The taxes that you pay already are higher than they need to be to deliver the aid they're intended to deliver, because they have to pay for a bureaucracy to assess 'need', check for fraud (more restrictions = more room for fraud = more time/money spent fighting fraud), and even to educate people on the often complex array of benefits available. This system would be much simpler to administrate, there'd be no need to educate people on their available options, and without having to deal with enforced conditions and other eligibility restrictions dealing with fraud would be simpler and cheaper.
The only argument I can see for opposing this is a moral one, that you want to force people to behave in certain ways before you'll assist them. I always find those kind of arguments really skeevy.
It sounds to me like you're posing a philosophical question about the nature of the problem, and I'm talking about a specific scenario if this was actually implemented.
If you're talking about addition, and I'm talking about 2+2...
To have a successful startup, you need to make things that your customers want; of course, this presupposes that you have customers. That presupposes that they are free to choose to buy from you, from someone else, or not at all.
By forcibly taking money from some and giving it to others, one of the things that your startup depends on in principle is eroded just a little more. Some of the money that your customers had is now collected as a tax, and spent ostensibly in an effort to make it easier for some group of people that cannot or does not want to make their own living.
It is true that your startup will "benefit" (and only in a very temporary, limited financial sense) by this measue if you make some product or service wanted by at least some of the poor people receiving the subsidy. But what of new things? What of trying to build the best that you can? How would early personal computers have been affected by this? They were expensive! If you're making anything like this, such as fine goods, medical devices, engineering software, etc., these kinds of measures hurt you. Sure, it's a small hit. But it is a hit.
But these are just details - the important thing is to identify correct principles inductively - by observation and reason, and then to be absolutely certain of them, unless and until you have evidence to otherwise. (This is what is meant by "contextually absolute.")
What I mean isn't "everyone will have money to spend, more customers, whoopee!" What I'm talking about is "Now, founders can easily quit their job to start their ventures."
On top of that, I don't think you have a deep understanding of her ideas (specifically her epistemology and metaphysics.)
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Folks, would you judge Newton by his critics, or by reading the Principia and working through it yourself? Don't trust anyone to tell you what you shouldn't read!
Pop quiz: What would Ayn Rand call someone who just parroted someone else's intellectual work instead of coming up with their own?
P.S.: I'm very supportive of people reading Ayn Rand, if they're so inclined. In fact, if anyone wants to reimburse me for shipping, I'm willing to send them a free copy of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. That's an inclusive or; I'm trying to get rid of a lot of stuff before I move, so if you want both, let me know. I only have one copy of each, though. My email is in my profile.
> Pop quiz: What would Ayn Rand call someone who just parroted someone else's intellectual work instead of coming up with their own?
Why do you assert that I am a mere parrot? A student that draws free-body diagrams and calculates torques can't be said to be a parrot of Newton. Are we obligated to mention Newton's name every time we talk about a third-law pair, or in front of every use of "momentum"?
Clearly, there is nothing illegitimate about communicating an idea without attribution in this context. When I quote, I usually put in a link to the source, but that's not absolutely essential. In a web forum, just putting quote marks around a paragraph is enough, because people have search engines if they care enough to look.
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Incidentally, have you ever tried to read Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology?
Yes. I was pretty fanatically into Ayn Rand and probably a lot like you when I was 17 years old. I've grown out of it; while I appreciate Ayn Rand's influence on my intellectual development and genuinely encourage people to try and understand her ideas, I've found points of disagreement with much of her philosophy.
More to the point, I don't find it particularly useful or honest to contribute to discussions if one have nothing more to say than simply applying someone else's opinions to the topic at hand. It's not like physics at all; the solution to a physics problem can be non-obvious, whereas applying Objectivism to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income is a very straightforward exercise. (And, more to the point, not in the least bit convincing if you don't already believe in the Objectivism!)
I could not disagree more. You should read the debates Objectivists had over the NYC mosque issue, for example.
> I've grown out of it
I'm 30, and I've been studying it on and off for the last decade. I don't think I'm going to "grow out of it."
I'm interested in hearing what your most fundamental criticisms actually are.
Applying Objectivism to the NYC mosque issue is a little more sophisticated. That doesn't address my point, though, which is that it's trivial to apply Objectivism to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.
I'm interested in hearing what your most fundamental criticisms actually are.
I get this a lot. I'd invite you to email me (and certainly won't complain if you do), but answering this question properly would frankly involve a lot of hard philosophical work that I don't have the time or focus for at the moment.
Why be so dismissive and insulting and then respond to the same poster you advised others to ignore?
I'd much rather read the predictable respectful discussion than a presumptive judgement designed to prevent discourse.
Edit: removed a redundant adjective.
My point (which you can view either as a tangent, or as a point of order) is that most of us are contributing original thoughts from our own perspectives, not simply adopting and commenting from the perspective of some novelist with some admittedly seductive ideas. If we were interested in Ayn Rand's ideas, we could read Ayn Rand herself. It's not useful to have her ideas proselytized to us.
But you can't properly speak for other users on this site ("us.") You can (and certainly have) spoken for yourself, but a claim to represent more seems pretentious at the least.
If you think the discussion is not useful, make an argument to support that claim. Link to criticism. Or demonstrate that the Randputer is not arguing in earnest.
If you don't consider the fact that you might be wrong, that there might be something useful about the discussion in question, then how are you any better than someone who won't consider that Rand might be wrong?