From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 13:19:51 MDT
From: "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal@smigrodzki.org>
> From: "Olga Bourlin" <fauxever@sprynet.com>
> To: <extropians@extropy.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2003 1:26 AM
> Subject: Re: FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada
> > You get the picture. There's a *ton* of information about working
> > conditions (or working restrictions) in the USA during the 19th century.
> Go> > ahead - anybody - defend them if you can.
>
> ### Let me try my hand at defending the indefensible.
>
> Lots of people are bad. They wouldn't share a surplus even if this meant
> others dying. In fact, in the absence of coercion, almost all people are
bad
> in this way, including you, Olga. Since, as I presume, you have not shared
> all of your resources not crucial for survival with Sudanese slaves, you
are
> bad too. There are people dying out there, but you are not helping them.
> And I am bad as well. The only non-bad person I know, is Eliezer, I think.
Irrelevant to this discussion IMO.
> So what's wrong with being bad, if everybody is doing it, while preaching
> for others to be good? Nothing. The word, as applied above, loses its
> meaning. The communal-sharing, or equality-matching relational schemata
> underlying the reasoning behind the injunction to share surplus and
maintain
> equality, are ethically meaningless, once you start building ethical
systems
> using logical means, based directly on volition, rather than an
> unquestioning carryover of specialized social schemata, which worked well
> for survival in the EEA, but now impede progress.
My ethical system begins with Bertrand Russell's quote: "Remember your
humanity and forget the rest." Then we make progress from that point.
> Progress is good. Economic progress is good, since it gives humans a
better
> ability to fulfill their wishes, which is the essence of doing anything at
> all. Any vestigial mental quirk, such as tribalism, income-egalitarianism,
> acceptance of authority, that limits economic progress is bad, because it
> destroys the coherence of our goal systems. Incoherent goal systems cannot
> be satisfied. If you covet the richer human's resources, but jealously
guard
> your own from poorer ones, you will never move forward, and you will
> interfere with the progress of others.
Any economic progress is good? Al Capone's? Kenneth Lay's? Dennis
Kozlowki's?
> Economic progress must be maximized, within a coherent, volitionist
ethical
> framework. This might mean using moral symmetry, Rawlsian reciprocity, and
a
> few other heuristics which have been found to aid economic progress, while
> rejecting egalitarianism, tribalism, male/female chauvinism, taboos, and
> everything else that interferes with economic growth.
You mention Henry Ford below. He violated almost every "good" point you are
making above.
> It is good to be rich. Therefore, anything that interferes with the growth
> of the average sentient's income, is bad. It doesn't matter if you share
> with others, or if you hoard. The only thing that matters is how much you
> contribute to the average increase in wealth. Feelings of fairness,
justice,
> are wrong, if they interfere with the growth of average income of the
> Rawlsian observer.
Fairness and justice are paramount. "Remember your humanity and forget the
rest."
> All the emotionally rousing images you quoted, for the rational thinker,
are
> yet another reason to support economic growth, while maintaining
individual
> freedom. Henry Ford did more for American children than the nameless
> bureaucrats who drafted child labor laws. Once the children's parents
became
> rich enough, children's labor stopped being a problem. World War II did as
> much for women as feminism - once women entered the labor pool, they
learned> that economic competition gives them the power that comes from
financial> independence.
Henry Ford didn't do squat that someone else would not eventually have done
... but without being such an asshole:
http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html
http://lisatote.diaryland.com/ford.html
Technical progress did more for the Irish than the Irish
> themselves, and certainly more than the greedy labor unions, which later
all
> but destroyed the automobile industry - now most Irish are many times
> richer than the Britons who oppressed them.
I am not against technical progress. It is simplistic to call labor unions
"greedy" (why did labor unions start up in the first place? were they all
were greedy? were there any "good" labor unions" how were working
conditions before labor unions?).
> To point at the misery of the 19th century, and claim that it is a good
> justification for laws which, as a side effect, may impede economic
growth,
> is wrong. *It is not the laws forced by the social progressives that are
> socially progressive, it was the growth of average incomes that is the
> source of true progress.* [italics mine]
You say eether and I say eyether, You say neether and I say nyther; Eether,
eyether, neether, nyther, Let's call the whole thing off! You like potato
and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto; Potato, potahto,
tomato, tomahto!Let's call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off, Then we must part. And oh! If we
ever part, Then that might break my heart! [... Ira Gershwin]
> The working conditions of the 19th century were wrong, because most people
> were then poor, and it is wrong to be poor. Concentrate on creating
wealth,
> not righting wrongs, and all wrongs will right themselves.
If you lived in the 19th century, is this what you would be telling to half
of the population in the USA (women), to the (mainly) Chinese laborers who
built the Transcontinental Railroad, to the slaves, to the children laboring
in the factories: "Concentrate on creating wealth, not righting wrongs
...?" Is this what you would be telling them?
Olga
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