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[EveryZig]

Not if Bauglir is an algorithm. The  integral of 4*x*x -2x + 12 is independent of the calculator you use to solve it.

Wouldn't identical instances of someone/something still be different objects from each other? For example, if you have two photons with the same wavelength traveling parallel to each other at different locations, there would be two identical photons rather than one photon in two places.

[Bauglir]

Sure, they're different instances, but they're still the same thing. The Bay12 Forum is the same forum, no matter what computer you're viewing it on, even though there's a different instance of it stored in each computer's memory, and even though it changes its content from time to time.

[Shadowlord]

If you could make an identical copy of a person, those two copies would not remain identical for long due to being in non-identical environments (and there's also QM to consider).

Unless morphic fields* or entanglement?

* not that those are real or anything

[Reelya]

One example that's pertinent to this discussion is the Crisis of the Commons argument. Ignoring how that was used historically (to justify privatizing and enclosing common fields), the logic is very relevant. Objections to this should take note that it's a metaphor for shared resources.

Say there's a shared field, which can optimally hold 10 cows for maximum production, any less and part of the field goes to waste, any more and the individual cows become malnourished, plus you've got lost energy for the cows respiration, and bone material etc which is not valuable.

10 people each have 1 cow in the field. Each person is allowed to add more cows, but they will only do that if it's in their rational self-interest. The interests of the other stakeholders is not their concern.

One person chooses to add another cow because it will increase their share in this field from 1/10 (10%) to 2/11 (~18%), and each other person loses about 1%. It's now in everyone else's rational self-interest to add more cows themselves, until the cost of adding a new cow exceeds the amount you "steal" off everyone else minus the amount you lose from lower field efficiency.

This shows how rational self interest can lead to irrational group behavior.

Even if they voluntarily agree to limit each person's number of cows, it's still rational to "cheat" the other villagers by overgrazing. Only a policy of penalties and oversight can put and end to the "arms race" of adding cows. And then you've basically got a government structure.

The possible objection "Just open up more fields" won't work even if there are spare fields, because it's still in rational-self-interest for each person to maximize their share of this field, and every other field that gets opened up.

[Bauglir]

Generally, I believe the argument that objectivists make is that that isn't an accurate picture of the real world - resources are not fixed in the same way as they are in that situation. A botanist who owned a cow, for instance, might produce a fertilizer that increases the number of cows the field can support, and so should be entitled to all the additional cows that can be added before reaching capacity. I don't buy that this argument is infinitely extensible (there are physical limits on efficiency, eventually), but it does make things a little more complicated, because while resources may be finite, I can't convincingly argue that the number of meaningful units of resources is unchanging. I also don't think that the botanist should enjoy all of the rewards, but that's the topic of this thread, and I think I've already made my post on what I actually think of objectivism.

[Montague]

One example that's pertinent to this discussion is the Crisis of the Commons argument. Ignoring how that was used historically (to justify privatizing and enclosing common fields), the logic is very relevant. Objections to this should take note that it's a metaphor for shared resources.

Say there's a shared field, which can optimally hold 10 cows for maximum production, any less and part of the field goes to waste, any more and the individual cows become malnourished, plus you've got lost energy for the cows respiration, and bone material etc which is not valuable.

10 people each have 1 cow in the field. Each person is allowed to add more cows, but they will only do that if it's in their rational self-interest. The interests of the other stakeholders is not their concern.

One person chooses to add another cow because it will increase their share in this field from 1/10 (10%) to 2/11 (~18%), and each other person loses about 1%. It's now in everyone else's rational self-interest to add more cows themselves, until the cost of adding a new cow exceeds the amount you "steal" off everyone else minus the amount you lose from lower field efficiency.

This shows how rational self interest can lead to irrational group behavior.

Even if they voluntarily agree to limit each person's number of cows, it's still rational to "cheat" the other villagers by overgrazing. Only a policy of penalties and oversight can put and end to the "arms race" of adding cows. And then you've basically got a government structure.

The possible objection "Just open up more fields" won't work even if there are spare fields, because it's still in rational-self-interest for each person to maximize their share of this field, and every other field that gets opened up.

I think your examples lends credence to the idea that communal structures are dysfunctional because people will nearly always look out for their own interests before anything else. Rather then guard the commons with jack-booted thugs to enforce grazing regulations, the villagers could just purchase what property they need for grazing, or rent it out to reserve it's use, or whatever.

Anyways, I think people mistake what 'rational self interest' means in Rand's meaning. It is about personal responsibility and self-ownership. Carrying your own weight so you are not a burden on others and infringing on their freedom, well being or prosperity. The idea is that everybody should take care of themselves and leave everybody else the hell alone and expect the same from everybody else.

[Reelya]

Sure own or rent can work sometimes, though that presumes you have a government (jack-booted thugs) to ensure that people don't "cheat" and buy more cows than their title property can hold, and graze each other's land, which is again, rational self-interest for every individual, even though it could lead to the same reduced efficiency.

It is society which recognizes and enforces ownership. Unless you want to run a sort of wild-west type situation.

but what if it's not land, what if it's the right to dump pollutants into a river? Each person needs the river, and dumping in the river saves them money. The negative effect on myself from my own dumping is smaller than my net gain, hence it's logical for me to dump. My dumping hurts everyone a little. With enough people using the river like this, the negatives outweigh the positives, even for each individual, even though everyone only acted in a way that made logical sense for them-self.

And Ayn Rand's open endorsement of laissez-faire capitalism rather precludes any claim that it's just a "live and let live" philosophy. That is just the rationalization. Capitalism involves taking resources for yourself, which automatically implies disallowing anyone else from accessing those resources. "laissez-faire" means "anything goes".

But in reality it's a shit-fight to exclude everyone else from resources. Without a government, do you really think corporations will "play nice" like they do now? They'll just grab whatever they want and become warlords if it got to that point.

[Montague]

Rand wasn't an anarcho-capitalist, or even a libertarian (such as they were in her era), she believed a government was absolutely required but it's powers restricted to protecting people and property and individual rights of everybody, to enforce rule of law. Military, police, courts and not much else. A government able to act only within the remit it is permitted to do, not just what it was restricted from doing. She saw the government as the most dangerous tool that could be used by the powerful to exploit everybody else. She liked to point out that every abuse of a corporation or monopoly was due to government support, bribery and corruption of the state. If the government has no ability to act in economic matters, (separation of economics and state like separation of church and state as she put it) it has no value for the powerful to exploit. If the government has wide-reaching powers, it can be pervasively corrupted by corporations and anybody else.

In 'Randland' a firm polluting a river may very well be sued by every single person downstream of them and probably be boycotted at the very least. If it indeed endangered human life the people responsible would be arrested like any other society, the pollution would have infringed on the property and lives of others and the government would be obliged to put an end to it. Thus for the firm it would be in their rational self interests to dispose of waste safely.

[Shadowlord]

Say there's a shared field, which can optimally hold 10 cows for maximum production, any less and part of the field goes to waste, any more and the individual cows become malnourished, plus you've got lost energy for the cows respiration, and bone material etc which is not valuable.

10 people each have 1 cow in the field. Each person is allowed to add more cows, but they will only do that if it's in their rational self-interest. The interests of the other stakeholders is not their concern.

One person chooses to add another cow because it will increase their share in this field from 1/10 (10%) to 2/11 (~18%), and each other person loses about 1%. It's now in everyone else's rational self-interest to add more cows themselves, until the cost of adding a new cow exceeds the amount you "steal" off everyone else minus the amount you lose from lower field efficiency.

This shows how rational self interest can lead to irrational group behavior.

I believe you are referring to the Tragedy of the Commons. The premises of your argument, specifically the premise I have bolded ("The interests of the other stakeholders is not their concern."), are not necessarily correct. With only 10 people (potentially even with 100), they could potentially all know each other, and they will be in each others' monkeysphere, and will be concerned with each others' well-being. Therefore they will likely not take actions which will make matters worse for everyone else unless they are exceptionally selfish. Obviously, because of how the monkeysphere works, when you expand the Tragedy of the Commons to a larger group of people, say, the size of an entire country, it is impossible for everyone to know each other or think of each other as people - and you have selfish behavior again. It would not surprise me if objectivism and the divide between the super-rich and everyone else, which has steadily grown over the decades, only exists in the first place because of Dunbar's number (e.g. the monkeysphere).

(Of course, I have an emotional reaction when I hear that there has been some kind of a disaster and hundreds of thousands of people, or more, have died - but not when I hear that there has been a bus crash and 5 people have died, even though in both cases I knew none of the people, and I don't really know the reason for that.)

[Frumple]

Eesh, minor reading failure. Ree noted it by an alternate name "Crisis of the Commons" in the paragraph before you started quoting

[Shadowlord]

Which is a name I had never heard, and which does not have an article or redirect on wikipedia, but his argument was essentially identical to the tragedy of the commons, so that was clearly what he meant.

[Montague]

Tragedy of the Commons seems more illustrative to me when it revolves around the selfish refusal to act rather then acting toward selfish gain.

If you live in a nasty tenement, who the hell is willing to go around picking up trash and cleaning up graffiti and repairing broken windows when everybody you live with will litter, vandalize and shit on everything as normal, or even more so just to spite you? It becomes wasted effort to contribute to a collective effort when nobody else is participating, especially if it means some sacrifice of wealth or time to do so. Some might just happy to see you do their work for them. Others actively loathe such 'goody-two-shoes' and will shit on you even more. With communal systems, it pays better to be a parasite and it is sacrifice to contribute to it.

[kaijyuu]

Well presumably "litter picking" can be someone's job, eh?

I can understand the "aw someone else will do it" mentality that can prevent things from actually getting done, but with proper organization that concern vanishes.

[Montague]

Well presumably "litter picking" can be someone's job, eh?

I can understand the "aw someone else will do it" mentality that can prevent things from actually getting done, but with proper organization that concern vanishes.

Sure, maybe hiring people to pick litter is a way about it, but ultimately you are spending money and time to cover that service that would be circumvented entirely if everyone just took 15 minutes a day to help maintain their area. So callously flicking cigarette butts everywhere and dumping your leftovers out the windows because somebody is hired to clean it? Hard to find a moral argument in favor for that arrangement, but that seems to be how act in the overwhelming majority.

The tenement example is more aimed toward communist type ideas. They'd say everyone should take joy in voluntary labor and everyone would be thrilled to clean up their environment and who would litter anyways?

[Capntastic]

This thread has been itching at the back of my ears and I've waited for a good jumping off point.

In 'Randland' a firm polluting a river may very well be sued by every single person downstream of them and probably be boycotted at the very least. If it indeed endangered human life the people responsible would be arrested like any other society, the pollution would have infringed on the property and lives of others and the government would be obliged to put an end to it. Thus for the firm it would be in their rational self interests to dispose of waste safely.

I wonder:  How is this a better situation than a law saying "Don't Pollute Rivers" and a regulatory body making sure the law is followed?  History has shown that people will skirt such laws, (even if there are laws!) if they don't think they will get caught, or if the probability of them getting caught is outweighed by the gains made in the meantime.  The only 'freedom' being suppressed here is one that has harmful effects.

Let's not even pretend like the "well if someone is harming people, they will be at a market disadvantage, because no one will like them!" is remotely true in the real world.  There are always claims of the market self-regulating in this manner, but let's not forget that after the Bhopal Disaster, which killed literally thousands of people, Union Carbide continued to make massive profits.  And if you truly think that the market will self regulate "after a few deaths", you're implicitly putting someone's right to cause another's death underneath a dollar sign.

It's almost as if after events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the market will 'self regulate' in the form of workers mobilizing for better protection from companies, asking for more oversight, rather than less.   

And if we're going to continue on the Libertarian/Objectivist argument of "well, people won't pollute because of market forces", how are we, as generic humans, to protect ourselves from Nonpoint pollution?  How is the market going to regulate against hundreds of thousands of people dumping trash where it shouldn't go, pouring their used motor oil into gutters, etc?  This is a problem in many places.  These are things that need to be guarded against for pragmatic and ethical reasons both.  Why should there not be legal strictures against someone taking "their property" and "discarding it as they please"?