Ayn Rand Philosophy, Objectivism, Science, Self-interest

[wufwugy]

I love the line that ends the interview: "The job of the government is not to legislate people out of their stupidity; the job of the government is to allow people to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

[a500lbgorilla]

I love the line that ends the interview: "The job of the government is not to legislate people out of their stupidity; the job of the government is to allow people to suffer the consequences of their stupidity.

Because it's laughably wrong?

edit I'll answer your question before you ask it. The gov't is interested in continuing to govern, it doesn't care about the stupidity scale.

[wufwugy]

Because it's laughably wrong?

edit I'll answer your question before you ask it. The gov't is interested in continuing to govern, it doesn't care about the stupidity scale.

It was the founding principle of the American government. People forget that.

I think maybe you misread my point. Our democratic voters have deeply internalized the idea that governments exist to legislate morality and behavior, and our modern government has internalized the concept as well. The American government never perfectly reflected the concept of freedom expressed in the quote from the video, but it was intended to and it used to to a much greater degree than today.

[a500lbgorilla]

It was the founding principle of the American governments. People forget that.

But the American gov't was built to change and has evolved as circumstances have demanded of it.

A free market, a perfect democracy, those are great when everyone is basically equal and pushing off from the same starting line, but as time is allowed to move forward, the natural distribution of abilities will see organs grow that change the rules of the game.

You can't enter into the mobile phone market without a fuckton of resources. Even if you deregulated the market, if any small actor managed to gain some legs, they'd be smooshed or consumed by the monoliths of the industry. Because that's where free markets take us. Someone is more able than the rest, everyone pays into them, eventually, they're competing against those firms that were able to find the resources to mimic them.

In the same way, These Unites States became The United States. In the same way, single cell organisms became neuron-driven organisms.

You keep pretending that the world lives in this virgin, flat state when it's been ruined for far too long.

[wufwugy]

But the American gov't was built to change and has evolved as circumstances have demanded of it.

The American government was built on particular principles of government and that changing from those principles would be really, really, really, hard.

A free market, a perfect democracy, those are great when everyone is basically equal and pushing off from the same starting line

It is because people do not start from the same line that free markets have benefit. Free markets are the only known system to enfranchise the marginalized and to provide upward mobility. This is a point Milton Friedman often made, and economists agree with it at large.

You can't enter into the mobile phone market without a fuckton of resources. Even if you deregulated the market, if any small actor managed to gain some legs, they'd be smooshed or consumed by the monoliths of the industry.

This is not an effect of free markets. Free markets are a deterrent to this. History and economic theory has been clear on this. The more regulated markets are, the more you get these negative monoliths you're talking about, and vise versa. I've explained the details for why we know this many times, and I'll only do it again if you want to hear it.

Because that's where free markets take us. Someone is more able than the rest

I'll repeat because this is an essential point: The "more able than the rest" is a natural phenomenon of life and reality. The tools and institutions best understood by contemporary man to mitigate the negative effects of this is free markets. The evidence is overwhelming and the theory is rock solid and taught worldwide. My guess as to the reason the idea is not popular outside of the field of economics is because it sounds immoral to contemporary emotional sensibilities. Plus there is no longer a Milton Friedman on primetime every night explaining this, like there once was.

You keep pretending that the world lives in this virgin, flat state when it's been ruined for far too long.

The points I make are because we don't live in this virgin world. Economics models reality, not make-believe. Economists' understanding of the effects of regulation comes from evaluations of reality. The claim that deregulation improves economic dynamism emerges from those evaluations of reality.