Give Back? Yes, It's Time For The 99% To Give Back To The 1%
forbes.com
forbes.com
"'The community' never gave anyone anything. The 'community,' the 'society,' the 'nation' is just a number of interacting individuals, not a mystical entity floating in a cloud above them."
"Voluntary trade, without force or fraud, is the exchange of value for value, to mutual benefit."
The former is bizarrely reductionist (nobody would say that a human is just a bunch of interacting cells, although that's true in a narrow biological sense). It is also false in the context of the latter.
What is "force" or "fraud"? They are artificial constructs that owe their existence to community. It is community that turns an animal's always-justifiable use of violence or trickery into unjustifiable "force" or "fraud." And the existence of "force" and "fraud" is an emergent phenomenon that arises from the complex series of interactions that amounts creates a community. There is no unjustifiable "force" or "fraud" unless the vast majority of people pretend that those things exist: by teaching their kids that those things are wrong, by fighting them when they arise, etc.
The community gives the 1% everything. There is no wealth creation without the community. Bankers and businessmen and entrepreneurs have no value without a society that creates the environment in which a skinny nerd like Mark Zuckerberg can make billions of dollars selling simplistic entertainment to bored teenagers. Mark Zuckerberg is not the 1% in Somalia. He is a slave to the strongest men with the biggest weapons.
The biggest problem with Randian libertarianism is that it's inconsistent. It claims to reject collectivism while embracing some of the most fundamentally collectivist ideas: that I should as a member of the same society come to your defense when some other human animal attempts to infringe on your "right to property" or "right to life." At least the anarchist libertarians are self-consistent, rejecting that essential bit of collectivism.
"Forced cooperation" (under democracy/socialism/monarchism) is oxymoron. Like "Yahoo cooperates with NSA". They don't cooperate, they are forced to do what they are told.
Example: some people support war in Syria, some don't. Everyone has their argument pro and contra. Solution number 1: those who support it may go and fight/pay for it themselves. Opposing people may pay for protection or just stay on the side. Solution number 2: a bunch of guys forces everyone to pay for it, regardless of their own opinion.
I don't believe that to be the case. Force or fraud are defined the way they are in a democratic society not because they have absolute definitions, but because that society acting through government finds particular definitions conducive to their collective prosperity. These are operating definitions, not absolute ones.
I do find myself less flexible on the question of who is entitled to dictate operating definitions of "force" and "fraud." I believe that the majority, who is charged with enforcing any definitions of those terms, is morally entitled to pick the definitions. This is my key point of disagreement with Randianism--it's morally wrong to force the majority to conform to particular definitions of "force" and "fraud" that it does not get to define.
A good step in this direction would be omitting Forbes troll pieces on HN.
It feels designed to start a flame war on HackerNews.
I'm pretty sure that many of the posters belong to the top 5% and the owner probably is part of the 1%.
[1] http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=staff_board
I first heard of Ayn Rand through the chapter on her in the wonderful book Why People Believe Weird Things - this doesn't paint her personality as being particularly pleasant but doesn't touch on her work at all.
>Despite their multiculturalism and relativism, in practice the Left does not treat morality as up for grabs, as subjectively “in the eye of the beholder.” They assert moral absolutes, while still mouthing their official doctrine: “There are no absolutes.”
We should do this in a balanced way however, and start eliminating these wasteful services in high-wealth areas (where they are obviously unneeded) until this deficit is resolved. Once that happens, if there are any millionaires left, we can roll this suite of cost controls out nation-wide.
Sure hope nobodies house burns down.
PS: don't see Poe's law emerging in the author's replies to comments...
A better comparison might be Jobs vs Douglas Engelbart.
Ah, no wonder then.
Deleted comment
Original comment: Something along the lines of 'let's all bash this guy and still worship PG'
When people talk about "richest 1% should share with 99%" for the sake of, say, insurance, the reality is different. Some other 1% (government) makes public believe that this 1% will fairly distribute extra wealth from the evil capitalists (initial 1%) to poor teachers and children.
There was never in the history of the world a good insurance scheme (yet) against government that is granted enormous violent power to "fairly distribute wealth". The government forms spontaneously and its adepts then use all possible means to teach masses how moral it is to "contribute" to the government under a gun point. Non-paying taxes = non-patriotism = jail. Etc.
Anyone who seriously advocates wealth extraction and re-distribution must first present to a voting public a way for it to insure that the proposal is executed as advertised. E.g. that the politician needs to lose enormous amount of personal wealth if he fails. Then we can talk about democracy seriously. Until then, it's just manipulation of uneducated public.
lol, wut?