Bitcoin Forum

Trying to see how the rest of the community views this.

Maximum of four votes per user--so you can choose up to four of the nine options to express your different views.

If you have an outlook I haven't made an option for, please bring it to the table.

On a side note, not directly related, have any of you read GEB: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter? I read it with my father at a very young age (he would use the short stories every other chapter as bedtime stories), and I have read it over many times since, it led me to much of my interest in computers and cryptography.

If you vote in the poll, I encourage you to elaborate in a response to the thread as well.

Thanks!

Henry

I see her kinda like the polar opposite to Karl Marx, but it's a false dichotomy. Both imply a very authoritarian and elitist view on society. At least unlike most market-libertarians here she understands that capitalism is not possible without a (minimal) state, because it is the state who protects property.

It seems to me her work brainwashed generations of US-Americans, especially about what the word "socialism" really means.

Socialism originally means workers to be in control of the means of production, and not welfare state or anything like that.

Which is not a contradiction to a state-less, (truly) freed market that thrives on bottom-up self-organization.

I've already said in another thread that Bitcoin rather fits Max Stirner's philosophies than Ayn Rand's or US market-libertarianism.

No offence, but this is a stupid poll.

Why do people so readily associate libertarians with Ayn Rand?  I haven't read any of her works or writings and barely know anything about her.  I also have no idea what objectivism is, beyond knowing that Rand coined it, nor do I care. 

I simply use logic and evidence to divine the truth of things which leads me to the freedom viewpoint.   

ism's of any kind don't matter at the end of the day.  Critical thinking is what you need.

I agree with hawkeye.

I think it is important to remember that she writes fiction. The question in the thread is a little like asking if it was a good idea for Luke and Han Solo to join the rebellion.

I have only read Atlas Shrugged, so I don't know about all her work. In that book she re-envisions the gilded age as a happy time when the economic elites were the good guys and consume protection was an evil cabal.  I found the book well written, but completely divorced from the reality she is vaguely comparing it to.

I don't wanna derail the thread but, why is Joe Schmoe incapable of protecting his own property?

Question of scale.  ;)

http://c4ss.org/content/4043

Yes, she wrote fiction, except for the numerous non fiction books ....

I basically agree with you.  "ism's" always focus so sharply on single aspects of reality that they miss the true complexity of how every thing works together, and fail to provide a real view of the whole.

I would, however, recommend reading the work of others, even if they are "ism's". and even if you know going in that you disagree with the author.  There is a lot of value in seeing things from a different perspective, even if it is just to help you frame your own beliefs more solidly.

I did not know that.  :)

Thanks to all of you for the responses.


No offense taken.
Although I can't admit complete ignorance I have at best a general concept of what objectivism is, having never read any of Rand's nonfiction. I certainly don't subscribe to her ism, but I have found the perspectives she shares through her novels are interesting and insightful.

That's the ticket.

Sounds like a case of semantics :P  It has always bugged me that we talk about anarcho-capitalism, but never talk about capital, the main feature of capitalism.  So it's not that Joe Schmoe can't protect his property, it's that Richguy Bill who saves a fortune by using the state as his free-of-charge protection for all the property that he owns.  Without state authority to protect the billionaire's property, the billionaire would be forced to spend a whole lot of money on private security to ensure his property is left unharmed; considering a lifestyle in which one begins at the bottom, such an exponential growth in spending cash to protect absent property would discourage people from amassing all that property in the first place--rather, people would be more inclined to own very few businesses, if more than one, thus completely thwarting wage slavery, nearly blurring the line between the rich and the poor.

So really, most of us are anarchists, who want to make a distinction from the anarcho-communists et al, but in reality, the anarcho-capitalist is just someone who believes in money over sharing.  Very very interesting, thank you for that link.  I'm gonna just relate to anarchism from now on, since anarcho-capitalism as most of us (and I say this but I have no idea if I'm the only one who actually thinks this way) know it, isn't actually very related to real capitalism.

I might have been a bit quick off the gun so I apologize if I sounded a bit short.   There have been many times where freedom loving people (for lack of a better term) have been referred to in disparaging terms as Randians and the like and I think I read that into your poll and attempted to jump the gun, so apologies as it doesn't seem the angle you were approaching it from.  It's true that personally I have little knowledge of her.


Title's are so difficult.  Anarchists, anarcho-capitalists, libertarians, etc.  Many people who can think critically and are for liberty don't refer to themselves as any of these.  There are many that don't like the anarchist term.  I am fine with all 3 personally although quick to point out it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with everything said by anyone who fits these categories.  For example there is a wikipedia page on anarcho-capitalism and identifying myself as anarcho-capitalist doesn't mean I necessarily agree with everything on it.   

I guess the best thing to say is that I'm against coercion.  However, people want to arrange and organise their lives is fine with me as long as no coercion is involved.

because Rand was a leading supporter of many of these viewpoints.

Likely the best known.

I don't even know who she is, all I saw was her appearing on the daily show because of her apparently running for New York Comptroller, I will admit I was mesmerized by her boobs though.

u thinking someone else, rand died 1988 iirc

Check youtube ...

Rand Donahue

For an interview

Oops now I feel stupid O_O Kristin Davis was the name of the woman LOL :D

rand younger, working w Cecil demil, definitely one hot babe

What means does anyone have to protect their own property except by force? And what does it mean when two parties have different ideas about the division of property (eg how much profit each partner keeps in a profitable venture, where property boundaries lie, etc)? What recourse does an individual have against fraud? This hypothetical freest of free markets is not free at all—whoever has the best guns simply takes everything. Even honest disputes can be resolved only by bloodshed.

Rules against fraud and force need to have an impartial arbiter, and that arbiter needs to have the means to enforce rulings as to the outcome of disputes. I don't see any other way unless you can suddenly guarantee some way for no one to ever let their self-interest override their morality. Even honest people develop blind spots when it comes to potential threats to livelihood.

I don't believe the existence of force negates freedom; rather, the freedom to use force when force is used against you is the only way to achieve freedom, as the man who initiates force for his own interest is always at the expense of another; neither does this man believe in freedom in himself, but more importantly, he does not believe in freedom in you.  If society functions at its best when people are not taking from one another, but rather cooperating and competing fairly with one another, then it would be in our greatest interest to encourage freedom between people; to achieve freedom, we must be free ourselves, for only then do we instill freedom in others (and behold, the golden rule).  However, there will always be those who either miss or refute this idea; once a person decides your freedom is not as valuable as their own, they negate both.  For all rights are granted only between those who grant rights to others, he who initiates force is no longer free, not to himself, nor any others.  At this point, to simply roll over and let what will would only lead to exactly what we already have, that being, those who do not grant freedom calling the shots as if they invented the concept.  Therefore, to ensure a society's freedom, the society in question must identify those who would deny them of those freedoms, whether it be in the form of trespassing, robbery, or even organized government, and seek recourse for freedom lost; if it is the individual who was robbed (initiation of force), one would have to resort to force to make amends, if the robber does not willingly do so; if it is all of society who was robbed, so must society use force to make amends, if government does not willingly disappear.  The reality is, we cannot escape force, for there are always those who do not believe you have the right to be free; we can only agree that initiating force is detrimental to us all, and focus violent measures against those violent.

Freedom goes two ways, when occurring in society; the person who wants to do something, and the people who will be affected by it.  The free market does not mean, "Well Jack can assassinate Joe because he has all the freedom he wants," because that would likely be detrimental to Joe's health, something he doesn't want; what we should seek is to disburse freedom, I suppose you could say, from a completely omnipotent and centralized entity, and moreso into the hands of the individual.  When it comes to property, it depends on what the society believes; if we believe the land we live on is ours, then so would we all agree not to take another person's land, which gets tricky because we would be taking it from government which took it from another society etc. etc...  Plus, we would have to consider entering private property as initiation of force, which, as explained above, would be justly met with retaliation.  And others believe all land should be openly available to anyone.  To be frank, I have no idea how it would work, and what any specific society would consider an offense or not, for it would be different in different parts of the world.  But anyway, so long as there are multiple arbitration businesses, as opposed to any nation's just one, we see a less likely chance of being subject to serve in a system which pretends to work for its people but, as we know, serves only its own best interests at a global scale.

Here's a little video of what this would look like, to have multiple law-creation firms under one roof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPyrq6SEL0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPyrq6SEL0)  Because there is no coerced monopoly, not in security nor law, businesses which provide these services would be forced to serve their customers as best as possible if they want to stay in business (I hope they do).

Why do we need a video of what this would look like? We have empirical examples of the way businesses organize themselves when they have no court system to fall back on to handle disputes: drug cartels and street gangs. Gee, wouldn't it be better if Coca-Cola and Pepsi could just shoot at each other and blow up each other's factories to determine their market share?

What happens when multiple law-creation firms disagree on their verdicts or their sets of standards? What, do we only do business with customers who have subscribed to the same law-creation firm? Oh wait, we know what THAT looks like too: we have that situation and have for thousands of years. When law-creation firms disagree with one another, they kill each other until they come to some sort of agreement. Great. And when Jack assassinates Joe what do we do? Oh, well, Jack didn't subscribe to any law-creation firm so I guess there is no way to sanction that behavior. Carry on, Jack.

Or maybe it's my opinion that since Jack killed Joe he might kill me too, so I'm justified in killing Jack. Which means you're justified in killing me. Or hey, why am I even using the word "justified?" It doesn't matter whether my idea of right and wrong agrees with anyone else's idea of right or wrong. It's a sociopath's paradise!

But anyway, you're right about one thing: you don't know what it would look like. And you seem to agree that there have to be some standards for behavior and some form of recourse against violation of those standards in order to have a free market. So come up with a better system and I'll be happy to have a conversation about working toward it. In the meantime, Ayn Rand said that the proper role of government was to preserve individual rights. She and I may not agree on the best ways for government to go about it, but that's a starting point I'm comfortable with and I think my energy is best spent working toward that rather than overthrowing all forms of statism.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=arc_ayn_rand_the_nature_of_government

My own take on Ayn Rand, she was absolutely right as far as she goes, but there is a larger picture she did not paint. The "more to the picture" does not contradict what she wrote, but it's wrong to think there isn't more to it. And the majority of people I've encountered that think she was wrong have a malformed idea of what she wrote. She wrote that someone who earns it deserves money. Her detractors seem to think she said that if you have money it means you must have deserved it. In fact, Atlas Shrugged has more despicable wealthy characters than admirable ones, and more admirable characters of modest means than despicable ones. If you think she idolized the rich, you haven't read what she wrote.

Only watched Atlas Shrugged Part 1, thought it was this close to describing reality, or at least where we're being led by the endless parade of worse tyrants in government. So...

Yeesh - first on the agenda in the new forums: decent polling code. Jaw opened when I saw how few read her books (like her or not) before realizing the results are borked. I spent most of my last two years in high school reading her books and writing reports for independent classes. Fountainhead's required in many US AP classes. Came to like her less the more I read. I don't think she ever topped We The Living (was the third book I read, after the major two). Everything else bored me and was dragged out many times more than needed.

Bitcoin's just a tool. It enables many things, including liberties which weren't easily-obtainable before, but it can also be a tool for what Rand would consider as evil. I don't consider Bitcoin being ideological, so I don't think it could be compared to Rand's ideas, books, or personality in any way. Though... if practical results (right now, and since the beginning of Bitcoin) could be associated to any particular person's ideology, it'd have to be Spooner.

I would agree, We the Living was the best book (the Italian movie, so so...)

Fountainhead has a complex plot, and AS is more a philosophical study superimposed on stereotyped characters.

I do like the two Atlas Shrugged movies, and expect the third and final one to be equally good.  They are not perfect, but are entertaining as any future dystopian movie might be.

Is Bitcoin just a tool?  I think you may be wrong there.  Rand greatly favored gold and silver over paper money, and spoke about this at some length.  Gold and silver were property to her, and paper money was not, it's use just being sanctioned by the government that owned it.  I can't help but think that she would have considered bitcoin as property, and treated it perhaps equally with gold and silver for that reason.

Another aspect would have been that Bitcoin was the creation of a money by free individuals, and she would have really, really liked that.

Well, that's just my opinion.  But I think that spending an hour or two looking up her exact words would support that opinion.

The means are private dispute settlement and arbitration. Two parties that can't decide about division of property can both agree to a single arbiter. Two people who wish to make a transaction and wish to avoid fraud can decide on a single escrow agent. We have plenty of examples of this in the real world, ranging from multinational businesses that don't exist in any specific country settling disputes among each other, to even the mafia being hired as arbitrators in black market transactions to make sure the two parties don't try to steal from each other. There's no issues with multiple law firms/arbitrators disagreeing with each other, since the only thing that matters is that the two people in dispute agree on one of those firms. Likely the two disagreeing parties will realize that picking an arbitrator that both of them are at least ok with will be cheaper, more productive, and healthier than just going to war with each other. And the arbitrators (even the mafia) have a huge incentive to make sure they make just rulings and don't play favorites, since no one will ever use their services again if they prove to be unfair.

So, we know exactly what that will look like, simply because we already have all that. And it has only been made much more prevalent in the last decade thanks to globalization and vastly expanded international trade, where free market reigns without the  supervision of any specific government.

I checked that I've read The fountainhead but I haven't, I watched the movie instead (old one, with Gary Cooper). I liked it a lot, I watched it twice.

It tells the story of a man's right to live the way he wants, and everyone can only enjoy the idea.

If every disagreement were an honest one, and if everyone on the planet was judicious and thoughtful before employing retaliatory force when wronged I might agree. I don't trust human nature enough not to want group oversight over the use of force, and i don't trust human nature enough to trust that the use of force is unnecessary. I've handed over my belongings to a stranger when looking down the barrel of a gun and I can tell you—that's not free trade.

Now maybe if we could round up all the sociopaths and shoot them, and then engineer our genetic sequences so that no new sociopaths would ever be born… but that's a nightmare of a world I'm suggesting. Instead we have pragmatic, imperfect solutions to dealing with disputes,

And for frack's sake why are we even having this STUPID conversation. The authoritarians will kill us or strangle us into submission while we're busy arguing how far to dismantle government. Government is growing in power every day. Don't you dare lump me in with the statists for wanting markets to be free of fraud and force. If anarchists won't see libertarians as being on their side, they won't have any friends left.

Largely, I agree, yes. I think libertarians, when investigating their opinions more deeply, will either tend towards pure anarchism (probably you) or capitalism (the mises.org and Tom Woods crowd -- von Mises also was a minimal statist for exactly the same reasons).

I already said in another thread that the reasons why "anarchy with property rights" aka "Proprietarianism" is popular in the US is probably because they have enough land and don't feel the aftermath of Feudalism that practically still is in effect in Europe to this day. That's why European Anarchists are very sensitive towards the issue of land ownership (or more generally: the question of ownership of the means of production), identifying it as the root cause of conflict and war throughout history, and the only way to overcome this is a more co-operative, open and communal mindset (voluntarily, without authority, mind you) in the people's spirits.

Actually? Anarcho-Capitalism has never been related to reality. It is science fiction, written by aristocratic elitists in Vienna.

Oh come on.   I would prefer Arachno-Capitalism.

I just spit out my cup of tea. Thanks   :P

Ah, the work of the brilliant economist Sherkaner Underhill. I totally agree.

Ayn Rand is Tolkien for libertarians - ie second rate literature from the L. Ron Hubbard school of writing.
It's not literature.

Let me guess: that's why you've never read any of it?

(Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.)

The difference between H P Lovecraft and Ayn Rand is the same difference between this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWVk3h2SA8

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA

If you have a point, it is not clear what it is.  This is both your fault in the two video analogy, and that of the assertion which you responded to.  That assertion:

Plus, Atlas Shrugged is more like H P Lovecraft for libertarians.

...is totally flawed because it assumes a fairly uniform response (a) to Lovecraft (b) in the beliefs and attitudes of libertarians.  Neither, of course, is accurate.  Lovecraft was, and can be considered,  brilliant or just b-grade horror.  Libertarians, one subcategory is those who follow Rand, others have different views.

In turn I would make a wild guess that these comments are both by people who have not even read Rand's work, but I'll leave them to comment on that.

Personally I found Atlas Shrugged to be a lot like Kafka's The Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Castle_%28novel%29) - it just keeps re-iterating its point (of being powerless under the powers that be) to the point of "boring me to sleep".

It has some points but the constant re-iteration just destroys the book as it becomes more like a "rant" than a discourse (and literally I feel asleep reading the longest speech in it and ended up just skipping most of it as it was so boring).

Its fans are of course the "believers" (as is the case with any book that "preaches to the converted") but I think it is very unlikely to be the kind of book that would have a chance of converting non-believers (it didn't change my thinking about anything at all - although after reading it I am not likely to ever read another book written by her).

Guess what?

http://naturalsolutionsradio.com/files/imagecache/blog/images/blogs/police-state-300x230.jpg

Thank God governments are here to keep us safe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Either that or you took the comment to be far more serious than intended.

I meant that from a libertarian perspective, Ayn Rand wrote horror novels.

basically the problem with altruism is that its a myth, it doesn't actually exist. when you base a decision on faulty information it tends to lead to undesired and unexpected outcomes. so if you base a decision on altruistic considerations, and altruism doesn't exist, than we can expect your decision to lead to unexpected and undesired outcomes. this makes even the most well intentioned altruists dangerous.

Ayn was right about the dangers of altruism but i dont know that she ever properly articulated why altruism is so dangerous and even if she did it took her 1000 pages to accomplish what can be accomplished in a couple of paragraphs.

LOL, if there was a joke please explain it.  I just didn't get it.  Probably my stupidity.

I think her work could arguably be described as dystopian novels of the horror of collectivism.

Is that in line?

It was fully articulated in "the virtue of selfishness" and other non fiction works.  This was a major theme.  She viewed altruism as a primary tool that leaders used to produce unselfish (eg in the interest of the leader) behavior in groups of people.

Pretty much. I just read that comparison of Ayn Rand's novels to the Lord of the Rings and thought, "hmm... wizards and elves? No, more like Yog-Sothoth."

Got it....by the way, if you like dystopian films, eg Mad Max Beyond ThunderDome, Idiocracy, etc, Atlas Shrugged are movies worth watching.  Two out, final in production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF9QT43uDQU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRZWuz4t5ng

Yeah, I thought they were all right. I think the casting choices improved the second film, but I didn't really see in either anything that preached to anyone other than the converted. However, I understand that John Galt's speech will start halfway through the fourth film and end as the climax to the sixth.  ;)

Definite Lovecraftian manaical steadfast pursuit of the Objective premises.

Many  believers in Rand got it wrong.  Galt got it wrong with his speech.  Maybe he was pissed off because they called him in to save the world.

http://www.gorevidalnow.com/2011/06/gore-vidal-on-ayn-rand-in-1961-she-has-a-great-attraction-for-simple-people (http://www.gorevidalnow.com/2011/06/gore-vidal-on-ayn-rand-in-1961-she-has-a-great-attraction-for-simple-people)

I read Atlas Shrugged. It sickened me, and was badly written.

I read Atlas Shrugged. My opinion of it isn't worth a fly on a horse's ass.

I would, however, be happy to discuss what I agree and disagree with about the ideas it conveyed.

If you feel strongly enough about them to be sickened, perhaps you'd care to discuss why it was that you dislike what it said.

Otherwise, what you wrote is about as meaningful as "Ayn Rannd is teh suxx0r!!!1!"

Ayn Rand's philosophy, for those who care to study and understand:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)

http://www.atlassociety.org/  
The Atlas Society promotes open Objectivism: the philosophy of reason, achievement, individualism, and freedom.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=index

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro
My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

This is where I see the connection to bitcoin. I believe that bitcoin is the first meaningful step towards separation of state and economics.

Please don't take this the wrong way.  Ayn Rand was very critical, satirical and at times, savagely insulting to large groups of people, broadly, working for/believing in the collectives.

Someone who saw differently would of course be insulted.

I guess you could say that would have been intentional.

But that has nothing to do with the merits of her system of beliefs in capitalism.  I think it's fair to make that distinction.  EG, her philosophy could be correct and optimal, but you might find it disgusting.

I don't think the major players in the Atlas Society have actually thought this matter through at present.  That may be due to their being in large part the scholarly types.  It is inevitable that they realize this and once they get it, all hell breaks loose.  I suspect they'll grasp it faster than, say, the hard money/gold bug Austrian economist types.

It'll be fun.

Agree.  Led me to this page:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/economic_power_vs_political_power.html

What is the basic, the essential, the crucial principle that differentiates freedom from slavery? It is the principle of voluntary action versus physical coercion or compulsion.

The difference between political power and any other kind of social “power,” between a government and any private organization, is the fact that a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force..

The fact that bitcoin is voluntary participation, and fiat is the opposite, says it all.
You don't see bitcoiners forcing their ideology down anyone's throat.

But you do see growing resistance and critique of bitcoin amongst the fiat crowd.
And, as we have seen, the penalties for messing with the fiat in place are usually quite dramatic.

Unfortunately for them, the added publicity is a positive for bitcoin.

Bitcoin is big in China, I wonder if there are similar resistance and critiques there.

Latest examples of "GOING GALT":

Lavabit and Silent Circle


Right out of the script of ATLAS SHRUGGED.

Hmm. They're hardly providing essential infrastructure though. I expect it's just the start, however. The next big thing is all those non-US companies pulling all their data from the cloud (or US based parts of it).

Might want to think that over a bit.  Rand used the train to symbolize essential infrastructure, but I have no doubt if she was here today she'd be looking at the virtual Galt's Gulch, not the physical, and she'd be looking at all those internet tubes, not the tubes going through the mountains for the trains.

But she's not here, so it is up to others to recognize the fundamental aspects of instantaneous transactions peer to peer through the entire world, and act on them to build business models.

Yup - doesn't matter if they are "essential infrastructure" at this point.
It's the act of defiance and showing the .gov "the middle finger" that is significant.

lol, who is Lavabit or Silent Circle? Indeed, no essential infrastructure.

No, it's rather Eric Schmidt who was just going John Galt:

http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/08/17/google-went-down-today-the-internet-went-bananas/

This is what much better fits this AynRandish category.
Maybe poor Google protest that they aren't allowed to snoop on people enough.  :-\