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> The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." That's the Communist worldview. Com

> The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." That's the Communist worldview. Complete utilitarian totalitarian morality.

PavlovsCat 8y ago
> If you care about other people, that’s now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” for some wild reason. I mean, it’s actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public. -- Noam Chomsky
- harry8 8y ago
  The total arrogance of Chomsky on display. He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. Didn't the Soviet union go well? Thanks for your input Noam!
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding to me? Prove me wrong. > As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. If you don't care about other people, you do by definition. > Didn't the Soviet union go well? What does that have do with anything he said? > Thanks for your input Noam! All your comment is just padding playing cute. All you're saying is it rubbed you the wrong way but you got nothing.
    - harry8 8y ago
      I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...
      - PavlovsCat 8y ago
        > Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. You're just playing word games. IF you don't care for others, you are selfish, by definition. If you only pretend to care about the right of others to not help others, so you don't have to help others, you're selfish and dishonest. And that's your right, but don't twist the words of others because you can't even stand behind your own position. > I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste That's all great and also completely besides the point. > Noam has no empathy for me Can you stop making this about Noam Chomsky for just one second? Here's the same point from someone else: We've changed. And we've become contemptuous of the idea that we're all in this together. This is about sharing. And about, you know... when you say sharing, there is a percentage of the population, and it's the moneyed percent of our population, that hears "socialism" or "communism" or any of the other -isms they wanna put on it, but ultimately, we are all a part of the same society, and it's either gonna be a mediocre society that, you know, abuses people, or it's not. -- David Simon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s The person I initially responded to clearly has no empathy for people more (supposedly) more unfortunate than them, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 So instead you now want to talk about how Noam Chomsky is "the one actually lacking empathy"? You should disabuse yourself of the notion you're being generous and patient, the way you instantly talked about Chomsky displaying arrogance -- you know, send him an email if it upsets you so, but in this context you're responding to me -- and then tried to throw up more mud to get away from the actual context. I'll repeat it, because it still holds true: something rubbed you the wrong way, but you can't really name or refute it. And like most critics of Noam Chomsky, you do anything but address what he actually says, but only face him "in your own words", which are "not even wrong" and not worth addressing at all.
harry8 8y ago
Property rights are a regulation justified on this basis. Property rights are not usually associated with communism and totalitarianism. But hey, without a utilitarian justification for regulation we do still have two choices. Theocracy is one, anarchy is the other. I'm as against both of those as i am against communism & fascism. It's wonderfully radical to be so extreme as to be against property rights or claim that Jesus had teachings on the principle.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  You can justify property rights and all sorts of business regulations with concepts of fairness and justice.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 > There are undoubtedly myriad intellectual, psychological, and political sources for our inaction, but I cannot help thinking that the influence of Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist, may have played a role. Rand’s disquisitions on the “virtue of selfishness” and unbridled capitalism are admired by many American politicians and economists—Paul Ryan, Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Andrew Puzder, and Donald Trump, among them. Trump, who has called “The Fountainhead” his favorite book, said that the novel “relates to business and beauty and life and inner emotions. That book relates to . . . everything.” Long after Rand’s death, in 1982, the libertarian gospel of the novel continues to sway our politics: Government is bad. Solidarity is a trap. Taxes are theft.

> The question should always be "Is this regulation effective in making things better for more people over the long term." That's the Communist worldview. Complete utilitarian totalitarian morality.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

> If you care about other people, that’s now a very dangerous idea. If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich, but you don’t care whether other people’s kids can go to school, or can afford food to eat, or things like that. In the United States, that’s called “libertarian” for some wild reason. I mean, it’s actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important for power systems as a way of atomizing and undermining the public. -- Noam Chomsky

harry8 8y ago
The total arrogance of Chomsky on display. He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. Didn't the Soviet union go well? Thanks for your input Noam!
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > He doesn't rate caring for another person's liberty to make their own mistakes their own way. Like making this hit job, and then slinking away not responding to me? Prove me wrong. > As far as he's concerned if you don't agree with him you're lacking in empathy and moral fibre by definition. If you don't care about other people, you do by definition. > Didn't the Soviet union go well? What does that have do with anything he said? > Thanks for your input Noam! All your comment is just padding playing cute. All you're saying is it rubbed you the wrong way but you got nothing.
  - harry8 8y ago
    I'm not sure the tone of this is likely to be productive. Obviously "proving wrong" is a non-starter in such a debate. Nonetheless... It's a reasonable position for a person to take that the state should stay out of decisions made for oneself and family as far as it's practicable. I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste, returning a small fraction of it to me with a decision made on what they consider good for my family. (Maybe I'm wrong there, that's my right, and yours, to be wrong about such matters as pertain to yourself and your family). Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. Just as espousing socialism does not necessarily mean one is selfless. Incredibly selfish people will exist in both camps. Those who disagree with me (of whom some are socialist) are capable of having merit as people and could be warm, lovely caring, empathetic people, even if that's clearly not all of them. Noam has no empathy for me, I lack merit for disagreeing with his brand of socialism in his eyes. I can live with it. I think he's arrogant. He can probably live with that too fwiw...
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > Caring about such rights for others does necessarily mean one is incredibly selfish. You're just playing word games. IF you don't care for others, you are selfish, by definition. If you only pretend to care about the right of others to not help others, so you don't have to help others, you're selfish and dishonest. And that's your right, but don't twist the words of others because you can't even stand behind your own position. > I know what's good for my family and can get that far better and more effectively than giving my resources to a bureaucrat to waste That's all great and also completely besides the point. > Noam has no empathy for me Can you stop making this about Noam Chomsky for just one second? Here's the same point from someone else: We've changed. And we've become contemptuous of the idea that we're all in this together. This is about sharing. And about, you know... when you say sharing, there is a percentage of the population, and it's the moneyed percent of our population, that hears "socialism" or "communism" or any of the other -isms they wanna put on it, but ultimately, we are all a part of the same society, and it's either gonna be a mediocre society that, you know, abuses people, or it's not. -- David Simon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6Jv2Jpnpg&t=6m50s The person I initially responded to clearly has no empathy for people more (supposedly) more unfortunate than them, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18419729 So instead you now want to talk about how Noam Chomsky is "the one actually lacking empathy"? You should disabuse yourself of the notion you're being generous and patient, the way you instantly talked about Chomsky displaying arrogance -- you know, send him an email if it upsets you so, but in this context you're responding to me -- and then tried to throw up more mud to get away from the actual context. I'll repeat it, because it still holds true: something rubbed you the wrong way, but you can't really name or refute it. And like most critics of Noam Chomsky, you do anything but address what he actually says, but only face him "in your own words", which are "not even wrong" and not worth addressing at all.

harry8 8y ago

Property rights are a regulation justified on this basis. Property rights are not usually associated with communism and totalitarianism. But hey, without a utilitarian justification for regulation we do still have two choices. Theocracy is one, anarchy is the other. I'm as against both of those as i am against communism & fascism. It's wonderfully radical to be so extreme as to be against property rights or claim that Jesus had teachings on the principle.

SamReidHughes 8y ago
You can justify property rights and all sorts of business regulations with concepts of fairness and justice.

PavlovsCat 8y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18476342 > There are undoubtedly myriad intellectual, psychological, and political sources for our inaction, but I cannot help thinking that the influence of Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist, may have played a role. Rand’s disquisitions on the “virtue of selfishness” and unbridled capitalism are admired by many American politicians and economists—Paul Ryan, Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Andrew Puzder, and Donald Trump, among them. Trump, who has called “The Fountainhead” his favorite book, said that the novel “relates to business and beauty and life and inner emotions. That book relates to . . . everything.” Long after Rand’s death, in 1982, the libertarian gospel of the novel continues to sway our politics: Government is bad. Solidarity is a trap. Taxes are theft.