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Author Topic: Objections to Objectivism  (Read 14412 times)

Capntastic

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #135 on: October 13, 2012, 05:54:12 pm »

Because I'm all about making claims in good faith, here's some proof that an individual human is highly fallible, irrational, and prone to making ridiculously absurd mistakes in judgment:

Effects of Mood on the ability to Make Decisions

"This paper begins to answer the call to broaden current theories of individual decision-making by including in them the effects of human mood. Grounding our arguments in psychological literature on the effects of mood on information processing, motivation, and decision heuristics, we develop hypotheses about how mood can significantly affect individuals' use of structured decision protocols. In support of our hypotheses, results from an experimental study of complex decision-making suggest that, in situations where a structured decision protocol is the usual method of decision-making, individuals in moderately negative moods are significantly more likely than those in moderately positive moods to: (1) carefully execute all the steps of a structured decision protocol, (2) execute the steps of a structured decision protocol in the correct order, and (3) rely on the outcome of the structured decision protocol as the primary basis for the decision. We discuss these findings in terms of their implications for both organizational decision models and psychological models of mood and decision-making. In general, our findings help establish mood as an important variable in models of organizational decision-making and help shed light on often conflicting findings about the benefits of positive vs. negative mood for individual decision-making."


Credibility judgments of narratives: Language, plausibility, and absorption

"Two experiments were conducted in order to find out whether textual features of narratives differentially affect credibility judgments made by judges having different levels of absorption (a disposition associated with rich visual imagination). Participants in both experiments were exposed to a textual narrative and requested to judge whether the narrator actually experienced the event he described in his story. In Experiment 1, the narrative varied in terms of language (literal, figurative) and plausibility (ordinary, anomalous). In Experiment 2, the narrative varied in terms of language only. The participants’ perceptions of the plausibility of the story described and the extent to which they were absorbed in reading were measured. The data from both experiments together suggest that the groups applied entirely different criteria in credibility judgments. For high-absorption individuals, their credibility judgment depends on the degree to which the text can be assimilated into their own vivid imagination, whereas for low-absorption individuals it depends mainly on plausibility. That is, high-absorption individuals applied an experiential mental set while judging the credibility of the narrator, whereas low-absorption individuals applied an instrumental mental set. Possible cognitive mechanisms and implications for credibility judgments are discussed."

Word type effects in false recall: Concrete, abstract, and emotion word critical lures

"Previous research has demonstrated that definable qualities of verbal stimuli have implications for memory. For example, the distinction between concrete and abstract words has led to the finding that concrete words have an advantage in memory tasks (i.e., the concreteness effect). However, other word types, such as words that label specific human emotions, may also affect memory processes. This study examined the effects of word type on the production of false memories by using a list-learning false memory paradigm. Participants heard lists of words that were highly associated to nonpresented concrete, abstract, or emotion words (i.e., the critical lures) and then engaged in list recall. Emotion word critical lures were falsely recalled at a significantly higher rate (with the effect carried by the positively valenced critical lures) than concrete and abstract critical lures. These findings suggest that the word type variable has implications for our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie recall and false recall."

So, it's plain to see that humans can easily fall prey to misjudgments based on things like mood, word choice, learning style, and past experience.  It is not reasonable to assume that, given infinite personal freedoms, people would naturally work in a way that benefits society as a whole, in the longterm, much less the short.

From this, how can you claim that denying empirical evidence, denying history, denying empathy, denying current situations makes one versed in "Objective" thought?  How can you know anything "Objectively" if you place yourself so far from evidence, and the truth?  How can you claim to make rational decisions if you're going out of your way to ignore known effects that stem from known causes?

How is Objectivism/Libertarianism, as a policy, able to prove itself capable of doing anything, outside of, again:  "I want this to happen, so I will say that it will happen.  If it does not happen, it wasn't free enough."?

I put this to you, honestly.
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Mutagen

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #136 on: October 13, 2012, 06:15:15 pm »

What you are saying in effect is that science says that human beingscannot be rational due the nature of human consciousness. What does that say about the science behind such a claim? Are they (the scientists) not also human? Are they not equally irrational? How can I take an empiricist seriously when s/he also claims that reality is non-objective, and even it were objective, we would not be able to grasp it because humans are incapable of being objective?
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Capntastic

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #137 on: October 13, 2012, 06:18:28 pm »

If you get that from what I posted you're wilfully misinterpreting it.  What I said is that an individual human is capable of falling prey to those issues.  Not that we're all blind idiots.  Further, reason and evidence are how we overcome those failings.  Science is a tool to figure things out beyond 'guessing' and 'anecdotes'.

I posted it specifically to do away with the notion of individual rational actors being infinitely capable of making perfect decisions, and that any sort of government oversight merely dampens their magic prescient abilities.

Edit:  Not sure where you're getting that I "claim that reality is non-objective" from, though.  Clear that up, please?
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Montague

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #138 on: October 13, 2012, 06:22:23 pm »

Many of the problems of anarchy of the past could be solved by getting us "post scarcity" with necessary resources, like food. We're really not far off that point (and arguably long past it on the food part), and another energy revolution would push us over the hump. Once resources are common enough to not be fought over, then a lot of the concerns would vanish.

I still don't think it'd be stable, but people would fight over other things, like moral reasons, or religion, or something silly like that.


EDIT: As a side note, any "human nature" argument is silly. People are varied. It's not "human nature" that will get in the way, but just because different people want different things, conflict will arise over how to best use resources and whatnot. We don't all act the same and thus will never act in perfect harmony without some coercion.

There is no such thing as 'post scarcity' as there will be a limited supply of anything that has value. If anything, there is a very serious problem of severe supply shortages, as things like oil and copper, rare earth minerals become more and more scarce. Even with endless energy, like inexpensive fusion energy or some such thing, metals and material and petroleum for plastics would be exhausted. Never will there be post-scarcity, there is a limit to everything.

Sure, there is the sci-fi fantasy of robots doing all the labor, but that does not solve the issues of energy or resource scarcity. if anything, such abundant labor would only exhaust them faster.

Can't live without property, mang. It's too fundamental of a thing to abolish, not even the radical leftist movements and communists figured out a way to eliminate property rights. How'd you like it if somebody just walked into your house right now and snatched your computer and drove off in your car, just because he felt like it and you had no right to it? Or somebody starts paving over your farmland to store their toxic gas collection?

This is a strawman to the point of being absurd, you should be ashamed.  It's not even worth addressing, but I'll attempt to do so as a show of good faith.  First of all, in a world without property, you wouldn't have 'your house, your computer, your car', you'd have a communal pool of resources.  Let's not forget that there are still plenty of native societies who have wholly socialized property rights- and these traditions descend from thousands of years of humanity.  There is evidence to support entire communities who had no personal property, or property exchanged hands freely based on who could make better use of it.  Or people who did well in the hunt were obligated to not have any of the meat of their own kill.  So, historically, yes, it is possible to 'not have personal property'. 

As for your 'paves over your farm', again, your attempt at ratcheting up the stakes belies your intent:  You keep saying "what if someone took YOUR PROPERTY because there was NO PROPERTY and then put HIS POISON there????", to appeal to base fear response instead of actually cobbling together a coherent argument.  First off, you're conflating no-property with total anarchy where someone can just do as they please with no oversight (almost like libertarianism!!).  You're also assuming that solely because there's no permanent personal property that people are living in constant chaos of shuffling back and forth, or similar.  It's completely disingenuous, and, again, fails to be an effective argument.  The force with which you make these accusations implies there's no other way for the situation to be handled.  Someone HAS to store poison gas on someone's farmland.

It makes more sense, that if a society of no-personal-property discovered they needed to store the poison gas, they'd select a place democratically (or via representative, elected positions).  If this place, for whatever extreme, totally playing-into-your-argument-on-good-faith reason, needed to be on someone's farm, then that person would be duly compensated for their time and effort by having a different or equivalent apportionment of land allotted to them.  And if that person knew it was for the good of society, and didn't have a psychological disposition to 'needing personal property at all times', they would be more or less fine with it.  Maybe they might be upset, but such is life, right?  You can't expect me to make perfect happy endings with your loaded scenarios.

It's not a strawman, it's a situation that could well arise in an anarchic society. Without rights to property, people are quite free to trample on others intentionally or not. People need to have some modicum of security and stability to prosper. They cannot devote all of their time voting on local issues and resolving things democratically all the time. They need their castle and their privacy and they need to rely on the fact they they have access to things to keep themselves secure. They need to rely on their neighbors. Your idea of anarchy as a utopia is bizzare. You think nobody will exploit such an arrangement?
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Capntastic

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #139 on: October 13, 2012, 06:27:10 pm »

Weird how you interpret a propertyless society as being anarchy, intrinsically, when you did not use the word anarchy in the quote I responded to, and I did not use the word anarchy at all.  You're trying to portray me as a proponent of anarchy now, because of it?  Weird!!

Edit:  I did use the word anarchy, on second look:  I used it specifically to say that non-property isn't inherently anarchic.  So you're either misreading or wilfully misinterpreting.

Edit 2:  Either way I, in good faith, attempted to portray your own posed thought experiment in a way that would allow for non-property without anarchy, so it's sort of outre for you to attempt to skewer me for painting 'anarchy' as a 'utopia'.  I mean, beyond the fact that I specifically did not portray an anarchist utopia at all.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2012, 06:32:33 pm by Capntastic »
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Frumple

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #140 on: October 13, 2012, 06:31:11 pm »

Literal post-scarcity is impossible, yes, so far as we're aware. Functional post-scarcity isn't, though it's not infinitely expendable. That's basically when you reach the point that you have more accessible resources than you can consume. When supply out paces demand, there's not really scarcity in a functional sense. That's pretty doable, and in a number of areas the primary issue is preventing it in the present less engineering than politics.
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Mutagen

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #141 on: October 13, 2012, 06:40:19 pm »

If you get that from what I posted you're wilfully misinterpreting it.  What I said is that an individual human is capable of falling prey to those issues.  Not that we're all blind idiots.  Further, reason and evidence are how we overcome those failings.  Science is a tool to figure things out beyond 'guessing' and 'anecdotes'.

I posted it specifically to do away with the notion of individual rational actors being infinitely capable of making perfect decisions, and that any sort of government oversight merely dampens their magic prescient abilities.

Edit:  Not sure where you're getting that I "claim that reality is non-objective" from, though.  Clear that up, please?

I don't think anyone here was arguing that human beings are incapable of error. If that were true, few of us would be disagreeing here. Those that did would be quickly convinced by being exposed to the pertinent information.

As far as what I said about a non-objective reality, I was referring to what you posted before about there being many objective truths (as distinguished from objective facts. Such is a contradiction in terms. Truth cannot be objective (nor can it exist) if the facts that it subsumes are in contradiction with each other.
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Montague

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #142 on: October 13, 2012, 06:40:48 pm »

Weird how you interpret a propertyless society as being anarchy, intrinsically, when you did not use the word anarchy in the quote I responded to, and I did not use the word anarchy at all.  You're trying to portray me as a proponent of anarchy now, because of it?  Weird!!

Edit:  I did use the word anarchy, on second look:  I used it specifically to say that non-property isn't inherently anarchic.  So you're either misreading or wilfully misinterpreting.

IDK, I'm not really portraying you as anything, I'm playing devil's advocate for most of the crap I'm talking about and I assume everyone else is doing the same.

I am seriously debating the idea of the abolition of property, though. Do you not see how chaotic and dangerous a society with NO LAWS OR PROPERTY RIGHTS is? You maintain a farm and somebody callously paves it over or digs everything up, runs donuts over it on their 4-wheeler. Why not? Isn't it their right to do donuts on their 4x4 and set their poison gas collection wherever it is convent? Who is there to say otherwise and what legitimacy would they have? What's to stop the offended farmer from building a killdozer and killdozering the 4x4 driving poison gas collecting people's homes into rubble? Nobody? Maybe one or the other hired a PMC to do the killdozering for them?

I'm being kinda silly on purpose, because the idea of anarchy as utopia is a very silly idea.

Literal post-scarcity is impossible, yes, so far as we're aware. Functional post-scarcity isn't, though it's not infinitely expendable. That's basically when you reach the point that you have more accessible resources than you can consume. When supply out paces demand, there's not really scarcity in a functional sense. That's pretty doable, and in a number of areas the primary issue is preventing it in the present less engineering than politics.

Nah, man, it's still pretty much impossible. Post scarcity is about impossible. We are already past the peak of production with things like oil, uranium and copper. These things will only become more expensive, harder to obtain. How much farmland is required to keep all 7 billion people on the earth as fat and happy as people in the USA? How about 14 billion people? 27 billion people? Can you conjure up food or farmland like a benevolent wizard? Resources are a finite resource, and preciously finite at that, even water and air are in jeopardy with our current consumption. You think MORE consumption is a good idea? We are living beyond our means enough as it is, it is unsustainable. Technology cannot replace resources, technology is a thing that consumes resources.
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Capntastic

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #143 on: October 13, 2012, 06:49:48 pm »

As far as what I said about a non-objective reality, I was referring to what you posted before about there being many objective truths (as distinguished from objective facts. Such is a contradiction in terms. Truth cannot be objective (nor can it exist) if the facts that it subsumes are in contradiction with each other.

Not really.  If someone asked you for directions to the nearest park, there might be more than one routes, all of which lead there.  Some of them may be shorter, or some of them might take you past the ice cream store, etc, all having pros and cons.  There can be multiple truths or answers to a situation, given the facts.  You seem to be getting stuck on the idea of "objective truth" meaning "only one right answer", which is incorrect.

It's why Kant's Categorical Imperative is dumb.  Yeah it's wrong to lie, but sometimes lying is acceptable in the face of the situation.  To say that you should never lie, ever, in any situation, because 'lying is wrong', ignores that the 'facts' of the situation might objectively point to lying being an agreeable action to take, given the likely outcomes.


IDK, I'm not really portraying you as anything, I'm playing devil's advocate for most of the crap I'm talking about and I assume everyone else is doing the same.

Do you not see how chaotic and dangerous a society with NO LAWS OR PROPERTY RIGHTS is?

I'm being kinda silly on purpose, because the idea of anarchy as utopia is a very silly idea.

Yeah, okay, so you're just 'being silly' and not interested in defending your points at all.  Who said anything about no laws?  Property rights and laws aren't one and the same.   You're going out of your way to willfully confuse terms, and misrepresent others.  That isn't "playing devil's advocate", that's just being annoying.

 
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Montague

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #144 on: October 13, 2012, 07:01:45 pm »

IDK, I'm not really portraying you as anything, I'm playing devil's advocate for most of the crap I'm talking about and I assume everyone else is doing the same.

Do you not see how chaotic and dangerous a society with NO LAWS OR PROPERTY RIGHTS is?

I'm being kinda silly on purpose, because the idea of anarchy as utopia is a very silly idea.

Yeah, okay, so you're just 'being silly' and not interested in defending your points at all.  Who said anything about no laws?  Property rights and laws aren't one and the same.   You're going out of your way to willfully confuse terms, and misrepresent others.  That isn't "playing devil's advocate", that's just being annoying.

Nah, I'm just a terrible debater and I've been outside of academia for a long while, some of the terms and modes of language have been long deprogrammed and internet arguments have never changed anybody's minds, ever. I'm not confusing terms or misrepresenting anything, quite the opposite, I'm being quite frank in representing whatever ideology I'm advocating. I'm not some fringe minority for saying anarchy is an absolutely stupid idea, I am being openminded for even discussing the idea. I'm challenging you, as the champion for such an ideology, to defend and justify it. If you think that's asking too much, I don't really care and we can call it quits, it only reinforces the idea that anarchists are naive people looking to escape any confrontation or challenge before them. So they can borrow Steve's car without permission. Or whatever.

You've not made any real arguments in favor of anarchy, have ignored the obvious realities of such a thing in the real world and are discounting objections to it as 'ignorance'. Please, tell the folks living in Somalia that their lack of governance is a utopia.
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Soadreqm

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #145 on: October 13, 2012, 07:04:54 pm »

I am seriously debating the idea of the abolition of property, though. Do you not see how chaotic and dangerous a society with NO LAWS OR PROPERTY RIGHTS is? You maintain a farm and somebody callously paves it over or digs everything up, runs donuts over it on their 4-wheeler. Why not? Isn't it their right to do donuts on their 4x4 and set their poison gas collection wherever it is convent?

Suppose, then, an oppressive fascist dystopia where there is but one law, that failure to pursue the common good, as defined by the whims of the Omniscient Council of Ruthless Order, is prohibited. Thus, you do not own the farm, (although you are legally required to tend to it,) but other people are still forbidden from messing it up. The Council also does not own the farm. They don't care who's seeing to the farm, they don't even care if the farm has been paved over and turned into a toxic waste repository, and only interfere if every time someone does something selfish.

Which can lead to some hilarious conflicts if someone really truly believes that the area you're farming would serve the public better as a poison gas storage, and you disagree with him.

Anyway, that would be a no-ownership society without any of the specific problems you mentioned, would it not? :P
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Capntastic

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #146 on: October 13, 2012, 07:08:59 pm »

You've not made any real arguments in favor of anarchy, have ignored the obvious realities of such a thing in the real world and are discounting objections to it as 'ignorance'. Please, tell the folks living in Somalia that their lack of governance is a utopia.

Show me where I argued in favor of anarchy.
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Montague

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #147 on: October 13, 2012, 07:15:31 pm »

I am seriously debating the idea of the abolition of property, though. Do you not see how chaotic and dangerous a society with NO LAWS OR PROPERTY RIGHTS is? You maintain a farm and somebody callously paves it over or digs everything up, runs donuts over it on their 4-wheeler. Why not? Isn't it their right to do donuts on their 4x4 and set their poison gas collection wherever it is convent?

Suppose, then, an oppressive fascist dystopia where there is but one law, that failure to pursue the common good, as defined by the whims of the Omniscient Council of Ruthless Order, is prohibited. Thus, you do not own the farm, (although you are legally required to tend to it,) but other people are still forbidden from messing it up. The Council also does not own the farm. They don't care who's seeing to the farm, they don't even care if the farm has been paved over and turned into a toxic waste repository, and only interfere if every time someone does something selfish.

Which can lead to some hilarious conflicts if someone really truly believes that the area you're farming would serve the public better as a poison gas storage, and you disagree with him.

Anyway, that would be a no-ownership society without any of the specific problems you mentioned, would it not? :P

Nah, man, anarchy utopia would have no such jack-booted thugs or council. It'd be an illegitimate threat to your freedom to accept such decrees. Your course of action, as the farmer, would be to assault your enemies with a gang of hired thugs and dismantle their poison gas collection. Unless you are the poison gas collector. Who is this dirt-farmer to say I can't pave over some worthless crops for my incredible poison gas containers? He has no right to say anything and if he objects, I'm paying dues to a band of armed men to settle the situation.

Either way, win-win 100% utopia.
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Soadreqm

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #148 on: October 13, 2012, 07:18:16 pm »

Yes but

I explicitly said that this was to be an oppressive fascist dystopia.

That is to say, not an anarchic utopia.

It's like the first sentence there.
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Montague

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Re: Objections to Objectivism
« Reply #149 on: October 13, 2012, 07:22:28 pm »

Yes but

I explicitly said that this was to be an oppressive fascist dystopia.

That is to say, not an anarchic utopia.

It's like the first sentence there.

Oh right, you did stipulate that.

I'd suppose there would be some judiciary body to decide what was in the greatest good. You could appeal to them that your farm was more important then a toxic gas depot. Then they would execute you and your antagonist for unlawful thought.
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