Atlas Shrugged

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sponsoredwalk

donegalfella wrote: »

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Why not? Why is this pie-in-the-sky thinking?

Just because you say it is doesn't make it true and there is half a thread full of questionable statements with no answers to convince anyone that you're statement is questionable...

Do you think that most doctors train the way they do just for the money? Do you think most theoretical physicists train just to make the big bucks :rolleyes:

Do you think 'average joe' gets his job to make buckets of money or to provide for his family and have a decent life?

Outside of this pseudo-axiomatic world of rational self-interested greed have you ever asked your friends about their reasons for getting their jobs? Most will have an interest in the occupation, at least, and factor in the idea that they will have a comfortable living to be able to live decently in the future, with or without a family.

Why would people refuse a system that, if they were to lose everything, would make sure they didn't die, weren't neglected and just plain looked down upon because they didn't have this lust for money that seems to be the only thing fostered and cultured under the idea's you're in favour of?

I don't know how you can make pronouncements about what people will or will not do seeing as you believe Rand's statement on the idea you're knocking even though I've given quotes showing it to be a joke...

EDIT: Can you explain to me why linux is/was so successful?

Oh, and the entire subject of mathematics while you're at it...

robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

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Professionally, my primary motivations to write my (patented) software are (a) while I'm writing it, the intellectual fun of it, (b) after it's written, the fact it helps people do their job well and (c) to make money, if possible.

I get far more satisfaction by somebody writing to me and saying thanks than I do by depositing checks into my bank account and write what I write with the former far more in mind than the latter.

Your point is disproven.

strobe

Like I say, I'm not a communist, anarchistic or otherwise. Niether am I a proponent of Rand's extreme libertarian capitalism, or indeed of our current system of quasi social democracy. I think that all systems have it wrong and right in fairly equal measure and await the moment when some genius figures out how to apply the best bits of all while still putting forward a valid applicable system. It hasn't happened yet that I am aware of.

---

For the most part I am just playing devils advocate here.

donegalfella wrote: »

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The point is that they wouldn't just be getting their car fixed for free down in J.A.S. They would be getting everything for free. The reason for this is that the concept of something being "unfree" would cease to exist. It would be a major shift in the current mindset of the people but the argument is that the gradual shift would occur as society as a whole improved.

There are doctors that would claim to have become doctors because they found medicine fascinating and wanted to save lives and would have done so if the job payed only enough to feed cloth and shelter themselves and thier family. There are doctors that devote their lives to working for organisations like medicine san frontier even though they could have been far more successful and wealthy by going down a different route. There are lawyers who donate a huge portion of their time working pro bono at the expense of their potential to maximise profits. There are people with the inteligence and oppertunity to enter the most lucrative occupations possible but chose to follow career paths that pay poor but offer different benifits such as doing a job they truley love or the feeling of making a difference.

And what about supply and demand? Will people invent everything from microchips to iPhones so as to "contribute to society"? No, they simply won't.

Do scientists study physics or paleontology for no reason other than the fact they can earn money from it? Do you think Galvasean spent all those years learning about dinosaurs purely because he thought there was big money in velociraptors? What of all the great scientists throughout history, Aristotle, Archimedes, Einstein, Newton, Marie Curie etc........was money the only driving force behind their discoveries? Did you only read Atlas Shrugged because you thought you could profit from it in some financial fashion? I think you are vastly underestimating human curiosity and the thirst for knowlege...

Valmont

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Yup.
Well, it's nice of them to say that. Exxon said they'd pay $2.5 billion dollars to the Alaskan residents affected by their spill. Then they spent twenty years getting it reduced, eventually in 2008 to a paltry $500 million (plus $400 million in legal fees). They haven't paid this yet.

Besides, so what if they exceed the absurdly low cap? That wouldn't come close to fixing the damage they've caused. The area of the oil spill is now greater than the area of Ireland, and still growing.

Stop shifting your goalposts. You suggested that they wouldn't pay one cent without the government leaning on them. I presented evidence to the contrary and you still persist in calling me naive. Just because Exxon haven't paid up doesn't mean BP won't.

Nick Dolan

robindch wrote: »

Professionally, my primary motivations to write my (patented) software are (a) while I'm writing it, the intellectual fun of it, (b) after it's written, the fact it helps people do their job well and (c) to make money, if possible.

I get far more satisfaction by somebody writing to me and saying thanks than I do by depositing checks into my bank account and write what I write with the former far more in mind than the latter.

Your point is disproven.

That guy is right. While you may be happy being paid by letters, most people who create/design/manufactor our world do it for cash. If people dont get paid, they stop.

liamw

donegalfella wrote: »

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I'm guessing 'always' should be 'generally'.

robindch

Nick Dolan wrote: »

While you may be happy being paid by letters, most people who create/design/manufactor our world do it for cash.

You should read my post again -- I'm talking about primary motivations to work, since donegalfella incorrectly implied that people are only motivated by money. If I felt that my work was not contributing in some positive way, then I'd go off and find something that was. And from friends and colleagues, I believe that most competent people feel the same way.

Nick Dolan wrote: »

If people dont get paid, they stop.

Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Jimmy Wales would beg to differ

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robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

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fyp.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Your original point was:

donegalfella wrote:

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That silly claim has been disproven by simple example -- get over it!

The Mad Hatter

donegalfella wrote: »

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What an example to pick! You haven't watched the iPhone 4 keynote, have you? (Jump to 2:50)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZBffb1HkfM

Steve Jobs has gone on the record many times as saying he's not interested in money. ("When I was 25 I had a million dollars. When I was 26 I had ten million dollars. When I was 27 I had a hundred million dollars. None of that mattered.") He works with computers because he loves computers, and because he wants to make a dent in the universe.

It's what makes him such a good CEO, really.

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The Mad Hatter

Valmont wrote: »

Stop shifting your goalposts. You suggested that they wouldn't pay one cent without the government leaning on them. I presented evidence to the contrary and you still persist in calling me naive.

Ok, fair enough, I'll walk that back. They won't pay nothing. They still won't pay enough to clean it up without pressure, though. In May they were promising they would "exceed $75 million," which is nice but, unless they exceed it by at least an order of magnitude, pathetically small compared to the size of the mess they've created. Their pledge was upped to $20 billion after talks with Barack Obama.

$75 million, at this stage, probably wouldn't pay to scrape the oil from the surface, never mind cleaning the rest of the mess.

Just because Exxon haven't paid up doesn't mean BP won't.

Exxon have demonstrated that fighting in the courts for twenty years is cheaper than paying up. If money is the primary motivator (as I suspect it is in BP's case), why would they bother?

The Mad Hatter

donegalfella wrote: »

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It does if you say "always."

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robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

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You weren't talking about "multi-billion dollar corporations" and the reasonable expectation that companies should provide a return on shareholder's capital. Instead you made the following silly claim in which you fully specify people's motivations:

donegalfella wrote:

Will people invent everything from microchips to iPhones so as to "contribute to society"? No, they simply won't.

Which, as the Mad Hatter and I have pointed out several times now, it complete hogwash. And very easily demonstrable hogwash too.

Incidentally, my own company's hardware was designed by a guy whose main motivation is in working on interesting, useful projects and our firmware is compiled using GCC, a first-rate open-source compiler.

Oh yes, and the iPhone's OS is based upon OS-X, which took much from Free-BSD, another open-source project.

Seriously -- why are you having such a hard time accepting that some people are nice?

donegalfella wrote: »

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Valmont appears to believe that companies, for example BP during the Gulf of Mexico crisis, will act so as it can bask in the glow of adulation. Something it hasn't yet fully achieved. I think you should agree amongst yourselves as to what motivates organizations

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robindch

donegalfella wrote: »

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I'm quite happy to accept that a lot of people want money and status, perhaps even most people, as your recently-updated claim now states.

I will object, though, to the daft claim that this is what everybody wants, as you claimed in a previous post:

donegalfella wrote:

Will people invent everything from microchips to iPhones so as to "contribute to society"? No, they simply won't.

I'm happy to see that you've updated your position to match reality

sponsoredwalk

donegalfella wrote: »

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I'm surprised, again, that you'd argue something so glaringly obvious.

What person in the world wants to fail at their job?
What person in the world chooses to go bankrupt and homeless?
What person doesn't want to be wealthy and have social status predicated on success?

How does caring about money under a capitalist society, i.e. that thing you need in order to have a good life and a measure of success in many people's eyes, mean that it's your main motivation for the way you live?

You always go off focusing on one trivial issue, ignoring about 20 points we made earlier. What about doctors? What about doctors who go to Cuba for their healthcare system? What about those who travel to poor or war torn countries for their lives? What about physicists, chemists and biologists? Geologists? What about mathematicians? Can you explain why people go to teach in poor countries getting paid next to nothing? Can you explain why people run charities? Is this to make a quick buck? How is the dollar/euro/etc... the bottom line here? A shareholders sole focus is to make money, that is the only point to their job. It has the added bonus of forcing companies to cut corners and save money/make money on threat of leaving and investing elsewhere, (e.g. BP ).

How can you claim to speak for everyone, use this argument to fight for your Randian view of greediness & then ignore the complete contradictions? This is not an argument, it's a search for loopholes in the opposing argument while ignoring the many, many general points against yours as if that somehow validates all of the arguments you've made and it's becoming completely futile.

Furthermore, if you even remember what you're arguing for this is why would people do all these things if they didn't need to worry about money.

Haven't you answered your own question through contradiction yet?

If not, tell me - if money and, this recent addendum of yours, social status is so important to people, tell me why if money is not an issue for people under this society you completely misunderstand, what happens to people's social aspirations?
Oh, and how does the creation of open source in the 90's somehow aid your argument? The whole thing was developed, under government pay, for years beforehand in the public sector where these companies were allowed to copy it's early features. If this was all concocted in a private company then there would only be one computer company today with strict infringement and patent laws protecting this from diversifying...

Obni

Sorry to interrupt the flow of lively discussion, but as I'm unable to process and respond in a concise manner to all 322 preceding posts, I'll just say my own little piece.

Atlas Shrugged only escapes being the worst book I've ever read, because of the existence of Moby Dick.

The characterisations are beyond caricatures, the plot is a lumpen mess, and the theme of the book is simply vile.

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The Mad Hatter

donegalfella wrote: »

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See, if you'd understood the first part of the statement, you wouldn't be asking your second question. He's not talking about the doctors' healthcare system, obviously.

As for Apple, I think that, if money was not a factor, Steve Jobs would still be making computers. (Look at neXt.) I'm not saying that Apple isn't making money. It's how they judge their success; it's not their goal.

magicbastarder

i'd never even heard of this book till i saw this thread - tell me; which is shorter, the thread or the book? i'll read the shorter one.

robindch

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'll read the shorter one.

Go have a beer instead!

magicbastarder

from reading the first two pages of this thread, i can think i can sum up the book thus: "the world would be a much better place if everybody was like me".

there we go. who needs books?

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sponsoredwalk

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'd never even heard of this book till i saw this thread - tell me; which is shorter, the thread or the book? i'll read the shorter one.

Probably the book at this stage This thread has gone from insulting Immanuel Kant, to incorrectly criticizing some of the foundations of modern field biology, to misrepresenting history, to evidence of Rand's fascination with sociopaths, to Jacques Derrida, to anarchism, to BP, to linux, and I don't think Rand covers quite as much in her tome :pac:

Listen, this is ridiculous. You're not reading any of our arguments with a critical perspective, you're just ducking questions and half reading ones that seem to give you some sort of upper hand.

This is not about truth or anything, it's a power struggle and even though you're losing terribly we're feeding it.

Again, there is misinformation - now directed at the origins of UNIX.

If you read the history of UNIX you'll see that it comes out of work in M.I.T. originally. Their success led to a joint program including Bell labs - who;

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]pulled out of the project in 1969 because of the high maintenance costs of the GE-645 computer and lack of immediately useful results. [/FONT](from the link)

This just shows what is patently obvious, and something we were all arguing about around 6 pages ago - that private companies will not fund creative enterprises unless they satiate their economic palate's immediately, (i.e. they see immediate results). Here is more historical proof against your arguments.

Notice if you read that piece, it was a few people who were excited about what they could achieve that went on to form UNIX from the jokingly named UNICS.

The Mad Hatter

donegalfella wrote: »

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We're getting way off topic here, but no it doesn't.

If you want somebody to hold up as a paragon of social altruism, Steve Jobs, widely known in the industry as an egomaniac, a perfectionist, and even a tyrant, is not your man. Apple, recently embroiled in a "Chinese suicide sweatshop" scandal, might not be the best example of socially conscious manufacturing, either.

I know that, but the question is not whether Jobs is a good person; the question is whether he's motivated by money, and all the evidence I've seen is that he is not.

Incidentally, the so called "Chinese suicide sweatshop" scandal is nothing of the sort. Twelve people committed suicide in a year there, and a big deal was made of this. And it does sound terrible, until you hear that 300,000 people worked there, thus making the suicide rate far, far lower than the Chinese average.

And why doesn't it surprise me that your source is the Daily Mail?