saturday, April 16, 2011 - 8:03pm

Mike,

I will have to take some time to answer. It is clear that you either haven't read, or do not understand, Ayn Rand. You make many arguments which give this away. I plan to respond -- perhaps one-at-a-time -- to these sentences:

1) What you are doing above is presenting the issue as black and white.

2) There are few people who ever think about "evaluating their life choices against something".

3) Few enviromentlists would advocate that man must be sacrificed to nature, without human footprint.

4) Most argue that care must be taken in preserving things that they believe have intrinsic value (with which I personally happen to agree. There is no research possible that will prove that something has no value to me, it would be an absurdity, wouldnt you think?),

5) To collide two opposite points of view head on is what the ancients would call "unwise".

6) Little lawns and golf courses are not wilderness, and in no way are part of food chain, or environment for all to live in and enjoy.

7) Fully unregulated market is a fallacy no matter how much I try to stretch my imagination. Maybe, in some rose bud future where all men are conciencess and somehow able to coexist without interdependency, but ones imagination is sure not enough to base a sound political or economical programm to address current issues.

8) This is how works, or should work, in civilized societies, forget about Cuba, USSR, and the like. It has nothing to do with what has to be regulated and what not.

9) There got to be road rules, air traffic separation schemes, care of old and sick, laws, courts, education, defence, etc, whatever is needed for functioning of society.

10) Poor people 3%? Well if that is the case (which it is not) we must have a very successful world economy, and there is no reason to change anything.

11) Ed: Also, you argue that reducing political or state power down to almost nothing -- where bureaucrats couldn't force any businessmen to do things -- would lead to control by the rich (plutocracy).

You are twisting my comment to fit your theory.

12) Let me illustrate my point. ... (Followed by your example of some unproductive, fiat-money central bankers -- as an analogy to attempt to show how or why laissez-faire capitalism can't work).

I'll take them in reverse order. (12) attempts to show that laissez-faire capitalism can't work because of fiat-money central banking, but that argument is not acceptable because fiat-money central banking isn't a part of laissez-faire capitalism in the first place. That said, you are guilty of using the Straw Man Fallacy in that one instance -- but possibly "innocently" or "guilty-with-an-explanation" (you may not yet understand that fiat-money central banking isn't a part of laissez-faire capitalism in the first place).

Also, in (11), I said that laissez-faire capitalism doesn't involve political (central, regulatory) control of the economy. This is a situation in which bureaucrats couldn't force any businessmen to do things, because in order to get into the position to be able to force businessmen to do things, there would have to first be regulatory law for there to be regulatory force. Why do you say that I'm twisting your comment? All I am doing is remaining consistent and integrating. It is a fact -- by definition even! -- that laissez-faire capitalism is a situation where bureaucrats can't force businessmen to do things. That's what "laissez-faire" (hands-off) means.

It seems to me that you are trying to twist things, not me.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/16, 8:07pm)

Post 83

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 7:19pm

Making it in America: social mobility in the immigrant population.

10) Poor people 3%? Well if that is the case (which it is not) we must have a very successful world economy, and there is no reason to change anything.

I said chronic poverty, not just "poor people." The reason that the chronic poverty rate (remaining "poor" for decades) is only 3% of the population is because many of those counted as being in poverty are just starting out as workers (16-20 years old). As folks age, they move themselves out of poverty, but then new kids are born -- making it appear like the poverty rate is stable for actual individuals (when it is not).

It's because poverty data tables are cross-sectional snapshots rather than longitudinal. It affects rich folks, too. Many of them become poor at an alarming rate. Over multiple decades, only 3% of the population is "chronically" rich (or remains rich for decades).

Ed

Reference:

[One is poor: is one born poor or does one become poor? An essay on the importance of longitudinal data in the analysis of poverty].

The importance of collecting and analyzing longitudinal as opposed to cross-sectional data in order to formulate policy aimed at alleviating poverty is discussed ... attention is given to the economic mobility of families and individuals ...

The jump in relative wages between the first and second generations is somewhere between 5 and 10 percentage points. ... In rough terms, about half of the difference in relative economic status persists from one generation to the next. Thus a 20 percentage point wage gap among ethnic groups in the immigrant generation implies a 10 point gap among second-generation groups and a 5 point gap among third-generation groups. ...

Intergenerational social mobility: the United States in comparative perspective.

Those measuring income mobility tend to agree that the elasticity between fathers' and sons' earnings in the United States today is about 0.4, meaning that 40 percent of the difference in incomes between families in the parents' generation also shows up in differences in incomes in the sons' generation.

Poverty in America: trends and new patterns.

Between 1959-73, the absolute number and the proportion of individuals below the poverty line decreased respectively from 39.5-23.0 million and from 22.4%-11.1%. ... Between 1978-83, the absolute number and proportion of poor increased respectively from 24.5-35.3 million and from 11.4%-15.2%.

Note: The social welfare economic policies of Pres. Carter were operative by 1978.

Money income and poverty status of families and persons in the United States: 1986 (advance data from the March 1987 Current Population Survey)....

1) In 1986, median family income was $29,460, 4.2% higher than the 1985 median of $27,740 after adjusting for inflation.
2) Since 1982, when the last economic recession ended, real median family income rose a total of 10.7%.
3) The median earnings of both men and women working year-round full-time increased significantly in real terms between 1985 and 1986.
4) In 1986, per capita income was $11,670, up 4% from 1985 in real terms. Whites averaged $12,350 per year, Blacks $7,210, and Hispanics $7000, all higher than in 1985.
5) The number of persons below the poverty level was 32.4 million in 1986. The difference between this figure and the 1985 estimate of 33.1 million is not statistically significant.
6) The poverty rate was 13.6% in 1986, compared to 14% in 1985. The 1986 poverty rate was 11% for Whites, 31% for Blacks, 27% for Hispanics, and 16% for persons of other races.
7) The number and percentage of persons in poverty have declined since the recent peak level of 1983, when the number of persons in poverty was 35.3 million and the poverty rate was 15.2%.

Note: The capitalist economic policies of Pres. Reagan were operative by 1986.

Family background, intergenerational mobility, and earnings distribution: evidence from the United States....

"On the whole though, the probability matrix of intergenerational earnings mobility exhibits a pattern of symmetry with transitions from class i to class j equally likely as movements from class j to class i."

The increasing risk of poverty across the American life course.

Our empirical results suggest that the risk of acute poverty increased substantially, particularly in the 1990s. This observed increase was especially pronounced for individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s; for all age groups with respect to extreme poverty; and for white males. On the other hand, the risk of chronic poverty declined during the 1990s (as measured by the percentage of the poor who experienced five or more years of poverty within a 10-year interval).

Note: The article above defines chronic poverty as "five or more years of poverty within a 10-year interval" -- and notes that, as Pres. Reagan's economic policies were operative, chronic poverty decreased in the United States.
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/20, 6:59am)

Post 84

Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - 11:21pm

Allow me to play the devil's advocate for a moment.

If you read Rand, you can sense that her view was that a skyscraper was [spiritually?] more beautiful than a tree (indeed she happily moved from a naturally "pretty" location in Southern California to urban New York City). She liked cities over the wilderness or over natural settings (see her statements on St. Petersburg and NYC). That's perfectly fine. For her. There are many who strongly feel the opposite way: while they enjoy creating and using technology, they appreciate having the peace and quiet of Nature (interesting side note: they crave an strongly individualistic "loneliness"). Would objectivists see this as "irrational" ? If not, what would be the position on having access to nature? Would there be "private parks" that would serve the same purposes as, for example, Yellowstone or Yosemite today ? If so, what if the owners decided to clear cut the 1000 year old trees and create an amusement park which could generate a bit more income over the next ten years? I like the idea of having my children be able to see untouched wilderness for the scientific and botanical value therein (let alone the recreational and/or spiritual value). It strikes me that having the future of unique natural places be in the hands of people like "Mr T" is not all it is cracked up to be ( http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/30/us/genteel-chicago-suburb-rages-over-mr-t-s-tree-massacre.html ). After all these are not "renewable" resources: once you chop down a redwood, it would take 10 generations to see another one even if you plant a replacement. Ditto if you dynamite a coral atoll ?

In order to progress and survive, man must tame nature and use his mind but should there be some zones that are "off limits" as a genetic storehouse if nothing else or is the ultimate, desirable end-state a totally paved world with New York or Mumbai/Shanghai type cities? The answer that people should buy their own private parkland also seems impractical since very few could ever do this ? One of the best parts of Atlas Shrugged was the utter beauty of nature described in Galt's Gulch for me but I sense that objectivism and nature have an uneasy relationship. Surely objectivists must understand that the rain forest is not just a malarial forest to be tamed but also a storehouse of diversity that could lead to miracle drugs, foods etc. ? If it were open to total private disposal, one man could theoretically choose to deprive all mankind of it by burning it or turning it into a cornfield.

Post 85

Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 6:11am

Michael,

Would objectivists see this as "irrational" ? If not, what would be the position on having access to nature? Would there be "private parks" that would serve the same purposes as, for example, Yellowstone or Yosemite today ? If so, what if the owners decided to clear cut the 1000 year old trees and create an amusement park which could generate a bit more income over the next ten years?

No. There would be private parks. Market forces (which are nothing other than a Gallup poll of what people think and want) would prevent every last park owner from turning his forest into an amusement park. As some began to turn their forests into amusement parks, others would see increased demand for the forests in their natural state and they would be preserved (based on supply and demand).

In order to progress and survive, man must tame nature and use his mind but should there be some zones that are "off limits" as a genetic storehouse if nothing else or is the ultimate, desirable end-state a totally paved world with New York or Mumbai/Shanghai type cities?

Again, market forces -- because many people feel similarly -- would lead to the preservation of ...
Ed

Post 86

Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 4:35pm

I think it's hard for people to really conceptualize just how vast a planet we live on, and how little of it is actually developed. There are vast swaths of land that most likely only a handful of souls have ever laid eyes on. There is no shortage of nature, it's just that humans tend to congregate close to each other in towns and cities so that's what we're exposed to on a daily basis and thus selective observation is a problem.

I think every American at least once in their life should drive across this amazing country we live in and witness just how much land is undeveloped, pristine nature. I live on the East Coast so it's pretty well developed, but when I drove across this country 10 years ago to move to Las Vegas, that's when it really struck me just how much unused land is out there.

(Edited by John Armaos on 4/21, 4:36pm)

Post 87

Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 5:54pm

I think it's hard for people to really conceptualize just how vast a planet we live on, and how little of it is actually developed. There are vast swaths of land that most likely only a handful of souls have ever laid eyes on. There is no shortage of nature ...

Indeed. I've been across country from Minnesota to Florida to California and it is crazy how much undeveloped, non-degraded nature there is! Scientific evidence backs this up, too:

The longest data series from the UN's FAO show that global forest cover has increased from 30.04 percent of the global land area in 1950 to 30.89 percent in 1994, an increase of 0.85 percentage points over the last 44 years.

That's 31% of all the global land area on earth, literally covered with forests.

... FAO's State of the World's Forests 1997, but if you refer to the source you will see that in fact Canada grew 174,600 more hectares of forest each year ...

Canada is becoming more, not less, forested.

The UN, however, tells us that the rate of deforestation was 0.346 percent in the 1980s and just 0.32 percent in the period 1990-5 ...

According to the UN, if we don't do something about deforestation, we will lose all our forests in 312 years.

... according to the UN the deforestation rate in Brazil is at 0.5 percent per year ...

According to the UN, if we don't do something about deforestation in Brazilian rainforests, we will lose the Brazilian rainforests in 200 years.

In Argentina, 60 percent of all wood is produced in plantations which constitute just 2.2 percent of the total forest area, thus relieving the other 97.8 percent of the forests. (116) While WWF states that plantations "make up large tracts of current forest area," (117) they in fact constitute only 3 percent of the world's total forest area.

On plantations, it's possible to get 60% of all foresting needs met from just 2.2% of all forest area in existence. Extrapolating this means that, with plantations, it's possible to get 100 percent of all foresting needs met from just 3.7% of all forest area in existence (give or take a small margin based on differences in locations).

Notice that you don't have to lower your foresting needs (in order to "save the Earth"), because they can be met with just a tiny fraction of existing forest area.

Ed

Post 88

Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 8:42pm

My last link in post 83 includes a second link (top-right of opened page) to the "full text article." In that, there is a table tabulating chronic poverty defined by 5 or more years below official poverty line in a given decade.

I personally use a much more strict definition of "chronic poverty" as something that spans for at least a decade (10+ total years in poverty), but the information is still useful. In order to get a rough estimate of my definition of chronic poverty -- which is twice as long -- you would have to multiply two of the % values listed below (take a percentage of a percentage). This is roughly the equivalent of adding 5 years in poverty to another 5 years in poverty. I excerpt information from that table below:

% risk of 5+ years below official poverty line (in a single decade)

.........................'68-'78............................................'79-'89.........................................'90-'00

age 20-9.............5.99................................................8.46..............................................6.70
age 30-9.............3.91................................................6.15..............................................5.51
age 40-9.............3.47................................................6.26..............................................5.91
age 50-9.............7.42................................................5.04..............................................5.21
age 60-9.............8.03................................................9.29..............................................4.80
age 70-9...........12.60..............................................12.55............................................15.96

Adapted from Table 3:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831356/table/t3-dem-45-0717/

If you look at the column on the right (most recent numbers), you can see that between age 30 and 70, folks had about a 5-6% chance of being in chronic poverty (as defined by 5+ out of 10 years). That means, on a population-wide scale, that only 5-6% of the population in that 40-year age range experienced chronic poverty in that decade in America. To get to my definition of chronic poverty requires multiplication along a diagonal 'row' (see bold).

For instance, if you were in your 20's from 1968-1978, your chance of 5+ years of poverty was 5.99%. By the decade of 1979-1989, you would be in your 30's, and your chance of another 5+ years of poverty would have been 6.15%. If you take 5.99% and multiply it with 6.15%, you get a rough estimate of the chance of 10+ years in poverty. 5.99% x 6.15% = 0.36% (about one third of one percent).

The worst chance of 10+ years of poverty was for folks who were in their 60's during 1979-1989 and in their 70's during 1990-2000. The rough estimate of their risk of 10+ years of poverty was 9.29% x 15.96% = 1.5%. So I admit I was wrong before, when I said that 3% of us are stuck in a never-ending quagmire of chronic and unrelenting poverty.

It's only 1.5% of us who are that bad off.

Caveat:
A quick & dirty objection would be postulation that it's the same people who are poor, decade after decade -- but that is only about 30-40% correct (something about a "Gini Coefficient" of 0.3-0.4, or something like that). Roughly 60-70% of folks move into a different economic class, every decade or two. In real terms, that means that of the 5.99% of 20-somethings in poverty in 1968-1978, more than half of them were not to be expected to be in the 6.15% of 30-somethings in poverty in the next decade.

That means that there had to be a replacement rate of "new people in poverty" of 3-4% for the following decade -- with 1.99-2.99% remaining in poverty the next decade (from the original 5.99% who started in poverty).

p.s. I guess I was right after all?

:-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/22, 6:49am)

Post 89

Friday, April 22, 2011 - 5:59pm

Mike,

9) There got to be road rules, air traffic separation schemes, care of old and sick, laws, courts, education, defence, etc, whatever is needed for functioning of society.

The 2 items we disagree on are education and health care.

When you say "care of old and sick" and "education" I assume -- because you are talking about what we need from government -- that what you mean is public health care and public education. Your argument is that we need government to do these things for us because, if we don't get government to do these things for us, then society will cease to function.

But history tells a different story.

According to relevant Wikipedia entries, most states didn't require public education until 1900. If what you imply was true, however, then society could not have functioned before 1900. But it did.

Also, public health care did not exist until 1965 (when the Medicare law passed). If what you imply was true, however, then society could not have functioned before 1965. But it did.

Many societies have been able to function (including our own; the USA) without public education or public health care.

Ed

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_health_care_reform_in_the_United_States

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 4/22, 6:01pm)

Post 90

Friday, April 29, 2011 - 11:17pm

In another intensive discussion on one of the articles about Exploit the Earth or Die on TOS I've picked up the following quotes from those who consider themselves environmentalists:

I don't see how respecting nature implies that people have no right to exist. That's a big jump for me.

People with these views do exist, but they don't define an entire movement. To lump reformists and liberal democratic environmentalists in with this vein of thinking is painting with far too broad a brush.

I am certainly an advocate of free markets where market failures do not exist. But anyone who has taken more than two semesters of economics should understand the concept of externalities and see the abundant evidence that corporations left to police themselves will not do so without proper incentives. The only answer to this problem is regulation.

My support of the environmentalism movement has to do with preserving the quality of human life for generations to come. Over-exploiting the earth's resources beyond what is sustainable and producing for the sake of production is not inherently good

Environmentalists overwhelmingly do not believe in putting the environment before the lives of humans, period. It's not that black and white. I think the furthest you can generalize is that they overwhelmingly believe that humans, as they exist and consume resources today, are irresponsibly detracting from the sustainability of the planet that keeps us. Most argue from a standpoint of reform.

Post 91

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 11:51am

Michael,

But anyone who has taken more than two semesters of economics should understand the concept of externalities and see the abundant evidence that corporations left to police themselves will not do so without proper incentives. The only answer to this problem is regulation.
Okay, but look at the logic of that. I'll make it explicit:

Corporations won't police themselves without incentives.
The only possible incentive is regulation.
_______________________________
Therefore, we need to regulate corporations (because they cannot regulate themselves without external regulation).

It's a ... how do you spell it ... petitio principii (Begging the Question)?

Ed

Post 92

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 12:12pm

I don't see how respecting nature implies that people have no right to exist. That's a big jump for me.

There is a danger of using this idea of respecting nature as a floating abstraction. What does it mean to 'respect' nature? That it has 'rights' and should be left untouched? If so, then that must mean that people do not have a right to exist as they cannot exist without altering nature. You're saying this is too black and white of a judgment, and that the movement shouldn't be painted with such a broad brush, but the problem here is that while if you asked many who follow the environmentalist movement if people have a right to exist and they say yes, then their affirmative answer only reveals their own confusion with the premises they operate from. It simply reveals a lack of integrity with some, while other who as you label as extreme, are actually following their own premises to its logical conclusion.

Post 93

Saturday, April 30, 2011 - 3:18pm

Michael Philip writes,

I am certainly an advocate of free markets where market failures do not exist. But anyone who has taken more than two semesters of economics should understand the concept of externalities and see the abundant evidence that corporations left to police themselves will not do so without proper incentives. The only answer to this problem is regulation.

First of all, there are no "market failures." See in this connection a book by economist Brian Simpson entitled Markets Don't Fail. If you think they do, then please provide us with the evidence. I'd love to hear it. As Simpson points out, all the arguments that one hears in economics courses for market failure are flawed. I'm not going to go into all of them here, but if you have one or two arguments for market failure that you think are valid, by all means present them.

I will, however, address one argument for market failure -- the concept of externalities. A negative externality is supposed to be an uncompensated cost; and a positive externality, an uncompensated benefit, which the government must then undertake to remedy. But the whole notion of "externality" is inherently subjective. For example, suppose that my next door neighbor is playing loud rap music, which I cannot stand. That's supposed to be a negative externality and, according to the theory, he must either stop or compensate me for the annoyance.

But suppose that I love loud rap music. Then it becomes a positive externality. I'm benefiting from something that didn't cost me a penny. Accordingly, my next door neighbor can then demand that I pay him for the pleasure of listening to it, otherwise I'm "free-riding" off of his music. But suppose I tell him that I hate the music -- that it's really annoying. In that case, I can demand that he pay me for the alleged discomfort of having to listen to it. This is the kind of subjective absurdity to which the theory of externalities leads in practice.

The only way a legal system can demand that one person compensate another is if there are well-defined property rights and standards on the basis of which property rights can be violated. If I love my next-door neighbor's music, I am receiving an uncompensated benefit from it, but that is no reason that I should be required to pay him for the pleasure of listening to it. However, he may be required to stop playing it, if it can be determined that it violates my property rights -- that it deprives me of the reasonable use and enjoyment of my property. But then we're no longer talking simply about negative externalities; were talking about violating property rights.

If a factory dumps soot on my property, that's not simply a negative externality; it's an infringement of my property rights, unless I agree to allow the pollution in exchange for a price. However, suppose that no one owns the land adjacent to the factory, and I decide to build a house on it, knowing full well that it is subject to the factory's pollution. If I decide to buy the property from the factory, then I've consented to accept the pollution, in which case, it can no longer be considered a violation of my property rights.

If you want to call laws against polluting other people's property "regulations," that's fine, but laws against harming other people's property, such as laws against vandalism, are not normally called "regulations," which is a term reserved for imposing constraints on businesses for reasons other than simply protecting other people's property rights.

Normally, businesses have a profit incentive against alienating customers by selling them tainted food or otherwise ripping them off. That incentive is their reputation. A bad reputation can bankrupt a business. In that respect, regulations aren't necessary.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 4/30, 4:43pm)

Post 94

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 5:40am

First time posting on this forum. I just recently started reading Ayn Rand, and as I consider myself an environmentalist, I wanted to hear some Objectivist views on the non-human parts of this planet we inhabit and our relationship with those parts. I read most of this thread and have some things I would like to bring up.

First, please stop denying the reality of anthropogenic climate change. There is a broad scientific consensus. Please find me a few peer-reviewed articles from the last two years that support your position. Not Rush Limbaugh or Anthony Watts, but peer-reviewed articles from real scientific journals. As I mentioned, I'm new to Objectivism, but it appears that the central tenet is that objective truth is out there, and that “subjective truth” has been used to justify a whole variety of harmful and abusive actions. Members of the climate change denial movement seems to be so obviously in this latter camp, denying mountains of evidence in order to maintain a position that allows for them to continue behaving destructively, at the expense of fellow humans.

As will all ecological destruction, those humans at the bottom of the economic ladder are hardest-hit. Poor people have the most direct relationship with and the greatest dependence on the natural world in order to survive. I live in Tanzania (in East Africa), and maize is a staple crop here. Maize is going to be one of the hardest-hit crops by rising temperatures; those little stringy bits that hang out of of fresh (un-husked) corn are what collect pollen and bring it to each individual grain under the husk. These strings (forgive me, I forget the term for them) are sensitive to temperature; too hot, and the strings dry up, fertilization doesn't happen, and the crop fails. It is predicted that East Africa is going to be among the parts of the world hardest-hit by climate change, largely due to increasingly common failed maize harvests. (source: “The World on the Edge,” which I'll just refer to as WotE when I cite it again, published by the Worldwatch Institute in 2011. Wonderful book, highly recommended.)

So here's my question: do I have a right to emit as much greenhouse gas as I want, when those actions contribute to food insecurity in many places around the world? Do I have the right to fly around the world, have a huge house, drive a Hummer, or eat nothing but factory-farmed beef, when those actions contribute to famine in East Africa or rice farmers in coastal Bangladesh losing their paddies as the seas rise? A few of my libertarian friends have told me that humans have the freedom to do whatever the want, as long as they don't deprive other humans of that freedom. I can partially agree with that belief, but only if we expand that vision beyond a local context. Our actions have regional and global consequences. Unsustainable consumption of resources is misanthropic, ultimately depriving the poor and future generations of the ability to meet their basic needs.

Studies (Wackernagel 2002, for example, cited in WotE) have shown that humanity has exceeded the natural carrying capacity of the planet. I am glad that Ed admitted earlier in this thread that we are part of nature; indeed, even with our technological arrogance we still depend on many of earth's natural processes for our survival. We harvest natural resources and use the natural world to absorb our wastes. A recent guess puts our factor of unsustainability of 1.5; we require the natural processes of 1.5 earths for long-term sustainability. Right now we're exhausting natural resources beyond the replenishment rate (including many aquifers (for example, unsustainable overpumping in India currently feeds 175 million people), soils, and forests) and creating wastes faster than their absorption rate (carbon dioxide is an easy example). Eventually this will catch up to us, and the human population will be forced down. How can we get to a sustainable human presence on this planet?

It is possible (though difficult) to calculate what sustainable level of inputs and outputs would be. How much carbon dioxide we can emit, how much fresh water we can pump from aquifers, how much nitrogen we can extract from the air for fertilizer. The Worldwatch Institute has started doing this (check out “State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?” Another recommended read!). We could take those numbers, divide by 7 billion, and say each human is only allowed to consume what would be sustainable if we were to multiply that consumption by 7 billion. The logistics of this are extremely tricky, perhaps impossible, but let's just say it's possible for the purposes of this thought experiment. Each person gets 1000 “sustainability credits” that they can spend however they want. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, provided that freedom doesn't end up drowning Bangladeshis or starve Tanzanians. This seems totally in line with Objectivist thinking. What do you all think?

Regarding the “intrinsic value” argument. I believe that all life has the right not just to exist, but to thrive, humans included. In the pursuit of happiness, why does one have to take into account the rights of other humans? Why can't I kill people and steal their property? Is it just because we're members of the same species? Why is that special? Why not respect the right to exist of other primates? We share 96% of our genome with them, after all. And then why not other mammals? Why not all life?

Post 95

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 1:56pm

JR,

The studies that conclude there is anthropogenic climate change are based upon some very specious models, statistical abuse, cherry-picked data, and even falsified data. The so-called broad scientific concensus grows less and less each year. The amount of political agenda and crass conflict of interest is enormous. Calling people who don't believe in this nonsense "deniers" is the kind of cheap tactic that doesn't constitute valid argument.

Your reference to "Unsustainable consumption of resources" comes from Marxist economic theories. Under capitalist economies pricing automatically moderates consumption as resources become scarce and automatically begins protection of valued, scarce resources.

Political environmentalism is at its heart the most dishonest attempt to kill technology, and destroy liberty I have ever seen. The massive dishonesty lies in disguising the actual political goals which ends up making it impossible for an observer to tell the useful idiots and true believers from the political schemers who hide behind the dupes they've created with their false theories. Environmentalism today is the new religion, and its legions are engaged in a holy jihad.

From the perspective of the dedicated environmentalist, the only concievable answer will be a set of elites who dictate what everyone else can or cannot do - total tyranny. But this tyranny isn't advocated out in the open, but instead from the cowardly position of 'saving the planet.' I have more respect for outright dictators that don't pretend they want take what is mine or to shackle me for the good of others, or to save a snail darter, or made-up nonsense about carbon footprints.

Government can only be moral to the extent that it is used for the sole purpose of preventing humans from initiating force, fraud or theft against one another. The result of that would be to realize that moral state of liberty - that is, freedom from initiated force. Clean air and clean water have real value, and they are easily protected with a proper application of property rights under a capitalist system.

You wrote:

I believe that all life has the right not just to exist, but to thrive, humans included. In the pursuit of happiness, why does one have to take into account the rights of other humans? Why can't I kill people and steal their property? Is it just because we're members of the same species? Why is that special? Why not respect the right to exist of other primates? We share 96% of our genome with them, after all. And then why not other mammals? Why not all life?

There are legal rights and there are moral rights. Here we are talking about moral rights from which legal rights should derive. Moral rights can only belong to entities of a kind capable of choice. Does a hurricane have the moral right to damage my property? Would it make any sense to say that I have a moral right not be subjected to the effects of a hurricane? Does a lion have a moral right to eat a gazelle? Does a gazelle have a moral right to live free of lion predation? Hopefully that makes clear, in this context, why volition is a requirment of morality.

If man has a right to live then he has the right to take those actions his life requires. But he has to determine what his life requires (establish what is of value) and determine what actions will be right to attain those values - and those both are processes that require the exercise of choice. That is the foundation for man's moral rights. Moral rights are principles that pertain to actions a man can take without seeking permission - action that are his by right. If man had no choice (or was a kind of entity to which choice didn't apply) then morality wouldn't be an issue. The only part of our genome that counts in this context is that which makes us rational (i.e., choosing) animals.
------------------

Here are three different quotes from Ayn Rand on individual rights:

“Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others—the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.

Man holds these rights, not from the Collective nor for the Collective, but against the Collective—as a barrier which the Collective cannot cross; . . . these rights are man’s protection against all other men.

A right cannot be violated except by physical force. One man cannot deprive another of his life, nor enslave him, nor forbid him to pursue his happiness, except by using force against him. Whenever a man is made to act without his own free, personal, individual, voluntary consent—his right has been violated.

Therefore, we can draw a clear-cut division between the rights of one man and those of another. It is an objective division—not subject to differences of opinion, nor to majority decision, nor to the arbitrary decree of society. No man has the right to initiate the use of physical force against another man.

Post 96

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 2:26pm

I was going to reject that post when I got home. Oh well.

Post 97

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 6:38pm

So full of holes. The whole 1000 units/human is such a blatant redistributive collectivist scheme it would be a horror to humanity if ever implemented. So someone in Canada like me who only has one child would be burdened and held responsible for a family that is "ecologically irresponsible " by having 14 children who all happen to be half starving? I don't freeking think so...

Post 98

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 10:43pm

More and more I see the only response that makes any sense is to kick the moral foundation out from under these people that have accepted environmentalism or climate change as a religious absolute. Arguing the "science" is a waste of time, just as it would be a waste of time trying to point out logic flaws in holy scripture to Christians. They will just discount what is said and ignore inconvienient facts. I'm going to just let environmentalists know how silly it is for an intelligent person to be so susceptible to what is just a giant political scam. It isn't deserving of anything more than ridicule... after being clear that their schemes are devoid of any moral rights and amounts to complete destruction of liberty.

Post 99

Thursday, May 15, 2014 - 12:46am