RoR: Forum

I went with the printing press. In my opinion it enabled the invention and proliferation of all of the others.

(Edited by Ryan Keith Roper on 10/06, 7:49pm)

Post 1

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 11:39am

I concur...

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 12:13pm

The Rialto became the Venetian Marketplace in 1097. "In 12th century France the courratiers de change were concerned with managing and regulating the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of the banks. Because these men also traded with debts, they could be called the first brokers. A common misbelief is that in late 13th century Bruges commodity traders gathered inside the house of a man called Van der Beurze, and in 1309 they became the "Brugse Beurse", institutionalizing what had been, until then, an informal meeting, but actually, the family Van der Beurze had a building in Antwerp where those gatherings occurred [2]; the Van der Beurze had Antwerp, as most of the merchants of that period, as their primary place for trading. The idea quickly spread around Flanders and neighboring counties and "Beurzen" soon opened in Ghent and Amsterdam.
In the middle of the 13th century, Venetian bankers began to trade in government securities. In 1351 the Venetian government outlawed spreading rumors intended to lower the price of government funds. Bankers in Pisa, Verona, Genoa and Florence also began trading in government securities during the 14th century. This was only possible because these were independent city states not ruled by a duke but a council of influential citizens. The Dutch later started joint stock companies, which let shareholders invest in business ventures and get a share of their profits - or losses. In 1602, the Dutch East India Company issued the first share on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. It was the first company to issue stocks and bonds."

The still was invented by the Arabs in the 8th century, and alcoholic beverages appeared in Europe by the 12th century, after the crusades.

Mediaeval and Islamic universities date from the 9th Century, with the granting of degrees dating from the 11th century with the University of Bologna. "The first degree-granting universities in Europe were the University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), the University of Oxford (1167), the University of Cambridge (1209), the University of Salamanca (1218), the University of Montpellier (1220), the University of Padua (1222), the University of Naples Federico II (1224),the University of Toulouse (1229).[9][10] "

Greece and Rome developed forms of Republican government. The Roman rule of law can be dated to the 5th century BC. "The first legal text, the content of which is known to us in some detail, is the law of the twelve tables, which date from the middle of the 5th century BC. According to Roman historians, the plebeian tribune C. Terentilius Arsa proposed that the law should be written down in order to prevent magistrates from applying the law in an arbitrary fashion.[4] After eight years of struggle the plebeians convinced the patricians to send a delegation to Athens to copy out the Laws of Solon. In addition, they sent delegations to other cities in Greece in order to learn about their legislation.[4] In 451 BC, ten Roman citizens were chosen to record the laws (decemviri legibus scribundis). For the period in which they performed this task, they were given supreme political power (imperium), while the power of the magistrates was restricted.[4] In 450 BC, the decemviri produced of the laws on ten tablets (tabulae), but was regarded unsatisfactory by the plebeians. A second decemvirate is said to have added two further tablets in 449 BC. The new Law of the XII Tables was approved by the people's assembly.[4]"

The Gutenberg Bible of 1450 dates to about a decade after his invention of the printing press.

The Library of Alexxandria dates to the Third Century BC. Wikipedia dates to 2001.

Post 3

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 12:45pm

Without objective law, republican government becomes merely kingless tyranny.

Without objective law, the university becomes the tenured reserve of speech codes and indoctrination in the state authorized ideology.

Without objective law, distilled liquor becomes the refuge of the masses.

Without objective law, the printing press becomes the licensed instrument of propaganda and state censorship.

Without objective law, powered flight becomes another means of repression by the state.

Without objective law, modern medicine retreats, becoming the privilege of the political elite, and the means by which the state controls our bodies.

Without objective law, the stock exchange becomes a facade for fraud, statism and pull.

Without objective law, sound recording becomes the private medium of eloquent demagogs.

Without objective law, the internet becomes a tool of big brother, the home of flag@whitehouse.gov.

Without objective law, we are without the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Objective law is modern man's greatest invention.

Post 4

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 5:04pm

When does objective law date to?

Post 5

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 6:55pm

I would agree that objective law is an absolute must. I would definitely place it at number 2. The printing press made number 1 for me on the basis that it must precede the others, including objective law. Objective law must be codified, distributed, and easily referenced to function properly.

Post 6

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 7:20pm

The printing press came late, 1440. The new world would have been found without it. Read post number two for everything that came before the printing press.

Read Isabel Paterson's God of the Machine for Rome and status versus contract law. Again, read post number two. Roman law under the Republic was the first codified law that established the principle of the rule of law. Other law codes were like Hammurabi's were codified by each ruler by decree. The Greeks allowed a person's rights to be determined by popular vote, see ostracism.

For those interested in a better background in the history I would recommend the following dense, informative, relevant and very pleasurable books, especially the bolded ones:

The God of the Machine
Isabel Paterson

"The Story of Civilization"
Durant, Will (1935) Our Oriental Heritage. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will (1939) The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will (1944) Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will (1950) The Age of Faith. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will (1953) The Renaissance. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will (1957) The Reformation. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1961) The Age of Reason Begins. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1963) The Age of Louis XIV. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1965) The Age of Voltaire. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1967) Rousseau and Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Durant, Will, & Durant, Ariel (1975) The Age of Napoleon. New York: Simon and Schuster.

These works are part of the wider rational egoist canon, they should be read by anyone who wants the necessary facts in which to ground historical argument.

Post 7

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 7:42pm

On Isabel Paterson from Cato:

"[I]n her classic The God of the Machine, Isabel Paterson asks a devastating question: what gives you the steam-mill? Why have some societies had enormous scientific and material development while others stagnated? Or, as education scholar Andrew Coulson has wryly put it, why did Athens give us philosophy, mathematics, literature, and the natural sciences, while neighboring Sparta gave us little more than the names of a few high school football teams?

'Paterson's search for an answer, articulated via a sustained metaphor of the "engineering principles" of political economy needed to sustain the "flows" of productive human energy, takes her from ancient Greece and Rome to Medieval Europe to the American Founding.

'Paterson begins in the ancient world, considering popular explanations for the ascendance of Rome and, in particular, their victory over Carthage in the Punic Wars. Military discipline? Carthage's was more rigorous and severe. Strategic aptitude? But the strategically brilliant Napoleon routed by one loss, while Rome lost many major battles on the road to victory, and the Carthaginian general Hannibal was widely regarded as a military genius. Sea power? But Carthage had a huge naval advantage early on, with Rome catching up only long after the beginning of the conflict.

"Rome's advantage, Paterson suggests, lay far from the battlefield, in its superior political structure. Carthage had expected the tributary peoples on Rome's boundaries to join the Carthaginian armies and rise against their masters; they did not. As Paterson observes, the Roman Empire was not really a military empire, in that its control over the periphery was not maintained by force of arms alone: "conquered" people found that Roman citizenship came with benefits. The secret to both Rome's expansion and its ability to harness the productive ability of its people, argues Paterson, was Roman law. Whereas all peoples have followed rules, Paterson sees in Rome the origin of law in its modern sense: an abstract set of principles, with their own internal logic, independent of the will of any particular ruler. She notes that despite strong local pressure to imprison or execute the apostle Paul, the Roman authorities were unable to do anything in the absence of a specific charge once he invoked his rights as a citizen. Rome also found a way to channel public "inertia" through the veto power of the Tribunes, which provided a feedback loop that prevented the imposition of laws intolerable to the plebes without giving them any affirmative power to create new law."

Post 8

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 8:20pm

I went with the printing press. In my opinion it enabled the invention and/or proliferation of all of the others.

Response amended to include "or" before proliferation because it has been pointed out that some of the polled inventions obviously came before the printing press, which is a valid point. This amended response more accurately reflects my opinion that without the storage and transmission of knowledge allowed by mass printing it would be highly unlikely for some of the poll items to have ever been invented and highly unlikely that the others would have spread as throughly as they have without rapid and uniform printing.

Post 9

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 8:32pm

How about trade? Is it too general to be considered an invention? But after all, somebody had to come up with the idea.

Post 10

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 8:32pm

5th century BC, then?

And it�s being written down is what makes it �objective�?

Post 11

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 8:49pm

The exchange of trade goods goes way back. Flint, obsidian and amber were traded in the palaeolithic. Evidence of long distance trade predates the end of the last ice age.

Wkipedia Paleolithic:

"Middle Paleolithic societies, unlike Lower Paleolithic and early Neolithic ones, consisted of bands that ranged from 20 to 30 or 25 to 100 members and were usually nomadic.[6][49][50] These bands were formed by several families. Bands sometimes joined together into larger "macrobands" for activities such as acquiring mates and celebrations or where resources were abundant.[6] By the end of the Paleolithic era about 10,000 BP people began to settle down into permanent locations, and began to rely on agriculture for sustenance in many locations. Much evidence exists that humans took part in long-distance trade between bands for rare commodities (such as ochre, which was often used for religious purposes such as ritual[51][52]) and raw materials, as early as 120,000 years ago in Middle Paleolithic.[53] Inter-band trade may have appeared during the Middle Paleolithic because trade between bands would have helped ensure their survival by allowing them to exchange resources and commodities such as raw materials during times of relative scarcity (i.e. famine, drought).[53] Like in modern hunter-gatherer societies, individuals in Paleolithic societies may have been subordinate to the band as a whole.[18][19] Both Neanderthals and modern humans took care of the elderly members of their societies during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic.[53]"

Post 12

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 9:10pm

Objective law is defined principled law uniformly applied. It's being written down is a symptom, not a cause. I again strongly suggest Isabel Paterson, whom Rand fully endorsed in this area. From Ayn Rand Lexicon:

Law, Objective and Non-Objective

All laws must be objective (and objectively justifiable): men must know clearly, and in advance of taking an action, what the law forbids them to do (and why), what constitutes a crime and what penalty they will incur if they commit it.

The Virtue of Selfishness �The Nature of Government,� The Virtue of Selfishness, 110.

The retaliatory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retaliatory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas.

If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules.

This is the task of a government-of a proper government-its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government.

A government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of physical force under objective control-i.e., under objectively defined laws.

The Virtue of Selfishness �The Nature of Government,� The Virtue of Selfishness, 109.

When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat�s whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown �influence� will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all-and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow �public policies,� integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun.

Non-objective law is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.

The Objectivist Newsletter �Vast Quicksands,�
The Objectivist Newsletter, July 1963, 25.

That which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation-not in a free country, not if we are to have �a government of laws and not of men.� An undefineable law is not a law, but merely a license for some men to rule others.

The Objectivist Newsletter �Vast Quicksands,�
The Objectivist Newsletter, 28.

It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men�s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; it has to deal not in death, but in sudden death; a state of chronic uncertainty is what men are psychologically unable to bear.

The Objectivist Newsletter �Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason,�
The Objectivist Newsletter, Feb. 1962, 5.

An objective law protects a country�s freedom; only a non-objective law can give a statist the chance he seeks: a chance to impose his arbitrary will-his policies, his decisions, his interpretations, his enforcement, his punishment or favor-on disarmed, defenseless victims.

The Objectivist Newsletter �Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason,�
The Objectivist Newsletter, Feb. 1962, 5.

The threat of sudden destruction, of unpredictable retaliation for unnamed offenses, is a much more potent means of enslavement than explicit dictatorial laws. It demands more than mere obedience; it leaves men no policy save one: to please the authorities; to please-blindly, uncritically, without standards or principles; to please-in any issue, matter or circumstance, for fear of an unknowable, unprovable vengeance.

The Objectivist Newsletter �Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason,�
The Objectivist Newsletter, Feb. 1962, 8.

See also ANARCHISM; ANTITRUST LAWS; CONSTITUTION; CRIME; DICTATORSHIP; GOVERNMENT; INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS; RETALIATORY FORCE; RETROACTIVE LAW; STATISM.

I am not aware of any concise definition. If it is based on principle the principle would presumably be protection from crime (justice) without impingement of freedom (liberty). Roman law was a defined rational set of rules knowable to all and not subject to the whim of any potentate. Roman law was brutal, sometimes religious in form and substance, and it discriminated between slaves on one hand, and plebians and noblemen on the other. But Roman law allowed the government to act only on set charges of a defined nature with set proceedures and set penalties. One knew where one stood ahead of time and could appeal to the law. The arbitrary whim of a ruler or a Greek Jury (which could do such thing as Ostracism) was not to be feared.

Ironically, the advent of the printing press allows the law to become unwieldy. Roman law was engraved on twelve golden tablets. Roman canon law is embodied in some 1700 or so principles. With the printing press we get 1300 page laws that no one reads. :)

Post 13

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 9:13pm

The Roman law you are describing doesn't sound objective to me, only consistent.

(Edited by Ryan Keith Roper on 10/06, 9:14pm)

Post 14

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 11:31pm

The assertion of our individual rights is often needed to exist. Period. We begin to guarantee that we will be able to take those acts vital to our life by agreeing with those around us to abide by a set of rules. You don't take my stuff and I won't take your stuff. This is the origin of objective law. This is what grounds trade, this is what has to be there before printing presses were ever going to invented, before the level of technology would ever be reached that could support the development of a printing press. Objective law is a concrete expression of an individual right - and it becomes the means of objectively measuring actions as permitted and not, and it becomes a way to estimate what actions will be safe in the future which mitigates business risks. I'm not investing a lot of time and fortune in making things that someone in the future will just take away from me. Objective law proceeds the flourishing of trade, of technology, of stable society itself. It is so far more basic, and more important than a printing press that I can conceive of a society that found alternate methods of storing and distributing representations of knowledge but I could never conceive of a society getting beyond the most primitive stages without objective law.

Post 15

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 8:26am

I've boycotted this poll, because it does not mention the plow.

The plow led to the accumulation of excess stores of food.

The plow led to the development of stable villages, and the concept of ownership.

The plow led to the concept of planning ahead.

The plow led to the development of trade (selling off excess product),

which led to the development of weights and measures,

which led to the development of rates of exchange,

which led to the development of currency,

which led to the development of banks,

which led to the development of systems to divine ownership (laws),

which led to the development of record systems,

which encouraged broader economic growth,

which promoted the need for education,

which culminated in Gutenberg's invention of the printing press,

which issued forth the modern age,

bringing education and disseminating new ideas to the common man.

I'd say the invention of the internet is the next phase in the dissemination of information and ideas, and will ultimately have at least as much dramatic effect as the printing press did in its day.

: )

jt

Post 16

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 9:29am

About 10 years ago, I had a discussion with someone about this very question. Someone asked me the same thing, only without a multiple choice list of options. Being a space cadet, I said the space program. The other person countered with language; I was thinking material invention, but I thought bigger after that. Without language, there would be no communication between the people needed to build spaceships. There's be no transmittal of ideas about space flight. There's be no objective law.

In other words, it's not on the list, but I'd say language. :)

Post 17

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 1:35pm

I too went with objective law. I can't really add anything that has not already been said on the subject.

If I had to choose something that was not on the list, I would go with specialization of labor or money.

Barring those, I am with the guys on distilled liquor.

Post 18

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 4:48pm

So easy even a caveman can do it?

The poll asks what is the greatest invention of civilized man. /sɪvə'laɪzd/

If you weren't sure what time frame was covered, you could have induced from the choices that a period after Homer, i.e., from ancient Greece and Rome was meant. Otherwise, a whole slew of earlier options other than the plow would have been given. No one here will dispute that the Greeks and Romans were civilized.

The plow (6,000 BC, with hoes and tree branches much earlier) predates the existence of cities. Knowing he derivation of the word civilization from the same root as civitas, "city," and more importantly civis, "citizen" may help.

If you are going to "boycott" the poll criteria for whatever reason (lack of careful reading, or Objectionist prerogative) then of course, why not pick writing (4,000 BC), the wheel (5,000 BC), language itself, (~75,000 BC) or even the use of fire (1,900,000 BC)?

The use of money likewise precedes civilization. Actual coinage is found in China in 900 BC. Their first coins were replicas of cowrie shells, which have been used as a medium of exchange by tribes from Africa to the Pacific.

And there is one other intellectual achievement that blows all the options other than objective law out of the water.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 10/07, 5:00pm)

Post 19

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 - 5:10pm