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Post 80

Monday, December 10, 2012 - 4:50amSanction this postReply
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As much as I admire Ayn Rand's ideas, I think she marketed her concepts in a form too easily mischaracterized.

Not that she was wrong in the least; she just needed to market her ideas with a slightly different emphasis.

Instead of "I vs. We", the individual vs the collective, I think she'd have gained more traction by emphasizing the free association of individuals vs. the forced association of the collective. By focusing on the 'free vs. forced' nature of association instead of the 'I vs. We,' her ideas are not only much more widely appealing, but the counter to her ideas are painted as far less appealing.

Mobil/Exxon is an association. So was Rearden Steel in her art. But they are formed under free association, not forced association, and that is exactly why the unwilling shares that you and I are forced to hold in GM are wrong, and why the guns of state have no business in business except as traffic cop enforcing -against- instances of forced association, including and especially by itself.

regards,
Fred
(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 12/10, 4:58am)


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Post 81

Monday, December 10, 2012 - 4:56amSanction this postReply
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My emphasis on free association also embraces experiments in socialism ... as long as those experiments are restricted to the rules of free association. If a group of folks in Vermont want to freely associative and start a commune in the woods, what business is that of mine?


But, that is exactly the illustrative power of free association, because that group of nuts in the woods would not for long limit themselves to rules of free association; history is full of examples of that(we're living one such), and not only that, the socialists fully realize that socialism can't exist on earth for as long as there exists anywhere on earth one truly free nation. They couldn't build the walls tall enough to keep their victims chained and in place, making their lie work for them.

regards,
Fred


(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 12/10, 4:59am)


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Post 82

Monday, December 10, 2012 - 6:02amSanction this postReply
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One of the things I really liked about the Glen Beck thread Ed started was how the dems are trying to be more like republicans and the gop is trying to be more like the dems. They are now two peas in one small pod and as such are false choices to vote for. There should instead be a Constitutionalist party, one who drives the bus back towards the principles of the founding fathers, and there should be a Statist party, one that drives the boat towards totalitarianism.
Lets face it most sheeple are not deep thinkers, but anyone can see in black and white those differences.
Free association vs nannie state
Prosperity vs everyone being equally poor and equally enslaved and equally miserable.

Post 83

Friday, March 15, 2013 - 7:18pmSanction this postReply
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On the flip-side of this poll question (i.e., Would you act so as to reward a virtuous value-producer?), a relevant study was performed in order to explain all of the unexpected trust and the unexpected, mutual benefits of trade which occurs everyday under the free market mechanics of eBay:

Coevolution of Trustful Buyers and Cooperative Sellers in the Trust Game

The study gets technical but a major point from Figure 3 can be summarized thusly:

a) If buyers get to "rate" sellers (just like we do on eBay) ...
b) and if these buyers aren't perfect, but instead -- at least 2% of the time -- they mistakenly rate sellers incorrectly (opposite to their very own experiences with them) ...
c) and if these buyers -- even when they discriminate good-reputation sellers from those with a bad-reputation -- if they still imperfectly buy from the bad sellers 10% of the time ...
d) and if good sellers make 20% (one-fifth) of the profit they would've made by being bad sellers -- i.e., by cheating others out of money (and taking the "hit" of getting a bad reputation after that)
e) and if 60% of us exercise the previously-outlined "imperfect" rationality (i.e., discriminating good sellers from bad sellers; 90% of the time)
f) then free association evolves and is stable (i.e., free market capitalism "works")

Now, if you can make 80% of the profit you'd make out of cheating others -- which, in certain fields or markets, is something that is not only possible but is extremely likely (if not totally certain) -- then only 3.8% of us would need to exercise the previously-outlined "imperfect" rationality (buying from good sellers 90% of the time and from bad sellers only 10% of the time) in order for free market capitalism to work.

Imagine if 95% of us were dolts -- buying up whatever it is that anyone, whoever they are, is selling to us -- but that only 5% of us were practicing an imperfect rationality: Free market capitalism (under the assumption that the payoff for honest-dealing is at least 80% of what the payoff for fraud is) would still work.

In post 3 above, I mentioned a study which showed that only 22% of us need to be concerned about the punishment side of justice -- in order for 100% of us to benefit from living in a just society. Now, in this study -- under a range of assumptions that is wide enough to be able to capture the "boots-on-the-ground" reality of humans trading with one another -- we can see what's required on the "reward" side of the ledger, in order for things like eBay (or free market capitalism in general) to "work":

Somewhere between 4% and 60% of us need to practice "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). If 4-60% of us can do that, then capitalism evolves and is stable -- with no major market instability or "Great Depression". If a "Great Depression" actually does occur, then that is good evidence that some statist interventionist was tinkering with the markets -- because only 6 in 10 of us (at the most) would need to be vigilant-though-imperfect consumers, in order to prevent that kind of a thing from ever happening.

Only 6 in 10 of us -- and possibly only 1 in 25 of us! -- would need to stop buying from known hucksters. This is how and why eBay "works."

Ed

p.s., Now that we've seen what it would take for reason, freedom, individualism, and free market capitalism to work, we could ask what it would take for the opposite (totalitarian dictatorship) to "work":

1) You would have to convince more than 78% of us to become totally indifferent to injustices happening right in front of our noses
2) You would have to convince more than 4 out of 10 of us -- and possibly more than 24 out of 25 of us -- to deal/trade with people who are known for having a bad reputation

Neither one of these alternatives seems possible, given the concrete evidence of successes like eBay.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/15, 7:59pm)


Post 84

Saturday, March 16, 2013 - 9:03amSanction this postReply
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Ed,
1) You would have to convince more than 78% of us to become totally indifferent to injustices happening right in front of our noses
2) You would have to convince more than 4 out of 10 of us -- and possibly more than 24 out of 25 of us -- to deal/trade with people who are known for having a bad reputation
You are saying "You would have to..." How about changing it a little to say, "1) Progressives would have to convince more than 50% of us to be indifferent to the injustice alleged by the small government people.
2) We would have to convinced, more than 5 out of 10 of us who vote -- to re-elect people who are known for having a bad reputation."

Post 85

Saturday, March 16, 2013 - 3:23pmSanction this postReply
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Steve,

You have a good point (and I agree with it) and it actually calls even more attention to what I was saying in the first place. Politics may be the art of the possible, but: Totalitarian dictatorship wouldn't even "work" if as much as 78% of the population agreed with it (and voted for it)!

Now, that's a utilitarian argument. There are other -- philosophical; a priori -- reasons that totalitarian dictatorship won't work whenever it is tried with humans (see Ayn Rand for details), but I'm just looking at the science here. The point is that, while you'd only need 50% (+ 1) of the voters to vote for statism in order to implement it, science says that you'd need 79% of the population on-board with the program in order for it to ever work. It's an existential, efficient-causation kind of argument. This puts us in a predicament:

Because of well-organized deceit ("perception management"), we have enough power in this country to vote for statism, but not enough to make it work. It is kind of like having the power to shoot yourself in the foot. If 22% of the population remains individualist, then statism cannot work on this evidence-based, efficient-causation standard of what is possible. It's a scientific (data-driven) argument which merely augments the philosophic argument that we already have. Here is a run-down:

If only 20% of us were individualists, then ...
[science] ... statism, like the kind we have now, might work.
[philosophy] ... statism won't work (because of the kind of being that man is).

If 30% of us were individualists, then ...
[science] ... statism, like the kind we have now, will not work (because genuine justice will encroach upon, and eventually crowd-out, the pseudo-justice which is all that totalitarianism has the capability of ever bringing about. Evolutionarily-speaking, the genuine justice will become naturally selected).
[philosophy] ... statism won't work (because of the kind of being that man is).

Ed

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