Re: Property Rights

Darin Sunley (umsunley@cc.umanitoba.ca)
Wed, 26 May 1999 14:56:37 -0500

Anders Sandberg wrote:

>
> Hmm, an Objectivist borg? "We are Ayn of Rand, resistance is futile..." :-)
>

2 things:

  1. Seems to me I recall Hofstadter doing a whole dialog on the very subject in Godel, Escher, Bach. An ant colony that, when communicated with as a whole, was a rabid free-market libertarian, even though it was composed of utterly selfless collectivists (ants). Hofstadter was making an obvious parallel to us being composed completely of cells that, before they mutated to adapt to this collection they find themselves within, were quite separate individual creatures.
  2. If one were to view the former Soviet Union as a (very nasty) (proto) borganism, didn't they argue exactly this, that individual rights (national soverignity) at the level of the borganism was very important? That was the rhetoric anyways, as I recall.

Darin Sunley