tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post1438664459754692715..comments2024-03-22T17:43:18.211-07:00Comments on bionic mosquito: No Turning Backbionic mosquitohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12002548958078731031noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-24398372708041869952018-05-18T07:28:08.964-07:002018-05-18T07:28:08.964-07:00This humanitarian with the guillotine, which often...This humanitarian with the guillotine, which often takes the form of a state usurping the traditional roles of family and community as you've noted above has consequences in the economic realm as well. And it brings up a question I've had concerning the nature of giving. Is giving only 'good' when done on a small interpersonal communal level?<br /><br />It seems to me that when it is done on a grand scale as a measure of state policy, whether it is foreign aid or domestic welfare transfers, it often has 'bad' effects. In regards to foreign aid, the giving tends to destroy local economies and therefore a community's ability to sustain itself. In regards to domestic welfare, a similar situation begins occurring: whole generations become entombed in poverty, poor work ethic, and criminal behavior.<br /><br />I think it also has undesirable effects when the US exports state subsidized farm products to developing nations at prices which the local growers cannot compete with, thereby destroying local economies.<br /><br />However, when a foreign nation (say China) begins exporting produced goods to a developed economy (say the US) for less cost than is feasible domestically, I think this is a good thing for both China and the US. US workers are freed up to produce value in some other field of work, US consumers get to enjoy more affordable goods, and the living standards of Chinese producers and workers go up. Clearly there is some pain to be had when domestic workers are freed up to find employment in another industry, but overall, I think the effect is positive. Without cheap stuff produced abroad, Americans would really be feeling the effects of inflation. On the other hand, from a strategic perspective, maybe it's a bad thing that we aren't.<br /><br />It seems like there is a line demarcating when giving free or trading cheap stuff to another country has good effects and when it has bad effects. Maybe the Catholic principle of subsidiarity has merit in the realm of economics too?A Texas Libertarianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02980539931923054404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-25063017982355542122018-05-18T07:11:09.390-07:002018-05-18T07:11:09.390-07:00"Some of the most extreme instances of insecu..."Some of the most extreme instances of insecurity and conflict of values in native cultures have resulted not from the nakedly ruthless forces of economic exploitation but from the most commendable (by Western standards) acts of humanitarian reform." - Nisbet<br /><br />This quote you've selected above fits nicely with Ayn Rand's mentor Isabel Paterson when she said:<br /><br />"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends." <br /><br />and further:<br /><br />"Perhaps then he is to do only what is actually "good" for others. But will those others know what is good for them? No, that is ruled out by the same difficulty. Then shall A do what he thinks is good for B, and B do what he thinks is good for A? Or shall A accept only what he thinks is good for B, and vice versa? But that is absurd. Of course what the humanitarian actually proposes is that he shall do what he thinks is good for everybody. It is at this point that the humanitarian sets up the guillotine."<br /><br />https://mises.org/library/humanitarian-guillotine<br /><br />and C.S. Lewis when he said:<br /><br />"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."<br /><br />Maybe these planners, progressives, or democratic socialist apologists of state power didn't mean to be tyrannical. Maybe they were just operating under the "approval of their conscience" (or the devil's). I just find that hard to believe.A Texas Libertarianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02980539931923054404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-648884752216444797.post-22598061303043937492018-05-17T22:56:19.710-07:002018-05-17T22:56:19.710-07:00Does not the whole concept of ‘liberty’ only arise...Does not the whole concept of ‘liberty’ only arise in response to the presence of political rule ? It is the existence of the state which provokes the question of liberty. Absent political control one has no need to speak of liberty. This is why Rothbard’s fundamental project has always been to swap political control for consumer control. In Rothbard’s scheme all services, particularly the provisioning of security and justice, are under direct consumer control. At present we exist in a hybrid of transnational corporation and regional political power centers. In the ultimate realization of Rothbard’s scheme political power must completely give way to integrated layers of privately produced security and justice - administered by insurance companies - themselves governed by consumer’s willingness to purchase policies from them. <br /><br />At this juncture the concern for the question of liberty disappears, replaced by the question of living the life of cultivated leisure. The artist plays the fundamental role in such future society. Different artists offer different visions for the sort of mood and mode the cultivated life should entail. It is just this yet unrealized society of cultivated leisure, and not the pursuit of liberty, toward which Rothbard’s philosophy finally tends. <br /><br />The goal then is to swap out the utilitarian economic society of past and present for the future society of cultivated leisure. We can only imagine the sort of wondrous relations such a society might bestow. What is clear is that they will be of a far finer type, existing in a much nobler and more pleasant atmosphere, than the brutish, oppressive, and insufferably dull relations we know today. <br />Victorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12985538497409080098noreply@blogger.com