|
Unlearning posted:Yeah, it's a pretty weak response. But I thought I'd put it out there in the interests of 'knowing one's enemy'. How many seasteading proposals have there been now? Libertarians sure do like the idea of their own little Raptures.
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 13:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 00:37 |
|
|
Daktar posted:How many seasteading proposals have there been now? That article is 3 years old, so it's probably the same one you heard about before.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 13:37
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:That article is 3 years old, so it's probably the same one you heard about before. Whoops, completely failed to notice the dates - just came across it on twitter. Anyone know if any progress has been made on the islands?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 14:05
|
|
|
IT KEEPS HAPPENINGAyn Rand's Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone posted:“Give me your wand, boy,” Voldemort hissed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 14:37
|
|
|
Clearly, the author of that parody was not British  quote:“You’re a wizard, Harry,” Hagrid said. “And you’re coming to Hogwarts.”
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 17:14
|
|
|
Unlearning posted:Whoops, completely failed to notice the dates - just came across it on twitter. Libertarians seeking seasteads have been around for over 40 years, generally because they figure out the only "unclaimed" land on Earth is some small desert areas between Egypt and Sudan and a few areas in the high mountains of Asia where borders are unclear. The most "successful" attempt was the Minerva project in 1972: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_Reefs They were driven out within 6 months by the military of Tonga.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 17:29
|
|
|
Which makes me think that other such attempts are going to run afoul of the cold reality that trade is backed by military force in the real world.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 17:35
|
|
|
Looking forward to the Libertarian Republic of Marie Byrd Land.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 17:40
|
|
|
Oh and I should point out, when Tonga steamrolled the libertarians in 1972, the population of Tonga was about 92,000 and the military consisted of about 1,500 people.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 17:48
|
|
|
For whatever reason there's a constant trickle of seasteading articles, here's one from just the other day though it's basically the same as every other article on the Seasteading Institute over the last five years. There's been at least two gbs threads on it, unfortunately archives are down. Highlights were People Who Actually Know Things detailing why the project is doomed, and as the thread went on... fanfic, though that's probably not the right word for it. Anyway.quote:We want to show what a society run by Silicon Valley would look like
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 18:33
|
|
|
spoon0042 posted:... hell on earth, maybe? More like Snow Crash, 'cept they're banking on ending up the hacker elites rather than burbclave drones.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 18:34
|
|
|
spoon0042 posted:... hell on earth, maybe? More of a Waterworld.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 18:35
|
|
|
spoon0042 posted:For whatever reason there's a constant trickle of seasteading articles, here's one from just the other day though it's basically the same as every other article on the Seasteading Institute over the last five years. There's been at least two gbs threads on it, unfortunately archives are down. Highlights were People Who Actually Know Things detailing why the project is doomed, and as the thread went on... fanfic, though that's probably not the right word for it. Anyway. The threads for Golden Waters and Beckistan are archived (I hope). Here's a document containing the fanfic. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz7lhBeKQvWk_pfJenfAWhvkg4Giao1Nk0UWhDEouSQ/pub anonumos fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jun 1, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2014 18:59
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:Clearly, the author of that parody was not British Assuming that "private school" means the same thing in England as it does in America is perfectly in keeping with Rand, though: she believed that you could reason everything out from first principles, so you don't need to verify things empirically. For instance, she was mad about the existence of "kneeling buses" because she assumed that the word "kneeling" referred to something that the able-bodied passengers are forced to do when boarding the bus, not something the bus does to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 05:11 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 05:09
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:Assuming that "private school" means the same thing in England as it does in America is perfectly in keeping with Rand, though: she believed that you could reason everything out from first principles, so you don't need to verify things empirically. For instance, she was mad about the existence of "kneeling buses" because she assumed that the word "kneeling" referred to something that the able-bodied passengers are forced to do when boarding the bus, not something the bus does to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers. Plus the horror of able-bodied people having to look at the handicapped and even tolerate being in close proximity to them quote:Question from audience: Can't let those untermenschen inflict their existence on our precious white able-bodied children...maybe they could be shuffled off into camps or something where normal people don't have to see them unless they're interested in it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 05:28
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Plus the horror of able-bodied people having to look at the handicapped and even tolerate being in close proximity to them God loving loving drat bitch what? What the gently caress? gently caress you! How did I never read that?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 05:38
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Plus the horror of able-bodied people having to look at the handicapped and even tolerate being in close proximity to them In The Fountainhead, the hero architect's Temple to the Human Spirit is ruined when it's converted into a home for children with severe disabilities. The Fountainhead, pp 397-398 posted:In September the tenants of the Home moved in. A small, expert staff was chosen by Toohey. It had been harder to find the children who qualified as inmates. Most of them had to be taken from other institutions. Sixty-five children, their ages ranging from three to fifteen, were picked out by zealous ladies who were full of kindness and so made a point of rejecting those who could be cured and selecting only the hopeless cases. There was a fifteen year old boy who had never learned to speak; a grinning child who could not be taught to read or write; a girl born without a nose, whose father was also her grandfather; a person called "Jackie" of whose age or sex nobody could be certain. They marched into their new home, their eyes staring vacantly, the stare of death before which no world existed... Another fun fact: my dad claims that he agrees with most of what Rand says. He and my mother also fought to get me into a private school despite my developmental disabilities. That's the kind of thing a minor Randian villain would do to establish how evil he is. If Rand could have known my dad and what he would do for me, perhaps she would have written him into the Atlas Shrugged scene where a bunch of looters deservedly die in a train accident: Ayn Rand "fan" fiction by me posted:The man in Roomette 5, Car No. 4 was an intellectual of the looter persuasion who had bullied one of the most prestigious private schools in the country into accepting his feeble-minded child. "My daughter deserves an education," he had said to the headmaster, stabbing a fat, fleshy finger on the office desk. "There is no reason why she should not be allowed around normal children. She will help the others to learn compassion for the subnormal." EDIT: Added more to the fanfic 'cause God knows Objectivist writing can't miss an opportunity to bash its message over the reader's head. Pththya-lyi fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 06:31
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:God loving loving drat bitch what? What the gently caress? gently caress you! You've always had a way with words.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 06:44
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:In The Fountainhead, the hero architect's Temple to the Human Spirit is ruined when it's converted into a home for children with severe disabilities. Not to mention that the arch-villain of the book was in a wheelchair, had always had weak legs, and in his childhood paid attention and cared for the outcasts, the sick, and the disabled. And these are supposed to be proof of his villainy, because a noble hero would have been all "gently caress those losers, I'm going to go suck the valedictorian's and the football team captain's cocks" The Fountainhead posted:At this period he began to acquire friends. He liked to speak of faith and he found those who liked to listen. Only, he discovered that the bright, the strong, the able boys of his class felt no need of listening, felt no need of him at all. But the suffering and the ill-endowed came to him. Drippy Munn began to follow him about with the silent decotion of a dog. Billy Wilson lost his mother, and came wandering to the Toohey house in the evenings, to sit with Ellsworth on the porch, listening, shivering once in a while, saying nothing, his eyes wide, dry and pleasing. Skinny Dix got infantile paralysis--and would lie in bed, watching the street corner beyond the window, waiting for Ellsworth. Rusty Hazelton failed to pass in his grades, and sat for many hours, crying, with Ellsworth's cold, steady hand on his shoulder. SedanChair posted:God loving loving drat bitch what? What the gently caress? gently caress you! Objectivism: there is always more and it is always worse
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 07:09
|
|
|
Yeah, it's best to avoid rands "works", it's like staring into the abyss. Just a reminder: Many of the US's political figures agree with this stuff.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 07:36
|
|
|
AVeryLargeRadish posted:Yeah, it's best to avoid rands "works", it's like staring into the abyss. I disagree somewhat with this. Rand can't write worth poo poo, but her stuff is pretty much self-parodying. It's hard not to laugh at a lot of it. Just imagine it's a screenplay for a 50's sitcom complete with a laugh track. For this reason, I think a read through of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead has serious entertainment value.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 07:42
|
|
ErIog posted:I disagree somewhat with this. Rand can't write worth poo poo, but her stuff is pretty much self-parodying. It's hard not to laugh at a lot of it. Just imagine it's a screenplay for a 50's sitcom complete with a laugh track. For this reason, I think a read through of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead has serious entertainment value. Yeah, no, I can't do it. I got a used copy of the fountainhead once and tried to read it, eventually I chucked it across the room because it made me so angry. Then I tore it up and burned it. It was pretty cathartic.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 08:13
|
|
|
ErIog posted:I disagree somewhat with this. Rand can't write worth poo poo, but her stuff is pretty much self-parodying. It's hard not to laugh at a lot of it. Just imagine it's a screenplay for a 50's sitcom complete with a laugh track. For this reason, I think a read through of Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead has serious entertainment value. I had to read Anthem in high school once. It's one of her shorter books, but it packed a lot of crazy into a small space and I didn't even make it 5 pages in before it just became a surrealist comedy. I've seen car metaphors criticizing socialism/centralized planning/collectivism that made more sense and were more compelling than her book.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 09:17
|
|
|
For the moment, I'm satisfied with the schadenfreude of the Atlas Shrugged movies being colossal flops.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 10:11
|
|
|
Is the 3rd one being made?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 10:20
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:For the moment, I'm satisfied with the schadenfreude of the Atlas Shrugged movies being colossal flops. Well, one can hardly argue with the free market, clearly they were bad movies and the market chose accordingly. 
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 10:31
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:Assuming that "private school" means the same thing in England as it does in America is perfectly in keeping with Rand, though: she believed that you could reason everything out from first principles, so you don't need to verify things empirically. For instance, she was mad about the existence of "kneeling buses" because she assumed that the word "kneeling" referred to something that the able-bodied passengers are forced to do when boarding the bus, not something the bus does to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers. Yes, that's why he said "the author of the parody obviously isn't British", because the British call the private schools public schools. Yes, it's really bloody confusing. Though only some of them are public schools, other fee-paying schools are independent schools. Whereas schools funded by the government are state schools. But yeah, public schools refers to older, more expensive fee-paying schools like Eton, Harrow, Rugby & so forth, and it is where the next generation of the ruling class are educated. 35% of MPs elected in the 2010 general election went to independent schools. 20 MPs went to Eton, 8 of those sat in the cabinet (plus 4 Old Etonian Lords in the cabinet) in January 2011. Meanwhile just 7% of the rest of the country attended fee paying schools. So yeah, the whole public/state school thing is a real social issue in Britain, and why it was obvious that the author of the parody couldn't have been a Brit.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 11:59
|
|
|
Pththya-lyi posted:She believed that you could reason everything out from first principles, so you don't need to verify things empirically. This is also the position of the Austrian school of economics, and also a strong theme in the work of the Chicago school that came after it. You can always tell the "serious" economists from the internet mises.org nutbars because the "serious" economists will all describe themselves as being part of the Chicago school of economic thought. The Chicago school was co-opted soon after its inception, and turned into a policy paper mill for regressive pro business policies. You can read about a lot of that at NSFWCorp and if you do a little bit of digging into The Federalist Society. The Chicago school, although it uses empirical data sometimes, basically only accepts empirical data that fits their preconceived notions. They basically spread FUD about the empirical data of other work until it can be called, in their view, meaningless. Then step 2 for them is to substitute their own axioms that lead to the conclusion that makes them all warm and fuzzy. It's quite bizarre, and frequently sounds more like intellectual laziness than actual scholarship. The best example of this that I ever heard was on the Econtalk podcast a few years ago where the host tried to argue that inequality in the US hasn't actually worsened: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/04/burkhauser_on_t.html I've always thought about making an EconTalk thread debunking each episode as it comes out, but I'm just too lazy to put in the effort. Suffice to say, though, that if you want to understand the world of regressive economics there is no better place. I have learned a lot about basic Adam Smith and Hayekian economics from the show, but I've become more and more cynical as my understanding of economics has increased. ErIog fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 12:29
|
|
|
forkboy84 posted:Yes, that's why he said "the author of the parody obviously isn't British", because the British call the private schools public schools. Yes, that's why he said that assuming "private schools" means the same thing in the UK as it does in the US is the sort of thing Ayn Rand would do. Reveilled fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Jun 2, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 12:39
|
|
|
ErIog posted:You can read about a lot of that at NSFWCorp Or could, back before they sold out to Pando loving Daily.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 12:53
|
|
|
Reveilled posted:Yes, that's why he said that assuming "private schools" means the same thing in the UK as it does in the US is the sort of thing Ayn Rand would do. Oh god, I'm a buffoon. Yes, that would make sense.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 13:37
|
|
|
AVeryLargeRadish posted:Yeah, no, I can't do it. I got a used copy of the fountainhead once and tried to read it, eventually I chucked it across the room because it made me so angry. Then I tore it up and burned it. It was pretty cathartic.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 14:14
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:Is the 3rd one being made? If it is, there's some sweet irony about the third one being funded by a kickstarter. Atlas Shrugged? More like The Audience Shrugged.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 14:20
|
|
|
I wonder if the actors are true believers or think they are in some kind of story where the villains are the protagonists.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 15:04
|
|
|
Radish posted:I wonder if the actors are true believers or think they are in some kind of story where the villains are the protagonists. Don't they have to get an all-new cast for each one because the previous cast bail from the sinking ship to salvage their careers?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 15:08
|
|
|
DrProsek posted:I had to read Anthem in high school once. It's one of her shorter books, but it packed a lot of crazy into a small space and I didn't even make it 5 pages in before it just became a surrealist comedy. I've seen car metaphors criticizing socialism/centralized planning/collectivism that made more sense and were more compelling than her book. Anthem is the bargain basement version of the classic pre-1950 dystopia novel.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 16:12
|
|
|
VitalSigns posted:Don't they have to get an all-new cast for each one because the previous cast bail from the sinking ship to salvage their careers? Yes. And the second one only got made as they were about to hit the deadline where they'd otherwise lose rights to the material. I remember when ads for it started airing in 2012, claiming it was "the movie that will influence the election," and which I just laughed and laughed and laughed.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 17:08
|
|
|
Jerry Manderbilt posted:If it is, there's some sweet irony about the third one being funded by a kickstarter. I imagine for a lot of the actors it's just a job. Maybe they enjoyed the book but aren't assholes? I know the guy who played Quark (who was also a president of the actor's union for a while) was involved. I think the third film has a major problem that they are required to include, without abridgement, that humdinger of a speech from the end of the book.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 17:23
|
|
|
Nessus posted:More like Atlas Sucked Wouldn't literally the entire movie be just the speech, then?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 17:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 00:37 |
|
|
Jerry Manderbilt posted:Wouldn't literally the entire movie be just the speech, then? Maybe they just play it back really fast, like the disclaimers at the end of sketchy radio commercials?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2014 17:33
|
|