participant-4603, 9:04 PM, January 26
I was talking with a buddy of mine about Atlas Shrugged a few moments ago, and I realised that I did not understand what was meant by determinism. As I understand it, Ayn Rand was supposed to oppose it big time, and I am still a little fuzzy on the subject.
That said, I believe people can change, and past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future performance.
participant-3927, 9:29 PM, January 26
At Last
It matters not which border crossed,
From desert dry or tempest tossed,
To waves of grain and freedom’s sigh,
From womb’s dark hold to first-light’s cry—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.
It matters not what age you came,
Eight months or eighty years the same,
What color skin your parents’ face,
What faith from which they fled to grace—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.
Now eye to eye, measuring minds,
The hopeful search for justice finds
No honest man can blindly curse
One more like he in chorus and verse
Than different—yes, in essence we
Are species same, from nose to knee—
As equals born with equal right
To live and work and dream the night
Where best we may, and here you are,
Your place of birth be near or far,
Your life and loves as dear to you
As mine to me—and this is true:
As innocent till guilty proved,
Against you none are justly moved.
So come, let’s toast to freedom’s song,
And may someday you pass along—
It matters not which border crossed,
To nurse’s hands or shoreline lost—
You’re here, you’re here, at last.
~ Quent Cordair
My Kingdom, 2019
participant-3927, 9:31 PM, January 26
“Determinism is the theory that everything that happens in the universe—including every thought, feeling, and action of man—is necessitated by previous factors, so that nothing could ever have happened differently from the way it did, and everything in the future is already pre-set and inevitable. Every aspect of man’s life and character, on this view, is merely a product of factors that are ultimately outside his control. Objectivism rejects this theory.” — Leonard Peikoff
“Dictatorship and determinism are reciprocally reinforcing corollaries: if one seeks to enslave men, one has to destroy their reliance on the validity of their own judgments and choices—if one believes that reason and volition are impotent, one has to accept the rule of force.” — Ayn Rand, “Representation without Authorization”
participant-3927, 7:13 AM, January 28
A free trade agreement between EU and India has been signed. But it still needs to ratified by member EU states.
participant-4603, 9:27 AM, January 28
Right, and I have not checked, but I think they are still trying to get ratification of a deal with Mercosur. Clearly, the EU is attempting to find non-US markets and has been doing so even before Trump 2.0.
But here is what I have always struggled with, and that is why there is even a need for free trade agreements in the first place. I mean, should not, in an ideal sense, countries and regional blocs simply have unilateral universal free trade, the way that Hong Kong, for example, is a largely duty-free port?
participant-3927, 3:46 PM, January 28
Yes, it should be a unilateral decision. Countries do not trade, indviduals trade. A trade tarrifs is a limitation on individual’s right to cooperate with whoever he wants (trade is a form of cooperation).
participant-3927, 3:46 PM, January 28
News: I have released a new version of my security app Crosspass, which supports sharing PDFs. Up to 3 PDFs at a time, each 10MB max.
https://crosspass.app/
participant-3927, 4:01 AM, January 29
An HBL member ex-policeman justifies deportation of non-citizen offenders:
I personally arrested a guy for robbery who fled in a stolen car, crashed it fleeing, and had multiple IDs from people he had robbed on his person; in custody he bragged about beating his wife with an extension cord while we were waiting for a Detective to talk to him. He was not a nice guy. He was later deported, and I doubt anyone loses sleep over him being gone.
This is indeed a cause to lose sleep. First, this man had never paid for his crimes, for he was merely deported. Don’t the laws apply to him? Shouldn’t he answer for his crimes proportionally, to the same extend as a citizen would?
Second, in the country he is deported to he has more opportunity for crime, because countries with lesser protection of rights have a black market and anarchy through bribing police and judges.
He adds,
I have seen many, many repeat violent offenders walk for very serious crimes that could have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The system drops strong cases all the time; because they are overwhelmed, incompetent, overly sympathetic to criminals’ claims to sympathy, or some combination of all of the above. … In that context, when immigration laws can actually remove a dangerous person, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
The fact that criminals walk free because of an inefficient court system, is not a justification to deport them to have a modicum of peace. This pragmatism sweeps the problem under the carpet. All that funding that now goes to fund the illegitimate ICE should be funding the legitimate and necessary court system.
participant-2294, 2:46 PM, January 29
“Rather than keeping him in prison at the expense of American taxpayers, it’s better that he left the country.” I agree.
participant-3927, 4:09 PM, January 29
First, that wasn’t part of the quote. Not sure where you dug that out. Second, it’s a pragmatic, not a principled argument. If we get rid of government’s functions because they cost money, why stop there? Let’s remove government altogether and have anarchy. No, there are legitimate government expences and it’s upon the residents (not just citizens) to fund the government.
A principled approach is to not let anyone off the hook for crime. A citizen who stole something, and then tried to get away from police, would be severly prosecuted and jailed long enough to emerge reformed at the end of his sentence.
participant-2294, 4:15 PM, January 29
Criminals must pay compensation plus an additional punitive amount exceeding the value of what they stole. When they cannot pay compensation, they should be enslaved. When slavery does not cover the damage, they should be killed.
participant-2294, 4:17 PM, January 29
Yeah, it’s a paraphrase
participant-3927, 4:19 PM, January 29
Is that a hyperbole? Punishment must be always proportional with the crime. No more, no less.
participant-2294, 4:20 PM, January 29
Yes, I meant that you can’t compensate because you killed someone
participant-3927, 4:22 PM, January 29
No, we cannot decide here, in armchairs, what is the penalty. We have a court system for that. It doesn’t seem right that the penalty for theft is just money. In the past, a hand was cut, but that is excessive. Also, it depends on what is stolen. Stealing a plastic spoon in McDonalds without ordering a meal there is not the same as stealing a bar of gold from a bank, in a hold-up.
participant-2294, 4:25 PM, January 29
Although I was a supporter of isocubes… traditional imprisonment harms the pockets of innocent people…
participant-2294, 4:26 PM, January 29
In fact, the additional amount should be a percentage-based penalty rather than a fixed fine
participant-5138, 9:39 PM, January 29
Maybe not slavery, but how about social works as a punishment besides compensating what one has stolen?
After all, keeping a dude locked up ain’t productive for him (cuz he ain’t gonna learn what he did wrong) nor society (that has to pay to maintain him), while education and rehab thru productive work may help him build a normal life after prison
participant-5138, 9:43 PM, January 29
Shouldn’t punishment be relative to the damage a criminal may cause again in the future and the ability of society to answer to the threat? E.g. if a criminal killed someone in a big western city, sentencing him to death may be counterproductive, because western countries have the means to invest in rehab and make the criminal a productive member of society; but in a small village in a forest, where they don’t have the means and any choice is critical for survival, perhaps death punishment is justified because there is no resource to invest on the criminal.
Idk if it makes sense
participant-3927, 9:46 PM, January 29
It doesn’t make sense, because the goal is not to reform a person, but to punish him. The reforming comes naturally when a person realizes that the punishment will be proportional to the crime.
participant-3927, 9:48 PM, January 29
A person is not a cell of some organism called “society” (such organism does not exist), which must be saved and made healthy again. Punishment is an application of the principle of cause-and-effect, colloquially known as eye for an eye.
participant-3927, 9:52 PM, January 29
Slavery or forced-labour cannot be a form of punishment, because it robs a person of his human essence: free will.
participant-3927, 9:54 PM, January 29
On the other hand, the jailed are not and cannot have the luxury to be productive members of society. A jail cannot be a factory that makes some gadgets to sell and fund itself. A jail is “life on pause,” not life that’s enjoyable because it’s productive.
participant-3927, 10:03 PM, January 29
But isn’t it expensive to maintain all these jails? Only if there are many people in jails, but that’s not the case. At present, it is at worst, half a percent of the total population. In captialist (egoist) society this number will be an order of magnitude smaller.
participant-3927, 10:09 PM, January 29
It is only in an altruist society that people turn to crime. Altruism is a princple that justifies that one person must be sacrified for the sake of another. A criminal considers it legitimate that others must sacrifice for him. When he steals money, he considers it legimate that the more sucessful should part with his money in his favor. When he rapes a woman, he considers it legitimate that women owe him to satisfy his sexual drives. When he murders, he thinks that people simply owe him. This all is shown in the movie “Naturally Born Killers” starring Woody Harrelson. (In the movie you will see that potential victims in fact agree with that philosophy, and are ready to prostrate themselves.)
participant-3927, 10:18 PM, January 29
A village or forest is not a country. The criminal law acts within a country, and the criminals are pooled into jails all accross the country. The libertarian dream of microstates is going to remain only a dream. Small towns in the Wild West had small jails, which we see in Westerns movies. But history shows time and again that there is a tendency to centralize into large cities.
participant-3927, 10:25 PM, January 29
When libertarians are campaigning for decentralization, they are avoiding facing the real evil of large taxes and regulations and hope that smaller ministates will have less of that. First, they won’t, because the principles that causes these evils are never challenged. Second, no one will give them a ministate to run.
Instead of campaigning against the taxes, they suck up to the regulators, claiming that Bitcoin is not a money laundering tool (it is). And what they have achieved is that crypto is more regulated now than the banking sector.
participant-4603, 10:11 AM, January 30
I was playing around with a Grok voice chat agent, and it claimed that the main difference is that Objectivists have reason as their moral compass, whereas libertarians do not (I am paraphrasing from memory). What I gathered from it is more that libertarians are collaborationist because, while they might favour lower taxes, it is not a moral issue for them.
participant-5138, 12:57 AM, February 1
Ministates allow easier control on the political class and direct participation in the democratic process, which makes citizens more aware of their role as keepers of freedom and democracy and holds politicians more accountable for their wrong doings
participant-5138, 12:58 AM, February 1
Doesn’t locking em up also rob them of free will?
participant-5138, 1:02 AM, February 1
The goal of the justice system shouldn’t be metaphysical punishment but making sure the criminal cannot threaten and harm innocents again.
And (I think) this should be achieved with the least possible suffering for the criminal (or else, it isn’t justice - it’s gratuitous cruelty).
If a criminal can be taught the value of productive work, so that (once out of jail) he becomes a productive citizen, what’s the problem?
participant-5138, 1:07 AM, February 1
The organism “society” does exist and it’s a group of people within a given area that associates under a set of rules or laws.
Being a criminal means breaking said laws, which are ideally made to preserve the greatest degree of freedom for the highest number of people. Therefore, criminals put society (the people respecting the rules) under danger, and, yes, it’s exactly society that needs to be protected, not some abstract concept of “justice”
participant-3927, 1:09 AM, February 1
There is no real “pluribus”.
participant-5138, 1:09 AM, February 1
Huh?
participant-3927, 1:09 AM, February 1
TV series
participant-5138, 1:10 AM, February 1
I don’t get it
participant-3927, 1:10 AM, February 1
There is no historical precedent. The precedent is that these were mob rule.
participant-5138, 1:10 AM, February 1
Roman republic and colonial america
participant-3927, 1:11 AM, February 1
The roman republic is a ministate?
participant-5138, 1:12 AM, February 1
It has been for a very long time till war against Carthago, basically. Even when it allegedly controlled all of Italy, it was mostly alliances with other municipalities (cities) controlled by their own citizenship.
Other examples? Greek poleis
participant-5138, 1:12 AM, February 1
Italian and Dutch communes during the late Middle Ages
participant-3927, 1:12 AM, February 1
The roman republic is proof that ministates are untenable. The romans conquered everyone.
Before Carthage, they were busy conquering all of italy.
participant-5138, 1:13 AM, February 1
They only did that because they were attacked. They didn’t directly control all of Italy up until the establishment of the empire
participant-3927, 1:13 AM, February 1
So your example is in middle ages, the most unproductive and miserable period of history?
participant-3927, 1:14 AM, February 1
It’s not about why they did that. It’s about the fact that small ministates in proximites always are in conflict and the conflict is resolved when they get unified.
participant-5138, 1:14 AM, February 1
Aside what Ayn Rand says, Dutch and Italian communes are where modern capitalism and banks are born and what paved the way for renaissance and the formation of a middle class
participant-5138, 1:15 AM, February 1
Sometimes, sometimes not. It’s not like nation states solved the problem of war. Can’t remember world wars when people lived in cities
participant-3927, 1:15 AM, February 1
It’s not Ayn Rand, it’s common knowledge about history. And economics did not begin with those banks. It goes back to bronze age.
participant-5138, 1:15 AM, February 1
The nation state is actually an invention of absolute monarchs abhorred even by the Founding Fathers
participant-5138, 1:16 AM, February 1
I didn’t say “economics”, I said “modern capitalism” and finance
participant-3927, 1:16 AM, February 1
That’s your re-interpretation of history.
participant-3927, 1:16 AM, February 1
There can’t be anything modern before the industrial age.
participant-5138, 1:17 AM, February 1
Why?
participant-5138, 1:17 AM, February 1
So, modern science didn’t begin until the industrial age? What are you talking about?
participant-3927, 1:18 AM, February 1
It didn’t
participant-5138, 1:18 AM, February 1
The Declaration of Independence wasn’t modern because it predated trains? Like, what does it mean?
participant-3927, 1:18 AM, February 1
Modern scence began with Newton, which ushered the industrial age.
participant-5138, 1:18 AM, February 1
Modern science began with Galilei, or Bacon if we wanna be accurate
participant-3927, 1:19 AM, February 1
Definitely not Bacon
participant-3927, 1:19 AM, February 1
Galileo, mayb..
participant-5138, 1:19 AM, February 1
Why? He was the one to lay down the inductive method
participant-3927, 1:19 AM, February 1
But it’s really Newton
participant-3927, 1:19 AM, February 1
Bacon was a philosopher, he was not a scientist.
participant-5138, 1:20 AM, February 1
That’s a rationalism: he was the one to discover the basic principles of induction
participant-3927, 1:21 AM, February 1
No he wasn’t. That was Newton.
participant-5138, 1:21 AM, February 1
Have you studied Baconian philosophy?
participant-3927, 1:22 AM, February 1
I have read his biography. But no, I didn’t study it. However, before Newton, induction was not considered a valid method of science.
participant-5138, 1:23 AM, February 1
Huh? What? You mean that Newton made induction popular? Probably yes. This doesn’t mean he discovered it
participant-3927, 1:23 AM, February 1
Absolutely, yes. He was the first person who made it legitimate, and in fact, a standard of science.
participant-5138, 1:24 AM, February 1
Perhaps, but he didn’t invent it. At all. And others like Lavoisier were already applying it with phenomenal results
participant-3927, 1:24 AM, February 1
But anyway, when I said “anything modern” I mean’t political systems. Not math, science, or music, or sports.
participant-3927, 1:25 AM, February 1
As far as I remember, Lavoisier and Newton were contemproraies.
participant-3927, 1:25 AM, February 1
Actually, no
participant-5138, 1:25 AM, February 1
As much as I love progress and technology, the industrial revolution paved the way for crazy monarchs getting crazy weapons that led to socialism and dictatorships
participant-3927, 1:25 AM, February 1
Lavoisier lived after Netwon, and used his induction.
participant-5138, 1:26 AM, February 1
Good to know. Thanks. Still, Galilei did
participant-3927, 1:26 AM, February 1
And what do you call aristocracy — not dictatorship of the king ?
participant-5138, 1:27 AM, February 1
? I call it aristocracy. What do you call it?
participant-3927, 1:27 AM, February 1
I mean, king existed before the industrial revolution. The dictatorship was always there, with single exception of cthe roman republic.
participant-5138, 1:29 AM, February 1
They did, but during the middle ages they weren’t the main problem (which was the land lord): they basically had no power. It was only during the industrial revolution that they became ever more powerful and nations’ bureaucracies and armies grew exponentially
participant-5138, 1:30 AM, February 1
Well, also during the pre-industrial age, tbf
participant-3927, 1:30 AM, February 1
Alexander the Great showed that the polis cannot defend itself, it cannot be indepnedent. The ministates ended in 4th century BC. It’s never coming back.
participant-5138, 1:31 AM, February 1
The thirteen colonies showed that the citizenry can defend itself from empire-wide tyrants.
participant-5138, 1:32 AM, February 1
So, I’d say that we should rather stress the importance of military training for citizens so that they can be part of a militia to defend their own freedom
participant-3927, 1:32 AM, February 1
Barely, by sheer luck, and not for long. The Spartans beat them, then the Macedonians took over, over the whole region. The end.
participant-5138, 1:33 AM, February 1
I meant: the thirteen American colonies
participant-3927, 1:33 AM, February 1
And the Spartans are an example, again, that ministats, even if militarized, are a bad idea. The Spartarns did not leave a single book written. They know only how to fight.
participant-5138, 1:34 AM, February 1
I agree. Sparta was hell on earth with no regard for human life. BUT military training for citizens has actually many advantages so long as it’s all voluntary (as the state should be)
participant-3927, 1:34 AM, February 1
About the Amercian colonies — there is a reason why they got unified. There is a reason why, even today, they don’t split up.
participant-3927, 1:35 AM, February 1
In a ministate, there are just not enough people to form a strong military. Not in the age of modern weapons.
participant-5138, 1:35 AM, February 1
Sure. Federations are ok. The problem is central power shouldn’t grow as much as it did. They would have stayed better off with Articles of Confederation
participant-3927, 1:36 AM, February 1
They didn’t stay, because after a run of several years, the articles turned inadequate
participant-5138, 1:36 AM, February 1
That’s sensible. Then maybe opt for a Federation or Confederation with military coordination? It may also be helpful for free transit of people and freight
participant-5138, 1:37 AM, February 1
Or because they were mad for power (that’s a joke, but you can actually read letters from Thomas Paine accusing Washington of having betrayed the principles of the revolution due to power greed)
participant-3927, 1:40 AM, February 1
The federation prevented an internal war between states and bloodshed (the kind Europe suffered from throughout history). Also, no state could defend itself from European conquest, the whole military of the America was needed for that. Once you have a single military, you have central government and control.
participant-3927, 1:41 AM, February 1
By the way, I don’t know American history well.
participant-5138, 1:42 AM, February 1
Where you from, if I may?
participant-3927, 1:42 AM, February 1
I was born in Ukraine
participant-5138, 1:43 AM, February 1
Cool. I ignore any kind of self-governing cities examples in eastern Europe, but I’m just ignorant of its history
