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#74 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoBuilding on #17 and #22, imagine a world with multiple objectivist countries. Say the US is purely objectivist, and so is England.
Presumably, Rand would see no problem with multiple objectivist countries coexisting. She would consider this state of affairs not only possible but desirable.
Yet how is that state different from the problem she describes in #14? Objectivist countries would be voluntarily financed by voluntary taxation; private arbitration services would be voluntarily financed through voluntary payments as well.
Isn’t this an instance of a stolen concept?
The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
Rand is using a concept – objectivism, which logically depends on peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people – to argue against the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people!
One difference between having multiple objectivist countries and having private arbitration services is that the latter can operate in the same territory whereas the former have distinct territories. So this may not be a stolen concept after all.
#14 · Dennis Hackethal, 8 months agoOne illustration will be sufficient [to show that a society made of competing governments cannot work]: suppose Mr. Smith, a customer of [arbitration service] A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr. Jones, a customer of [arbitration service] B, has robbed him; a squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones’ house and is met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare that they do not accept the validity of Mr. Smith’s complaint and do not recognize the authority of [arbitration service] A. What happens then? You take it from there.
As I have written before, Rand “implies that they could never resolve their conflict – or worse, that they would be in a perpetual state of war – because they don’t have a shared jurisdiction, an underlying legal framework.”
Building on #17 and #22, imagine a world with multiple objectivist countries. Say the US is purely objectivist, and so is England.
Presumably, Rand would see no problem with multiple objectivist countries coexisting. She would consider this state of affairs not only possible but desirable.
Yet how is that state different from the problem she describes in #14? Objectivist countries would be voluntarily financed by voluntary taxation; private arbitration services would be voluntarily financed through voluntary payments as well.
Isn’t this an instance of a stolen concept?
The “stolen concept” fallacy, first identified by Ayn Rand, is the fallacy of using a concept while denying the validity of its genetic roots, i.e., of an earlier concept(s) on which it logically depends.
Rand is using a concept – objectivism, which logically depends on peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people – to argue against the possibility of the peaceful coexistence of voluntarily financed groups of people!
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the versionhistory.↵ ↵ I fixedhistory. You can also click on ‘versions’ to see thetypo that was here previously!entire version history plus diffing.
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the versionhistory.↵ ↵ Say you make a *tpyo*. Then you can fix it.history.↵ ↵ I fixed the typo that was here previously!
This is a comment on version 4, but it applies toversion 5subsequent versions as well.
#69 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThis is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the version history.
Say you make a tpyo. Then you can fix it.
Say you make a tpyo.
You got a typo there!
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the versionhistory.history.↵ ↵ Say you make a *tpyo*. Then you can fix it.
#67 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThis is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the version history.
This is a comment on version 4, but it applies to version 5 as well.
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed. Click the arrows below to cycle through the version history.#65 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThis is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed.
This is a comment on version 2.
This is an example of version control for ideas. As I revise this idea, new versions are created and automatically diffed.This is an example of version control for ideas.
6 unchanged lines collapsedIf you are sent to school against your will, you are not free. School isa forced program.↵ ↵ Forcingforced.↵ ↵ Forcing children to be free is a contradiction in terms.
#34 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoFreedom is achieved when the mind reaches a certain level of intellectual maturity: when it thinks for itself.
This is the purpose of compulsory education: to liberate children.
(Kant)
Children are constantly being bossed around at school. So they can't become independent at school.
It's one thing if you don't share my idea of freedom. But the contradiction above should be enough to dissuade you from your original position: if your goal is for the child to think independently, but it chronically fails to do so at school, then school is no good even by your own logic.
#59 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThe freedom of one person, including a child's, ends where the freedom of another begins.
(Kant)
That's right, which is why the teacher's freedom ends where the child's freedom begins.
#56 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoA multidisciplinary project involving programming, mathematics, philosophy and biology should be made possible for all young people - shouldn't it? - and would promote future skills for the digital age: expertise, critically constructive and independent thinking, skills to act and judge, epistemology, ethics and anthropology, and ecology. That would emancipate children in the enlightenment sense.
(Kant)
The freedom of one person, including a child's, ends where the freedom of another begins.
(Kant)
#56 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoA multidisciplinary project involving programming, mathematics, philosophy and biology should be made possible for all young people - shouldn't it? - and would promote future skills for the digital age: expertise, critically constructive and independent thinking, skills to act and judge, epistemology, ethics and anthropology, and ecology. That would emancipate children in the enlightenment sense.
(Kant)
Speaking of 'enabling' here makes no sense when young people are actually forced to do what you describe.
Maybe a given young person has no interest in the digital age. Maybe he is more interested in castles and outer space. But teachers prevent him from learning more about those by forcing him to learn "programming, mathematics, philosophy and biology" or whatever else instead.
And the fact remains that it's impossible to teach independent or critical thinking by paternalizing someone for years and telling them what they can do and think, when they may use the bathroom, when they may eat, etc. How could this possibly "emancipate children in the enlightenment sense"? How absurd!
A multidisciplinary project involving programming, mathematics, philosophy and biology should be made possible for all young people - shouldn't it? - and would promote future skills for the digital age: expertise, critically constructive and independent thinking, skills to act and judge, epistemology, ethics and anthropology, and ecology. That would emancipate children in thesense of the enlightenment.↵ ↵ (Kant)enlightenment sense.↵ ↵ (Kant)
#35 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThat is not what freedom means.
Freedom does not consist in the guarantee of certain thoughts or scope for action.
Roughly speaking, freedom is when you are left alone by others when you want to be left alone.
If you are sent to school against your will, you are not free. School is a forced program.
Forcing children to be free is a contradiction in terms.
A multidisciplinary project involving programming, mathematics, philosophy and biology should be made possible for all young people - shouldn't it? - and would promote future skills for the digital age: expertise, critically constructive and independent thinking, skills to act and judge, epistemology, ethics and anthropology, and ecology. That would emancipate children in the sense of the enlightenment.
(Kant)
#51 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoYou are referring to ideas by David Deutsch. He is a physicist; he deals with inorganic matter. His ideas on educating children are therefore irrelevant.
(Kant)
You are a chemist. Doesn't the same criticism apply to you?
#51 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoYou are referring to ideas by David Deutsch. He is a physicist; he deals with inorganic matter. His ideas on educating children are therefore irrelevant.
(Kant)
We should judge ideas by their content, not by their source.
#51 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoYou are referring to ideas by David Deutsch. He is a physicist; he deals with inorganic matter. His ideas on educating children are therefore irrelevant.
(Kant)
It doesn't matter that he is a physicist, because his thoughts on the subject are of a philosophical/ epistemological nature.
#35 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoThat is not what freedom means.
Freedom does not consist in the guarantee of certain thoughts or scope for action.
Roughly speaking, freedom is when you are left alone by others when you want to be left alone.
If you are sent to school against your will, you are not free. School is a forced program.
Forcing children to be free is a contradiction in terms.
You are referring to ideas by David Deutsch. He is a physicist; he deals with inorganic matter. His ideas on educating children are therefore irrelevant.
(Kant)
#47 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoIt was only in the 2000s that school became a compulsory program, as the teaching of skills was geared to the needs of the market rather than to enlightenment values and independent thinking.
(Kant)
Here you are suddenly using a different criterion for coercion.
Compulsion could lie either in the raising a child to become a consumer or in the lack of intellectual maturity, but presumably not in both. (It actually lies in forcing anything onto the child, be that becoming a consumer or something else.)
#47 · Dennis Hackethal, 7 months agoIt was only in the 2000s that school became a compulsory program, as the teaching of skills was geared to the needs of the market rather than to enlightenment values and independent thinking.
(Kant)
School violates several enlightenment values, including freedom of association and the right to bodily autonomy.
Advocating compulsory schooling for the sake of enlightenment makes no sense.