The Objective Standard published a short blog post of mine, on the importance of rejecting the pervasive idea of a benevolent natural order.
“‘Nature’ does not act like a loving mother. It acts like nature. At best, it leaves people naked, cold, hungry, and vulnerable; at worst it kills people with utter indifference. Natural disasters, such as the California Springs fire, remind us that we should thank our real guardians: the men and women of industry and science.”
The Objective Standard Blog has published my post about the death of Sir Robert Edwards, pioneer of IVF.
Excerpt:
It is no coincidence that cultures willing to elect warriors for liberty are far and away the most scientifically advanced cultures on the planet. The freedom to develop and test controversial new technologies—without interference from religionists or mystics who oppose them—is essential to such progress.
After watching this BBC News video, something occurred to me. Driverless cars appear to be around the corner, and they all (quite sensibly) come with features to stop the computer running over and killing pedestrians. If the pedestrian steps out in front of the car, the car will stop.
In terms of pedestrian safety, this will be a great improvement. Reaction time accounts for much of the time it takes for a driver to stop when a hazard appears, so reducing that time to a near instantaneous reaction will undoubtedly save lives.
Although it does introduce a moral hazard…
The reason pedestrians don’t, under the status quo, routinely step out in front of cars is because there is a high risk of being run over. If you run across a busy city road when the lights are green, you run a significant risk of death or serious injury. As automatic stopping technology gets better and better, this becomes less of an issue. You no longer will fear death, since the cars will just stop, and so stepping out into the road becomes the quickest (safe) option for you to take. The negative effects of your actions have been entirely shifted to a third party (the car passengers).
You could casually saunter across Piccadilly Circus or Times Square knowing that all of the cars will just stop and let you pass. If everybody does this, especially in a busy city centre, driving would be intolerably slow.
Cities like London might have to pass jaywalking laws, and find some way of enforcing them properly. Or maybe the system would self regulate through social pressure, similar to the (awesome) shared space urban designs.
Exceptional busy-ness, and the fact that the things I’m working on are so dull right now, has meant I haven’t been updating this thing as often as I’d like to.
Here’s a narcissistic update:
After getting about halfway through Raymond’s book on the culture and dynamics of the open source movement, “The Cathedral & The Bazaar”, which is a set text for a course I’m studying at university; I began to wonder whether Raymond had read Ayn Rand.
He plugs free markets here and there, identifies capitalism as the rejection of coercive command structures, points out similarities between Lockean property rights (property as the application of improvements to resources) and the open source movement, and perhaps most tellingly, this:
“A large part of it[the explicit rejection, and simultaneous roundabout adoption, of egoistic actions by the open source community], certainly, stems from the generally negative European-American attitude towards ‘ego’. ”
-Raymond, Homesteading the Noosphere; Cathedral & The Bazaar, pp. 107-108
Then, in the very next paragraph, comes my answer:
“[I]f Friedrich William Nietzsche and Ayn Rand had not already done an entirely competent job (whatever their other failings) of deconstructing ’altruism’ into unacknowledged kinds of self-interest”
It is left to the readers imagination what those other failings are.
More importantly though, Raymond is describing the theory of Psychological Egoism: That all actions are egoistic actions, because they are chosen by the actor and therefore fulfil some desire of his. That is, if somebody wants to do something, even out of commitment to an altruistic cause, he is really only doing it to satisfy himself – therefore, there is no such thing as altruism.
This is a circular argument, and one that Raymond correctly pins to Nietzsche, but this isn’t Ayn Rand’s point about altruism at all. Rand’s point is more sophisticated, and has broader consequences, than Nietzsche’s.
Contra Nietzsche, Rand held that altruism actually exists. She went further and said that it was the root of evil.
Rand pointed out that altruism exists as a package deal. It lumps together situations where one trades a lesser value for a more important one, with situations where one loses a value or trades it for a less important one.
An example of the former situation is paying money to save the life of a loved one. This is often seen as an altruistic motive, but would more properly be classed as an ‘investment’. You lose the money, but you gain something much more valuable. In the same way that you lose money when you buy things from a shop, because the items you are buying are seen, by you, to be more valuable than the amount of money for which they were exchanged.
The latter situation is more difficult to identify, especially in the west, because in everyday life people tend to actually act in their self interest. One example would be toleration of foreign aid, it doesn’t really represent any value to most people in developed countries.
Another would be the various dictatorships that ask one to put aside all considerations for their own lives and families, and instead give their lives for their class, race, state, or religion.
On a smaller scale, forcing children to share their toys, the welfare state, and the monastery are also examples of true altruism.
Rand’s point was that the purpose for packing these two things together is sinister. People act in their self interest all the time when they go to work, support their families, buy things, even when they donate to charity (sometimes). But by labelling some of these mutual-value, egoistic actions as altruism (usually the ones that involve family or charity), the altruist is able to give legitimacy to the genuinely altruistic acts, which are awful.
Worse still, giving legitimacy to those genuinely altruistic actions causes widespread and unearned guilt about our virtuous, egoistic actions. Those actions which benefit all parties involved (such as trading money for goods and services) become the lesser, more base part of humanity – while those that represent net loss, or single party gain, are elevated to the status of holiness.
Rand and Nietzsche are worlds apart when it comes to altruism.
Edit: It would be unfair to post this without acknowledging that the collection of essays is, in general, superb. Raymond is a clear writer, a convincing historian, and a genuine thinker.
Everything I own!
On Thursday, I packed up everything I own into boxes so that I could move back to Aberystwyth for another year.
After the best 18 months of my life in London, I’m going to head back to Wales and finish my degree.
This means that for the time being, I’ll have to do without Objectivist lectures, awesome book launches, corporate software projects, and money.
On the plus side, I do have lots of time to read. On my list:
My review of Ayn Rand Nation, by Gary Weiss, is available in the next edition of The Objective Standard.
You can also read it online.
Excerpt:
It is widely known that the government controls every sector of the U.S. economy—and that government regulations are expanding. It is also widely known that every U.S. president for decades on end has signed into law more regulations dictating how corporations and industries may and may not conduct business. Gary Weiss, however, says “a U.S. president wouldn’t even think about injecting himself into the affairs of a major industry” (p. 140). His claims about Ayn Rand in Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America’s Soul make as much sense.
I owe Craig Biddle and Daniel Wahl an incalculable debt of gratitude for their patience and assistance during the editing phase. I’m also hugely grateful to Burgess Laughlin, for making me aware of how useful and fun book reviews are.
Paragraph 1: Summarise, mispronounce, point to a survey to indicate impartiality.
Few people in modern history have had a more profound impact on American physics than has Isaac Newton (pronounced: eeeh-sark nor-tane). A Library of Congress survey found that Newton’s theories are second only to Einstein’s in their influence on modern physicists.
Paragraph 2: Point to two equally ridiculous sides of a “debate” to imply balance
Yet no figure has had a more polarised reception. Worshipped by cult-like followers whose faith is so strong that they refuse to attempt to jump from tall buildings (citing “consequences” and “theories”), and lambasted by critics who point out that without gravity, the guillotine could have never killed.
Paragraph 3: Lie about the medium, take an event out of context.
Newton chose to present his ideas entirely through the medium of fiction – in one infamous tale, he cruelly celebrates the concussive effects of fruit falling on the heads of the lazy.
Paragraph 4: Strongly imply Freudian causes
Growing up in 17th century England, it is easy to make spurious connections between Newton’s childhood and his published work. Such connections might suggest that his theories are the result of a psychotic rebellion against his childhood identity, rather than reason and observation.
Paragraph 5: Argument from authority, when no such consensus exists
It is difficult for Newton’s followers to explain the fact that not a single educated person anywhere in the world ever believes in his work. “Ridiculous”, “sophomoric”, “deeply immoral”, and “mechanical” are all words used to describe his system of thought.
Paragraph 6: Attacks on character
According to self-confessed liars who had bitter personal conflicts with Newton, and stand to gain financially by selling books on the matter, Newton would often hold trials for his family and friends. In these trials, he would rule on the outcome of their “infinitesimal calculus” – and condemn them accordingly. Sex scandals, alcoholism, and feuds all discredit the binomial series.
Paragraph 7: Epistemological straw man
Newton’s theory of gravitational enlightenment (the idea that something can only be learned if items loosely associated with the thing being learned fall out of a tree onto the head of the learner) falls down in several important ways. Most importantly, it has long since been established that trees are a product of western sociological discourse.
Paragraph 8: Scary politics
Ultimately, it is undeniable that Newton’s work, if adopted, would cause us to do terrible things to each other. In the words of a reformed communist writing in a conservative smear rag:
From almost any page of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: “To a gas chamber — go!”
Paragraph 9: Call to action
Vote Obama.
As she explained in a 1959 television interview: “I am primarily the creator of a new cult of morality which has so far been believed impossible – namely, a morality not based on faith, not on emotion, not on arbitrary edicts, mystical or social, but on reason.”
No BBC, no. The word was “code”. Not “cult”.
The summary of her views is ridiculous too:
The “beards and moustaches”, and “Robin Hood” entries are obvious attempts at ridicule. The “homosexuality” entry misses crucial context, without which it becomes an implication that Objectivists reject homosexuality, which is just untrue.
Over at The Prometheus Initiative, we’re organising a book launch for Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s ideas can end big government, the upcoming book by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins.
The idea is to push the book into the hands think tanks, newspapers, politicians, and other influential people.
Yaron Brook’s lectures in London were received well, and I want to keep the momentum of that going and keep Rand at the forefront of discussion.
It can only be done with your help though, please consider making a donation.
If you give £35 (GBP) or more, we’ll send you a free copy of the book once it has been released, wherever you are in the world.
