An individual kills someone—for money, out of jealousy, as an act of revenge, or because he doesn’t like his victim’s looks. A chorus of left-”liberals” rushes in to excuse his act, especially if he is poor. He is not responsible, they say. The real criminal is “Society,” for having allowed him to live in the conditions that led him to kill.
Another individual owns a refrigerator, an air conditioner, and an automobile or SUV. This time, a chorus of left-”liberals” rushes in and pronounces him guilty. He is allegedly guilty of causing “global warming,” by virtue of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by the burning of the fossil fuels required to produce and operate his goods.
The “innocent” killer is not to be punished but “rehabilitated.” The “guilty” owner of the appliances and automobile or SUV, however, is to be punished. He is to be prohibited from continuing with his evil ways. He is to be compelled by the force of law to do his part in reducing global carbon dioxide emissions, which means, he is ultimately to be deprived of his goods or, at best, to be made to accept radically smaller, less effective substitutes for them.
Clearly, there is something very wrong here. What is wrong is the influence of the philosophy of collectivism.
Collectivism considers the group—the collective—to be the primary unit of social reality. It views the collective as having real existence, separate from and superior to that of its members, and as thinking and acting, and as the source of value. At the same time, it regards the individual as an essentially inconsequential cell in the superior, living collective organism. It is on this basis that the loss of an individual’s life is considered to be of no great consequence, with the result that whatever the killer of an individual might be guilty of, it is viewed as not all that serious in the first place. And then, the killer’s actions, it is held, do not emanate from within himself but from the collectively determined circumstances in which he lives.
By the same token, if the collective, consisting of billions of individuals consuming fossil fuels over two centuries or more, is responsible for releasing enough carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere to raise the average surface temperature of the Earth, then each and every individual now alive and who consumes fossil fuels is held to be responsible for the phenomenon, because no distinction is made between the individual and the collective. This is the basis on which the owner of the appliances and vehicle is held to be “guilty.” His individual emissions of carbon dioxide are seen as part and parcel of the emissions of carbon dioxide by all the members of the carbon-dioxide emitting collective taken together and as responsible for their effect.
There is a different, diametrically opposed philosophy, which has all but been forgotten. It is rarely, if ever, taught in our “culturally diverse” educational system, whose diversity consists in the teaching of numerous varieties of collectivism and the employment of many varieties of collectivists, all the while almost totally excluding this fundamentally different point of view. The name of this different philosophy is individualism. Its most important advocates are Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand.
According to individualism, only individuals exist; collectives consist of nothing but individuals. Only the individual thinks; only the individual acts; only the life of the individual has value and is important. All rights are rights of individuals.
On the basis of individualism, the life taken by a killer is the worst possible loss to the victim and an enormous loss to anyone who loved him. Moreover, that loss of life is the result of action that the killer chose to perform and did not have to perform. He is therefore responsible for a terrible loss and deserves to be severely punished, even to the point of losing his own life.
In contrast, no individual, and no voluntary association of individuals acting for a common purpose, such as a business corporation, is responsible for any perceptible rise in the surface temperature of the world or for any harm that could result to anyone from such a rise. When it comes to global warming, the human individual is innocent! Nor is the human “race” guilty. There is no human race apart from the individuals who comprise it. Any attempt to punish an allegedly guilty human race reduces to the attempt to punish innocent individuals.
Thus everyone must stand back and keep his hands off our appliance and vehicle owner. He has done absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, the very existence of his possessions implies that he has done a considerable amount that is right and good. He has improved his own life and probably that of family members and friends by his acquisition and use of his goods. And he has had to do good to others, in order to be able to earn the money that enabled him to buy his goods. To earn that money, he had to produce goods and services that others judged to be of more value to them than the money they paid him.
The conclusion that follows from this is that we should wish this individual well and hope for his continued and even greater success and good fortune in the future, and wish the same for all other peaceful individuals. This is known as having good will toward one’s fellow man.
Having introduced the perspective of individualism, let us now concede for the sake of argument that there actually is global warming and that the currently prevailing estimates of its future extent and consequences for rising sea levels are all perfectly accurate. (In case anyone has forgotten, those estimates are a rise in average temperature of 4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, accompanied by a 1 to 3 feet rise in sea-levels by that time, culminating in a cumulative rise in sea-levels of 13 to 20 feet in following centuries.) Let us also concede that if the human race did not exist or existed in the much smaller numbers and abject poverty and misery characteristic of the pre-industrial era, there would be no global warming or at least significantly less of it.
We have shown that this global warming, and any damage it may do, is still not the product of any individual human being. Nor is it the product of any such actual entity as “the human race.” There is no such actual entity. At the very most, global warming is a cumulative, unintended byproduct of human behavior for which no one is responsible.
A phenomenon for which no human being is responsible is an act of nature. That is the category to which all global warming belongs. It is an act of nature. It is an act of nature whether it comes about, as it did more than once in geologic time, in the absence of human beings from the planet, or in the presence of human beings. To repeat, it is an act of nature even when it is the unintended cumulative byproduct of the actions of billions of human beings. None of those human beings is responsible as an individual and there is no human “race” that is responsible.
With the interfering cobwebs of collectivism out of the way, and seeing global warming now as a phenomenon of nature, we are in a position to consider the question of how human beings should deal with global warming and with the wider question of how they should deal with climate change in general. For someday, there certainly will be climate change. If not global warming in this century, then, certainly, in some other century. And if not global warming, then a new ice age, which, according to some accounts is already overdue, and which mankind’s carbon dioxide emissions may have served merely to postpone.
The question of how to deal with climate change, in turn, is subsumed by the broader question of how should human beings deal with physical reality in meeting their needs and wants. It is part of that question.
And that question has already been answered—by the science of economics—and answered beyond all honest dispute. The only way for human beings to meet their needs and wants in an efficient and progressively improving way is if they produce under a system of division of labor and monetary exchange, which in turn rests on a foundation of private ownership of the means of production and economic freedom. The name for this system, of course, is capitalism. (A much smaller number of human beings than are now alive could survive without this system, as our ancestors survived, namely, as essentially self-sufficient farmers. But they would live in the poverty and misery of our ancestors, and, as stated, their number would be relatively small—a billion or so versus our present six billion or more.) For the present number of human beings to survive and to be able to enjoy the comforts, conveniences, and luxuries now found throughout the modern, industrial economies of the world, capitalism and its economic freedom are essential.
Economic freedom is what is required to cope with global warming, global freezing, or any other form of large-scale environmental or social change. If global warming turns out to be a fact, the free citizens of an industrial civilization will have no great difficulty in coping with it—that is, of course, if their ability to use energy and to produce is not crippled by the environmental movement and by government controls otherwise inspired. (This applies even to responses to natural disasters, such as hurricanes and floods, that allegedly will occur in connection with global warming. The response of a free market would be typified by that of the Biloxi, Mississippi gambling casinos in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Within months of being freed of restriction to riverboats and being allowed for the first time to locate on land, they sprang into existence ready and eager for action, in the midst of otherwise unrelieved devastation and paralysis, as most property owners waited for government aid from FEMA. The casino owners were fortunate in being ineligible for such aid and so took immediate action on their own. On this subject, see my blog post of March 14, 2006.)
The seeming difficulties of coping with global warming, or any other large-scale change, arise only when the problem is viewed from the collectivist perspective of government central planners. It would be too great a problem for government bureaucrats to handle, as is the production even of an adequate supply of wheat or nails, as the experience of the whole socialist world has shown. But it would certainly not be too great a problem for tens and hundreds of millions of free, thinking individuals living under capitalism to solve. It would be solved by means of each individual being free to decide how best to cope with the particular aspects of global warming that affected him.
Individuals would decide, on the basis of profit-and-loss calculations, what changes they needed to make in their businesses and in their personal lives, in order best to adjust to the situation. They would decide where it was now relatively more desirable to own land, locate farms and businesses, and live and work, and where it was relatively less desirable, and what new comparative advantages each location had for the production of which goods. Factories, stores, and houses all need replacement sooner or later. In the face of a change in the relative desirability of different locations, the pattern of replacement would be different. Perhaps some replacements would have to be made sooner than otherwise. To be sure, some land values would fall and others would rise. Whatever happened, individuals would respond in a way that minimized their losses and maximized their possible gains. The essential thing they would require is the freedom to serve their self-interests by buying land and moving their businesses to the areas rendered relatively more attractive, and the freedom to seek employment and buy or rent housing in those areas.
Given this freedom, the totality of the problem would be overcome. This is because, under capitalism, the actions of the individuals, and the thinking and planning behind those actions, are coordinated and harmonized by the price system (as many former central planners of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have come to learn). As a result, the problem would be solved in exactly the same way that tens and hundreds of millions of free individuals have solved much greater problems than global warming, such as redesigning the economic system to deal with the replacement of the horse by the automobile, the settlement of the American West, and the release of the far greater part of the labor of the economic system from agriculture to industry.
This is not to deny that important problems of adjustment would exist if global warming did in fact come to pass. But whatever they would be, they would all have perfectly workable solutions. The most extreme case would be that of the Maldive Islanders, in the Indian Ocean, all of whose land might disappear under water. The population of the Maldive Islands is less than two hundred thousand people. In 1940, in a period of a few days, Great Britain was able to evacuate its army of more than three hundred thousand soldiers from the port of Dunkirk, under the threat of enemy gunfire. Surely, over a period of decades, the opportunity for comfortable resettlement could be arranged for the people of the Maldives.
Even the prospective destruction of much of Holland, if it could not be averted by the construction of greater sea walls, could be dealt with by the very simple means of the United States and Canada joining with the European Union in extending the freedom of immigration to Dutch citizens. If this were done, then in a relatively short time, the economic losses suffered as the result of physical destruction in Holland would hardly be noticed, and least of all by most of the former Dutchmen.
For densely populated, impoverished countries with low-lying coastal areas, like Bangladesh and Egypt, the obvious solution is for those countries to sweep away all of the government corruption and underlying irrational laws and customs that stand in the way of large-scale foreign investment and thus of industrialization. This is precisely what needs to be done in these countries in any case, with or without global warming, if their terrible poverty and enormous mortality rates are to be overcome. If they do this, then the physical loss of a portion of their territory need not entail the death of anyone, and, indeed, their standard of living will rapidly improve. If they refuse to do this, then nothing but their own irrationality should be blamed for their suffering. The threat of global warming, if there is really anything to it, should propel them into taking now the actions they should have taken long ago.
Indeed, it would probably turn out that if the necessary adjustments were allowed to be made, global warming, if it actually came, would prove highly beneficial to mankind on net balance. For example, there is evidence suggesting that it would postpone the onset of the next ice age by a thousand years or more and that the higher level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is supposed to cause the warming process, would be highly beneficial to agriculture by stimulating the growth of vegetation. Growing seasons too might be extended. Furthermore, any loss of agricultural land, such as that which is supposed to take place in low-lying areas as the result of higher sea levels, would be far more than compensated for by vast quantities of newly useable land in central Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Greenland.
Whether global warming comes or not, it is certain that nature will sooner or later produce major changes in the climate. To deal with those changes and virtually all other changes arising from whatever cause, man absolutely requires individual freedom, science, and technology. In a word, he requires the industrial civilization constituted by capitalism. What he does not require is the throttling of his ability to act, by the environmental movement. If it really is the case that the average mean temperature of the world will rise a few degrees in the next century as the result of the burning of fossil fuels and of other modern industrial processes, the only appropriate response is along the lines of being sure that more and better air conditioners are available.
In absolutely no case would the appropriate response be that of the environmentalists, who seek to throttle and destroy industrial civilization by means of massive restrictions on the use of energy. The environmentalist solution to global warming is the diametric opposite of economic freedom and the pursuit of material self-interest that it allows and the economic success that that pursuit brings. The environmentalist solution is the massive violation of economic freedom and the imposition of massive economic sacrifice, in the insane belief that the way to cope with the destructive forces of nature is to deprive man of his means of coping with them, as though he, and not nature were the cause of those destructive forces, as though nature, left to itself, were benign.
Yes, man’s economic activity can sometimes have negative by-products, on the scale of droplets of harm compared with tank-car loads of good. There have been two centuries of the most rapid economic progress and improvement in the history of the world, elevating the lives of hundreds of millions of people above that of the kings and emperors of history, and holding out the potential for the whole population of the world to be similarly elevated. If the price of this scale of good is to be the existence of higher sea-levels and some very bad weather, that is a tiny price indeed. And the answer to the bizarre fears of such things is that under capitalism, man will deal with any such negative forces of nature resulting as by-products of his activity in precisely the same successful way that he regularly deals with the primary forces of nature.
Primitive man, the ideal of the environmentalists, was incapable of successfully coping with climate changes. Modern man, thanks to industrial civilization and capitalism, is capable of successfully coping with climate changes. To do so, it is essential that he ignore the environmentalists and not abandon the intellectual and material heritage that elevates him above primitive man. The grandchildren of those who endured World War II and its massive air raids and battles on land and sea, to preserve the freedom and way of life of the Western World from tyranny, should not now run away in terror from the threat of hurricanes and floods. Moreover, adopting the program of the environmentalists and throttling the production of energy, will not save the condos in South Florida or the Malibu beachfront, or any thing else of value. They will be useless without the energy production required for people to access them and enjoy them. And when hurricanes and floods come, as they inevitably do, those who have adopted the environmentalists’ program will simply be unable to cope with them.
Marxian “scientific socialism” was collectivism in its boisterous, arrogant youth. Environmentalism is collectivism in its demented old age. It will be much easier to overcome than was Marxism. Marxism, however falsely and dishonestly, at least promised major positives: the unlocking of human potential and the achievement of future material prosperity. Environmentalism is reduced to trying to find terrified people with less than the mentality of children, to whom it can offer the prospect of avoiding wind and rain. It is the intellectual death rattle of collectivism. When it has been overcome, a world-embracing capitalist economy will be able to come into existence and be capable in fact of achieving unprecedented economic progress and prosperity across the entire globe.
This article is copyright © 2006, by George Reisman. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.capitalism.net is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved. The last portion of this article was adapted from pp. 88-95 of the author’s Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996). The author is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics
{ 189 comments }
← Previous Comments
Lee wrote:
“Among the unprovable assumptions.
That all humans have equal moral capacity
That (complete and unfettered except as to actual harm of others, given the use you make of this assumption) indepedence is an a priori good.
That property rights (againn, unfettered) are a natural extensin of the self.”
BillG responds:
thanks Lee…
I thought I would just respond to a few of your criticism to see if it may or may not be fruitful for us to continue discussion.
1. what other conditions besides some type of mental deficiency would keep men from being born with the same capacity to act equally moral?
2. not that independence is an “a priori good” but rather that it is an inevitable factual condition of being born human.
3. not that “property rights are a natural extension of self” but that labor is a natural extension of self and labor then defines property rights.
I suspect I’m nto going to change yor mind, or vice versa, but here goes. BTW let me be clear; I’m not (necesarily) arguing that your definition of rights are bad r taht I necessarily disagree with them (although I do with some, not with others, based on my own values system), just that they are a construct, not PROVABLE from necessarily true first principles.
1. Why do you exclude those? Including those, why are there necessarily no others? Let me make clear; I think this is the strongest (as in most utilitarian) of your assumptions. My point it, it IS an assumption. And as you just pointed out, one that is clearly violated in at lesst some cases.
2. I suspect we need to be careful aobut what ‘independence’ means. Independence of action is by no means an inevitable factual condition of being human; my children will be happy to confirm this for you, most forcefully right after I’ve denied them somethign they want. Neither is independence of ‘existence,’ we humans are social animals and do not do well in the absense of others around us. We are, strictly, speaking biologically and physically separate; that does not mean we are ‘independent’ by any criterion beyond simple physical separation. We tend to carve out zones of autonomous action, amid other zones of interdependent action, and where the borders are tends to vary widely among people. Independence (in any absolute sense from which one can derive unqualified conclusions) is at least an assumption, and IMO a weak one because likely in too many cases to be overtly false.
3. The first half is fine, if a bit tautological; my labor is the labor I do. The second half does not follow. That my labor creates a property right in the fruits of that labor is either an assumption, or a construct from a set of derived rights, not a necessary conclusion. IMO, acting as if this is NECESSARILY TRUE (as opposed to most often being agreed upon as good) is dangerous; I pretty strongly suspect my value system regardign this differs from that of the inhabitants of this site quite strongly, and may even get my beliefs branded as ‘evil’ within your postulates by at least some here. That’s a pretty dangerous thing, IMO.
Lee wrote:
“My point is, it [all humans have the capacity to act equally moral] IS an assumption
BillG responds:
the human capacity of self-awareness and choice is common to the species, and human beings are biologically one species therefore the capacity to act equally moral is that pertaining to human action: purposeful behavior, rather than behavior governed mainly by genetic programming or instinct.
each person therefore has a personal ethic by which any act that one experiences or that one can imagine has a determined moral value…each person can designate any act as good, evil, or neutral, according to his/her own personal ethic.
the moral value (good, evil, neutral) of any act is determined at the moment it is performed.
Sure, if you reduce this to a tautology, it is true but meaningless:
————
BillG responds:
the human capacity of self-awareness and choice is common to the species, and human beings are biologically one species therefore the capacity to act equally moral is that pertaining to human action: purposeful behavior, rather than behavior governed mainly by genetic programming or instinct.
each person therefore has a personal ethic by which any act that one experiences or that one can imagine has a determined moral value…each person can designate any act as good, evil, or neutral, according to his/her own personal ethic.
the moral value (good, evil, neutral) of any act is determined at the moment it is performed.
———-
Humans act, acts have (good, bad, or indiffirnet) moral value, so human actions have moral value. If all you are sayign is that human actin shave moral value and when you include good, bad OR NEUTRAL you make this so even with no moral conseqe3unces; not very useful), that is true by definition. But that isnt moral capacity. Moral capacity is the abiltiy to act in ways that intentionally influence the moral conseqeunces of one;s actions. Remove this elemenmt of intent, and you might as well assign moral capability to at ree when its fallign branch hurts someone.
You broached this point in passing, but sloughed it off when getting to the meat of whether ***of necesity*** the moral capacity of all humans is equal.
The issue is whether a priori it can be known that all humans have equal moral capacity, or whether this is an assumption and unprovable (and iMO, probably wrogn; you already mentioned examples). As a trivial (but deadly to your point) example, I often make choice swith weighty moral cosnequences regardign the wellbeing andfuture of my family. I don’t allow my children to make those choices, because they lack (among other things) morally capacity to dot so. Not from deficiency, in their case, but from lack of experieince, education, and developmentally-derived thinking abilities that gives them sufficient foresighttto eexamine the moral conseqeunces of their decisions. If you want to exclude children (and that alone removes ‘all people,’ I can apply the same argument to many classes of adult people. They dont have EQUAL moral capacity, even if they have SOME moral capacity.
“YOU are the one claimign that we need to continue with major changes in the planet TODAY in order to possibly prevent a possible event at some unspecified time probably far in the future, adn when I point out that most of the curent science suports that “probably far in the future’ part, you respond with these blathering unsupported accusations against scientists who dont agree with you.”
When you say that the science supports you you are making it up. Your position is untenable since it is you who are simply assuming that the reality of the last three and a half million years can be dismissed. You are the one wanting intervention since you are the one wanting other peoples money to be spent.
The science does not support your position. THE SCIENCE DOES NOT SUPPORT YOUR POSITION. If it did you would have some evidence beyond simply posting speculative studies from folks who agree with you. We could do that all day. Making links doesn’t mean a damn thing. What is your reasoning.
You want to impose costs. Yet the science runs the other way?
Why?
Lee wrote:
“The issue is whether a priori it can be known that all humans have equal moral capacity, or whether this is an assumption and unprovable”
BillG responds:
I don’t think “equal moral capacity” and “capacity to act equally moral” are quite the same concept once we take away the obvious conditions of children and those who are mentally deficient.
yours seems to refer to a cpacity after life experiences whereas I am talking about the capacity prior to life experiences as in potential.
“YOU are the one making the claim that dumping carbon into the air isnnecessary to save us from glaciation. I poionted out the wekanesses of yor claim in my last post; yo failed to respond to a single part of it.”
No there is no weakness to my claim. You simply assert otherwise. You just make it up.
The burden of proof is on you and obviously so since it is you that wants to steal off people for this alleged problem. But you haven’t shown a problem. Rather we have a situation that may be being corrected by Capitalism. Or dumb luck if you will.
Now stop talking nonsense and pretending science is on your side.
Look, Graeme, Ive tried posting links to the reseaerch, I’ve tried explainign why it is relevant, I’ve corrected yor misrepresentatinof the logic, Ive posted the actual cycle graph shpowing that it is in fact changing shape right now, and the timing of the past is NOT like the timing of the future, I have explained and reexplained and reexplained when you attribute to me quotes or ideas that arent mine, and you continue to refuse to address that, and you continue to refuse to beleive that I actually beleive what I say I beleive, in favor of crude ad hominem attacks and refusals to address any of this except by accusing me and many, many others of lying.
And you wonder why your posts arent making it onto RC.
I’m done with you; you are dishonest, and mildly lunatic.
If anyone else here wants to discuss this, reasonably and with a minimum of ad hominem or mouth-frothing accusations, I’m happy to do so as my time is availalbe. I have to say, Graeme here is not giving me a very good impression of your site.
“Graeme YOU ARE THE ONE saying that we need to be dumping carbon NOW in order to over-ride glaciation.”
No. You’re wrong. I’m not asking anyone to spend one dollar on my account. Your side is asking for costs to be incurred. Wrong-way Corrigans the lot of you. Risking glaciation, imposing costs, reducing yields. What could be more insane then this?
You can read Charles Mackays “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”
and you will not find anything like this for sheer derangement.
“I’m done with you; you are dishonest, and mildly lunatic.”
That’s leftist projection. Every claim you’ve made you’ve made up. One minute you point to ‘forcing’ and say its all a done deal. Next you claim that there will eventually be glaciation again. You cite links claiming proof when its clear that the links are speculative. You want to impose costs even when the tendency is towards glaciation.
If you weren’t part of a mass movement we would have to diagnose you a lunatic right off the bat.
A question to the entire site, if I may?
Is this Graeme lunatic representative of all or most of you? I’m enjoying, being mildly challenged and made to think by my conversation with Bill, and that is encouraging, but if Graeme is representative of what this site has to offer, I am SO out of here.
I think everyone will be glad when this argument ends–and ends without anyone being banned. So one of you please let the other one just have the last word. Please.
I’ll take the last word.
Take it to emails. There I might be able to drag some authentic evidence out of you. I asked you to take it to emails many posts back.
Lee
You’re labouring under certain rigidly held assumptions yourself. This argument is epistemological. It relates to identification and the formation and use of concepts.
First let’s check premise. Unfortunately you are a collectivist. Your approach proceeds with treating the concept “group” as a being and as a real entity. Yet that concept is not an actual physical entity in reality. The notion of a group is a conceptual tool used by people to deal with certain aspects of reality in their thought. It’s based on a classification used to address attributes of certain individual entities and is a tool of logic- nothing more. Treating the idea “group” as a real entity is a grave error to make. Assigning to a group the attributes of the individual entities within it or the results of those attributes is likewise erroneous. The attributes are possessed solely by each individual member.
For example, that Siotu possesses two eyes and is able to be categorised as a member of a group of people with two eyes does not mean that said group possesses eyes. Each member of the group does. Likewise “group” does not see. Only the individual members are able to do that. They each see (exercise the power or attribute of vision) on an individual basis. The action of seeing is an individual action. It also would be invalid to say that Siotu possesses eyes BECAUSE of his membership of the group of two eyed people. The group does not PROVIDE him with the attribute. He has the attribute and that makes it appropriate to classify him as being a member of that particular group.
The misidentification of the conceptual tool “group” as an actual entity soon leads to ideas that groups have some sort of moral imperative and right in and of themselves as groups. This gets especially misleading when special attributes are assigned to the group that do not attach to the individual entities that make up the group. I note the expression of this in your approach where the individual is unimportant, only the “we.”
You state things such as:
“Rights are a social construct, like ‘race’ or ‘the self.’”
&
“Our rights exist because we (plural; I’ll even use the “C” word: collectively) have defined, demanded, and defended them. At great cost and sacrifice.”
The notion is that rights are an arbitrary developed by group action (whatever that action may happen to be, eg society or the collective possess or produce or define rights etc.). The group acts, not the individual. The “we” act, not the individual. Notice how the individual is thus an expression of a group. The self becomes a social construct. Attributes of the individual are caused by society or the collective or the group. Following this line of thinking the group or collective must have primacy. This, even though it is an arbitrary construct whereas the individual member is real. A classic base-over-apex error!
The problem, at heart, is one of treating something as it isn’t. A misidentification.
Second, you had some sort of problem understanding what was written for you. Let’s check what I actually did write to you with regards to a certain recognition which I named as “Individual Rights” and which I attached to OTHER PEOPLE. Perhaps I should have used another term but let’s stick with it. Repeating my comment to you:
“Next point, promoting freedom for the individual and the absence of coercion is not faith. It’s a recognition. It’s a matter of how people should be treated and is based on a negative obligation that you as an individual bear (as do I), the recognition of Individual Rights (that means OTHER PEOPLE’S).”
No, Lee, I did not postulate the existence of an individual right in the sense that an individual can “possess” rights. I discussed an obligation. You have been very, very naughty in your approach to this and I suspect you may merely be looking for yet another argument. That’s a shame as the practical outcome of these ideas are very serious indeed.
I’ll elaborate a little on what I was referring to. I identified Individual Rights as involving the recognition of a negative obligation. It’s an obligation on you as an individual volitional human. The fundamental obligation is to treat things as they actually are. Let’s examine premise again.
AXIOM: Reality exists and there are entities that exist within it.
PREMISE: I want to live and live well while I do.
CONCLUDE: I am obliged to treat entities as their attributes require. In other words, according to what they are.
For example, one does not eat tower blocks. Consider the attributes of tower blocks and the attributes of one’s own self. It should be readily apparent how to treat a tower block.
Another example, one does not put a Sydney funnel web spider down one’s trousers. Consider the attributes of the Sydney funnel web spider and what is inside one’s trousers. It should be readily apparent how to treat a Sydney funnel web spider.
Get it?
Regarding other people.
The obligation to which I refer can be applied by answering the question, “How should I treat another individual human?” To answer, “according to real attributes” immediately places the negative obligation on you to recognise those attributes and deal with them appropriately. You (and I) treat an individual as such. Not as a herd. Not as an animal. Not as a chattel. Not as a slave. Not as some disembodied by-product of “group”. Not as “society”. Not as social construct. Treat him as he actually exists, as he is, according to his attributes; one of which is volition. An outcome of that means you avoid interfering with a man’s ability to lead his own life, chase his own goals and values and acquire his own property, unless he fails in turn to treat you as an individual (fails to treat Lee as a sovereign independent person by ignoring HIS attributes of being). Then, the attributes expressed by that particular man may require you to treat him in a slightly different fashion.
The alternative is to treat an individual as a tool or a chattel regardless of any attribute/s to the contrary. Now where would that lead? What would result? I’m sure you can well imagine. You have alluded to such results in relation to philosophic systems with which you personally disagree. Anyway, there have been plenty of examples of what does happen when this path is selected. It does not work out well as it is based on an error; treating an entity as something it is not.
The proof of which approach is valid is ostensive although it can also be derived through long and involved philosophical discourse (one variant of which I suspect you may be aware of). As a practical person I prefer ostensive reference to reality, although it is good that there are more formal deductive approaches.
Digressing. Of course should a person choose not to want to live, well then all bets are off. The premise is altered. The obligation vanishes. Now it’s that person versus reality. Results are final! Literally. [if anyone wants to borrow some funnel webs I have two in the garden]
So where does all that leave “collective rights”? Non-existent. There are none.
An arbitrary mental construct like “group” or “collective” has no “rights.” It can’t have as it does not exist. Troubles occur when the concept “group” is imagined as being a real entity and gets dangerous once allowed to suppress existent individuals. Then off go collectivists assigning all sorts of special attributes, privileges, powers and even possessions to imaginary and arbitrarily defined collectives. Too bad for those poor individuals who disagree.
Individuals (who may or may not be classified to whatever group) do exist and each possesses an attribute of being able to act (among other things). How to treat each individual is determined according to the attributes of that individual.
So stick with the real thank you very much. Existent trumps the non-existent. Individuals exist. Deal with them as they are. Leave other people as they are. You, clever as you may regard yourself, do not know better than they how to live THEIR lives.
Sione
PS BTW have you noticed the self contradiction inherent in collectivism? Here’s one, consider how collectivists have to arrive at their conclusions individually and then promote them individually. They may as well be saying, “I am borg.” I still chuckle at that. Collective consciousness!
Rather that deal with that sophistry (I’ll simply note that ‘rights’ have precisly as much real existence as ‘groups’ in your construct) I’ll go back to my original point.
If Reiser is dead, and he is dead because 10,000 people each gave him a sub-lethal dose of arsenic (and therefore no individual killed him) he is still dead, and he is dead because the group killed him. By Reiser’s logic, no individaual killed hiim (because no individual engaged in lethal actions) and no groups can exist, so nothing happened that can kill Reiser. Either that, or he is dead and no one killed him. And yet, he died, and 10,000 individuals contributed to the collective act adn bear teh moral burden of taht murder, whcih Reiser woud by the logic he uses here deny is murder, because individuals cant be responsible for the actions of a group collective that can have no existence.
This idea that one cant be BOTH an individual acting as an indiviual, AND part of a group acting toward group goals of a grou pthat exists A as a group, or that group actions cant exist because indivuals contribute to our pactions, is simply an absurd attempt to attribute mutually-exclusive binary logic to categories where it isn’t applicable.
And with that, I really AM out of here. My team at work is about to collectively release a body of work that none of us could have created individually. I’m going to go back to do some hard work,a dn then revel in my individual responsible contribution to the collective act of creation. But I forget; collectives dont exist, so how can I amigine that a group can accomplish what the individuals of the group could not? Silly me.
Lee’s construct of 10,000 individuals acting individually to administer non-lethal doses of a poison, which collectively is lethal, is a classic example of dropping context. It shows me that Lee does not treat existence as primary but believes that thinks he can imagine have real effect. Lee, answer these questions: How is it that a large number of individuals could simultaneously act collectively to achieve Reiser’s death? Are these individuals exempt from the results of a conspiracy to murder? If you were their defense lawyer, what would be your logic to defend against the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Although you claim that no single dose could kill the victim, this is not a defense against of the charge of intent to cause the victim’s death. Hence, the individuals are individually guilty of murder through their collective actions. They individually murdered their victim; the collective has no identity; individuals do have identity. A is A. 10,000 individuals will die or serve time in prison, depending on their individual sentences.
No you have that wrong. Since we are not talking about arsenic that millions of people are maliciously pouring into the sewers. We are talking about small pollutants put out as a bi-product of production needed for the survival of billions.
Once a country is wealthy enough the level of these pollutants will decrease in any case.
But we are talking about the free fertiliser and glaciation-neutraliser CO2 ( see your own link which was evidence for Me but you ludicrously put it up as if it was a counter-argument).
http://www.nature.com/news/2002/020819/pf/020819-9_pf.html
This link provides no real evidence. But its a statement of some of the scientific opinion that is around. Here we can pull a number of assumptions out of it.
1. The article assumes that glaciation would occur without human-based CO2.
2. The article assumes that glaciation MIGHT (note…. NO CERTAINTY) be delayed for a very long time due to human released CO2.
3. The article however affirms that there WILL BE NO CATASTROPHIC HEATING. This is implied by the following paragraph:
“It is hard to know what the ice sheets will do, says climatologist Thomas Crowley of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He thinks that the ice in Antarctica is very unlikely to disappear. Long after we’ve burnt up all the fossil fuels, “there should still be a pretty big chunk of ice down there”, he says. The Greenland ice sheet might be more susceptible, but possibly not enough to rule out an eventual return to ice-age conditions.”
If there is still ice there then this cannot mean catastrophic heating .
4. A minority opinion is expressed that the next glaciation might not just be delayed. It might be avoided entirely. SUPERB NEWS IF TRUE. Praise be to economic liberty.
Now you posted this in order to try and show that I was ignoring the science. But I have been pushing these very same premises myself.
So its time you wrong-way Corrigans clicked your heels three times and made it back to reality.
So lets be clear about this.
(a) We might avoid a coldness disaster but there is no certainty here.
(b) We WILL avoid an overheating disaster. Here we have some level of certainty.
So what’s the policy prescription? Its obvious. Leave us alone. Don’t force people to incur unecessary costs. This is confirmed BY YOUR OWN LINK. Its your logic and not my science that is at fault.
Ading some accuracy:
1. The article assumes that glaciation would occur AT SOME TIME TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS FROM NOW without human-based CO2.
2. The article assumes that glaciation MIGHT (note…. NO CERTAINTY) be delayed BEYOND ThaT DISTANT PROBABLE TIME for a very long time due to human released CO2.
3. The article however affirms that there WILL BE NO CATASTROPHIC HEATING. This is implied by the following paragraph:
“It is hard to know what the ice sheets will do, says climatologist Thomas Crowley of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He thinks that the ice in Antarctica is very unlikely to disappear. Long after we’ve burnt up all the fossil fuels, “there should (SHOULD) still be a pretty big chunk of ice down there”, he says. The Greenland ice sheet might (MIGHT) be more susceptible, but possibly (POSSIBLY) not enough to rule out an eventual return to ice-age conditions.”
If there is still ice there then this cannot mean catastrophic heating .
—–
Speaking of unfounded absolutes.
“1. The article assumes that glaciation would occur AT SOME TIME TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS FROM NOW without human-based CO2.”
No the article doesn’t imply this you are lying. Heat deficits/surplus coming from the Malinkovitch cycles register as increases/decreases in the ice pretty much on a one to one basis (over the long haul). Things may have changed due to our actions. But that is not what you are inaccurately claiming above. And the article DOES NOT CLAIM WHAT YOU CLAIM.
And there was no cause for your lunatics aspersion against my correct claim that the existence of ice would imply no catastrophic heating.
Once again I will point out that it is not a failure of science on our side. But that it is instead a failure of reason and basic honestly on your side that is the cause of the disagreement.
Graeme, if you are going to accuse me of lying, you might at least avoid doing so with the referent lying right there for all to see:
“But we now know that today’s conditions are not like those of the last warm period, the Eemian, which was around 125,000 years ago. The ice-age cycle is caused by slow, periodic changes in the shape and position of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This time around, those changes are less pronounced than they were during the Eemian.
On such grounds alone, scientists have predicted since the 1980s that the present interglacial period might last up to 70,000 years.”
ON SUCH GROUNDS ALONE, Graeme.
Gentlemen
Lee is wilfully obtuse, mischaracterises what was provided for him and consistently evades the point. Either that or he honestly has some sort of trouble understanding what was provided for him. The less charitable would say he is dishonest (echoing what the Matai said about socialists and suchlike). I can see why people get frustrated with him. There should not be much tolerance for this type.
A few points relating to Lee’s contributions (if you can call them that).
1/. The professor’s surname is Reisman. Professor Reisman. Not Reiser. Lee fails to get even that much correct. It is important to have the courtesy to read and address what is provided for oneself by others, surely.
This leads to the question about why Lee stooped to attacking the professor by making up such a deliberately offensive analogy. It was completely unnecessary. One could imagine the howls had anyone postulated a scenario where Lee received a right brutal hiding at the hands of the Vatu. I conclude that Lee was here only for the sake of promoting his dogma, stroking his ego and the hell with anyone who dared contest his sacred revelations.
2/. Lee’s analogy of ten thousand poisoners (how silly was that) merely illustrates that each individual acts. Each INDIVIDUAL is responsible for HIS action.
The concept of “group” is an intellectual tool, as previously described, and does not exist as a real physical entity. It is an intellectual tool used as a way of dealing with aspects of reality. In this case it is a shorthand for dealing with 10,000 separate individuals who commit 10,000 similar actions. Now that does not mean that individuals can’t associate to undertake an activity or task. Obviously they can and do. Each can contribute to a project but each contributes his own individual actions as an individual. Among other things this allows for specialisation of labour (which is good). Note that it is each individual that bears the consequences of the project outcome according to his particular situation and context (very important to realise that). Lee evades any of this.
3/. Here is another important issue to understand. In Lee’s analogy it is KNOWN with complete certainty that each member of the group of poisoners acts in a certain way (known as Lee said so, it’s one of his premises for the analogy) and the result is KNOWN (Lee revealed that as well, it’s another of his premises for the analogy). A direct causal link is established (a most important part of his premise). That is NOT something that has been established with certainty in relation to Man and climate change. Even if it could be, there is still a chain of logical proofs to follow in order to get from the problem to a valid justification of coercive collectivisation as the final solution. I doubt such a conclusion could found to be valid.
Another issue of context hidden in Lee’s analogy. Lee and the 10,000 poisoners conspire to undertake a specific task. They agree to act in concert to kill by poisoning. They are organised to execute Lee’s unkind plan. Another way of looking at it is that they have formed intent to harm another individual. That is an organised criminal enterprise. Have individuals who use fossil fuels formed an intent of this nature? Clearly not!
4/. An analogy is not “the same as”. There may be similarities between a real situation and the analogy but it needs to be very carefully determined whether a particular analogy is illustrative or merely a hindrance; an error. Therefore always check premise and check context.
5/. A major error has been identified in Lee’s epistemology. It is serious enough to undermine his system of thought and invalidate much of his stated position.
The lesson in this debate has been the shallow and wilfully dishonest nature of those who would justify the initiation and use of coercive force against other individuals. It all comes down to the conceit of assuming to know better than another man how he should live HIS life. Answers to problems are not to be found in that manner; only more problems.
Sione
“On such grounds alone, scientists have predicted since the 1980s that the present interglacial period might last up to 70,000 years.”
Not without homo sapiens. And no I dispute that. Find some folks in the 1980′s who were saying that. Probably they were making an ambit case against the hysterical freeze soothsayers of the time. That would have been an EXTREME minority. And I suggest to you that this is just leftist re-writing of history.
You see freedom………. FREEDOM!!!!!!….. freedom, or economic liberty, is the middle ground. The place where the sensible people hang. One crowd has their hand out trying to grab money saying avoid this. Another crowd have their hands out trying to grab oney saying avoid the opposite.
But libertarians and near libertarians and even some anarcho-capitalists. We are sensible people and not easily spooked.
“Not without homo sapiens. And no I dispute that. ”
Graeme, what precisely do you think the pharase “on such grounds alone” means?
1/. The professor’s surname is Reisman.
L – For this, my apologies. I have recently been reading a Reiser; I confused names. Mea Culpa. Move on.
My analogy was chosen to be stark; y’all were indulging in self-congratulations for having proven the lack of individual responsibility in any consequences of carbon exhaust, and I was inciting a response. It worked.
2/. Lee’s analogy of ten thousand poisoners (how silly was that) merely illustrates that each individual acts. Each INDIVIDUAL is responsible for HIS action.
The concept of “group” is an intellectual tool, as previously described, and does not exist as a real physical entity. It is an intellectual tool used as a way of dealing with aspects of reality. In this case it is a shorthand for dealing with 10,000 separate individuals who commit 10,000 similar actions. Now that does not mean that individuals can’t associate to undertake an activity or task. Obviously they can and do. Each can contribute to a project but each contributes his own individual actions as an individual. Among other things this allows for specialisation of labour (which is good). Note that it is each individual that bears the consequences of the project outcome according to his particular situation and context (very important to realise that). Lee evades any of this.
L – But Sione, this is precisely my point!!! Reisman attempted to exculpate each contributor to the rise in CO2 as being utterly without responsibility for his own actions, simply because each individual makes a sub-threshold contribution to the collective consequence of all those individual actions. He made this argument independently of the question of whether that rise has consequences; it was a general argument about the nature of indivuidual responsibility for collective consequences, not an argument that they are innocent because of a lack of consequences. That was precisely what my analogy was trying to illustrate; Reisman attempted to excuse any responsibility ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT WAS COLLECTIVE, while denying the reality of a collective. How silly is THAT?.
This is precisely what he said:
“In contrast, no individual, and no voluntary association of individuals acting for a common purpose, such as a business corporation, is responsible for any perceptible rise in the surface temperature of the world or for any harm that could result to anyone from such a rise. When it comes to global warming, the human individual is innocent! ”
He defends this on the ground that each individual action is sub-threshold; that is his intended point. Yes, I’m grinding the axe here a bit; you guys seem to be missing this central point.
3/. Here is another important issue to understand. In Lee’s analogy it is KNOWN with complete certainty that each member of the group of poisoners acts in a certain way (known as Lee said so, it’s one of his premises for the analogy) and the result is KNOWN (Lee revealed that as well, it’s another of his premises for the analogy). A direct causal link is established (a most important part of his premise). That is NOT something that has been established with certainty in relation to Man and climate change. Even if it could be, there is still a chain of logical proofs to follow in order to get from the problem to a valid justification of coercive collectivisation as the final solution. I doubt such a conclusion could found to be valid.
L – This is a different argument; Reisman was addressing the issue of individual responsibility IN GENERAL, with an argumetn that if valid at all, must be valid whenever there is a responsibility to assign to the individuals. You are defending a different point, not his. Clearly, if warming has no deleterious consequence, or if warming isn’t happening, then there is no individual responsibility for the contributors to that collective non-event. But if there are deleterious consequences, Reisman says, NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM because each individual contribution is sub some arbitrary threshold. He grants harm for the sake of his argument, and then excuses individual responsibility for the harm.
Another issue of context hidden in Lee’s analogy. Lee and the 10,000 poisoners conspire to undertake a specific task. They agree to act in concert to kill by poisoning. They are organised to execute Lee’s unkind plan. Another way of looking at it is that they have formed intent to harm another individual. That is an organised criminal enterprise. Have individuals who use fossil fuels formed an intent of this nature? Clearly not!
L – So are you arguing that there is no responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions unless the end result was intended? Surely not. And there is no responsibility for probabilstic outcomes, if there is any potential chance one’s actions aren’t deleterious? I can fire my .38 into the air in the city, say to take out that pesky squirrel, because the odds of the bullet killing someone when it falls is probabilitically very low? I certainly hope not. And yet, the oft-repeated requirement for absolute proof here is simply a denial of any moral power to probabilistic arguments. What if there is a 20% chance that warming will flood 50 million people from their homes? A 50% chance? A 90% chance? Do you recognize the presense of a threshold? Given that you have said that the good, bad, or neutral weight of an act attaches at the point it is committed, if you say, well, I’ll take the risk at 40%, as an individual choice (with the risk attacheing to other for your action, remember), are you then absolved of moral consequences if warming-induced flooding then occurs? Recall, this is an discussion on the nature of the argument; REsiman assumed harm. The questions reagarding consequences of carbon release is a different discusion.
4/. An analogy is not “the same as”. There may be similarities between a real situation and the analogy but it needs to be very carefully determined whether a particular analogy is illustrative or merely a hindrance; an error. Therefore always check premise and check context.
L – Well, sure. The context is the nature of responsibility for individual contributions to effects that only reach deleterious threshold if engaged in by many. Reisman argues that there is no such individual responsibility:
“We have shown that this global warming, and any damage it may do, is still not the product of any individual human being. Nor is it the product of any such actual entity as “the human race.” There is no such actual entity. At the very most, global warming is a cumulative, unintended byproduct of human behavior for which no one is responsible.”
He is arguing overtly that even if is is known that individual acts lead to harmful consequences (remember, he allowed this for the sake of argument) in aggregate, that THERE IS NO RESPONSIBILITY so long as that outcome is unintended and no one is announcing a conspiracy to engage in such acts. This is also absurd. Change my analogy to ten thousand random individuals each discarding a bit of poison, on the grounds that “my pollutant is too small to matter” and in aggregate, the ten thousand of us poisoning a piece of land or a person, and Reisman says each of us can not be guilty. Right. I thought individual responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions was the heart of your philosophy?
5/. A major error has been identified in Lee’s epistemology. It is serious enough to undermine his system of thought and invalidate much of his stated position.
L – Precisely what error is that? And not in yours? Reisman argues that, because of the primacy of indiidual responsiblity for one;s actins, that peopel cnat be held individually responsible for actions that hve ocnseuences in aggregate. Bzzzttt…
The lesson in this debate has been the shallow and wilfully dishonest nature of those who would justify the initiation and use of coercive force against other individuals. It all comes down to the conceit of assuming to know better than another man how he should live HIS life. Answers to problems are not to be found in that manner; only more problems.
Sione
L – And corkscrewing one’s stated value system in order to excuse individual responsibility for subthreshold contributins to clearly harmful aggregate actions (Reisman granted precisely this for the sake of argument), on the premise that individual responsibility is primal, is not a conceit?
Not to mention that you guys still have not addressed most my listing of the assumptions, based largely on personal values, behind your claimed proof that this is the Only True Moral System, or overtunred my staemtn that they are assumptins for the ones yo have addressed. And I find the easy casting of accusations of dishonesty to be quite telling; denying the honesty of those who disagree with one is a time honored way of avoiding disagreement.
Sione responded:
“Our rights exist because we (plural; I’ll even use the “C” word: collectively) have defined, demanded, and defended them. At great cost and sacrifice.”
The notion is that rights are an arbitrary developed by group action (whatever that action may happen to be, eg society or the collective possess or produce or define rights etc.). The group acts, not the individual. The “we” act, not the individual. Notice how the individual is thus an expression of a group. The self becomes a social construct.
—
Well, no. We’re talking past each other.
I have no problem with the concept that rights and responsibilities reside in the individual. (Although I also argue that accomplishing some of our responsibilities requires group action in concert, and that therefore members of a group can be held responsible for failure to contribute to group actions. I’m sure you disagree. I contend that there is no proof from anything other than assumptions that either is correct).
I have a serious problem with the notion that the proper set of rights is probvable from some set of naturally-correct a priori axioms. I think this beleif is dangerous.
I and you have some set of individually inherent rights and responsibilities. Those rights and responsibilities, IMO, BEST arise out of a market of ideas to which each individual has access. The fact that such rights are defined by collective actions, does NOT mean that the individual only exists as defined by the group. It means taht moral consequence of individual actions that affect others is as defined by the group, not from some set of “a priori” concepts that you identify and adhere to, EVEN IF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE GROUP DISAGREE.
That last is the kicker, and the reason that appeal to supposed a priori unquestionable ruths is dangerous; it denies that differing value systems have value.
“AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT,not as an a priori thing-in-itself. The fact that we agree on those rights does mean those rights exist (for as long as we continue to agree on them; thsu the constant need to defend teh rights we beleive are critical), but it does NOT mean they exist a priori.”
They exist apriori with very few assumptions. But if you agree that the belief in them has utility then absent of apriori or axiomatic proof they would exist for that reason and for that reason alone. Given that their absence, at least on some crude level means that the only principle was might makes right. And then there would be no civilisation under such a negation of some concept of rights or minimum standards.
So that rights are real and can be derived by your agreement as to their utility.
Graeme, that isi what I said!!!!!
You arent responding to my point, you are responding to some imagined other point.
I’m not denying that rights exist. Let me repeat that. ‘m not denying that rights exist.
I am denying that any particular stated or derived set of rights exist as the only proper ones, provable from a priori truths. Unless I’m badly misreading, y’all here seem to be saying that THIS particular set of rights y’all agree n here are the only True and Proper set of rights, presumably because you have Proven them.
Sione even attempted to present such a derivation. He did so right after he asked if I thought it was possible to do so, and right after I pointed out that sure, it was possible, but the derivation would be no more ‘proven’ than the assumptions upon which it rested. He ignored the critical (and impossible) detail of attempting to prove the assumption set, and instead went about using it to construct a demonstration that itself was full of additional assumptions, which I then also poited out. And then, after he ignored that fundamental pint I was making about the assumptions (other than to restate his assumptins, basically), he accused me of being obtuse and dishonest in my responses. Right.
You yourself, right here, admit that there are unproveable assumptions necessary to derive even the existence of rights at all(and again, I’m not disputing the existence of rights; your insistence on demonstrating to me something that I admit and value, rather than address what I am disputing, is getting rather tiresome). If this is true for rights per se, so much more for any particular set of rights.
This dependence on assumptions means that if someone else starts from a different set of unproveable assumptions, based on a different personal value set, they will arrive at a different set of rights. And the tacit assumption that seems to pervade discussion at this site, that any of those different derived set of rights are valueless a priori, by proof of the correctness of YOUR set of rights without further discussion necessary, without any participation in a marketplace of ideas, is in fact a statement that the value systems of people who dont agree with y’all are without value.
And THAT is a damnably dangerous thing.
More rubbish from Lee. He may as well deny reality as he can’t prove it exists!
I wonder whether he understands the term “ostensive”?
Sione
Sione, would you care to inform me exactly what I’m being accused of denying?
You yourself, right here, admit that there are unproveable assumptions necessary to derive even the existence of rights at all(and again
There are unprovable assumptions needed to derive that two plus two is four. So what? (You seem to be implying that if an assumption is unprovable, it’s not necessarily true. This is a false assumption)
Lee
How about responding to what I wrote, not what you’d have liked me to have written?
1/. Your analogy was intended to be offensive toward Professor Reisman from the outset. Also noted is your tone and general demeanour towards other contributors on the blog. It does your cause great harm to behave like this and it is completely unnecessary. If you had intended to raise a serious issue why not raise it civil fashion and address it directly? From the content of your contributions to this blog it is clear you solely came for argument (a little ego stroking). Does that approach validate any of your points? No! Is it a good way to promote your ideas? No!
Perhaps it may not have occurred to you that had you addressed this forum in civil fashion you may have been able to get clarification from the professor himself. I doubt he’s going to respond to the likes of you now. A pity, as he raised some interesting issues. Now all that is available to you (should you be serious about understanding his views) would be to purchase his book “Capitalism” and read it.
2/. Lee, once again you are indeed being dishonest. My point here was not the same as yours at all. Worse for you is that I demonstrated that your analogy does not hold. It contains hidden premise, altered context and operates on a completely different set of principles from those of the professor.
For the record I noted you proceed from collectivist premise.
My understanding of the professor’s line of thought (after he makes a series of important assumptions with respect to climate change and a potential link to Man etc.) is that no individual is responsible with respect to climate change since the addition of CO2 to the atmosphere is a natural outcome of human activity. He characterised it as unintended and cumulative occurring over billions and billions of actions, over centuries. Humans even produce CO2 during respiration. I suspect that he would argue that it is in Man’s nature to alter his surroundings anyway. That’s worth consideration.
He writes:
“We have shown that this global warming, and any damage it may do, is still not the product of any individual human being. Nor is it the product of any such actual entity as “the human race.” There is no such actual entity. At the very most, global warming is a cumulative, unintended by-product of human behaviour for which no one is responsible.
A phenomenon for which no human being is responsible is an act of nature. That is the category to which all global warming belongs. It is an act of nature. It is an act of nature whether it comes about, as it did more than once in geologic time, in the absence of human beings from the planet, or in the presence of human beings. To repeat, it is an act of nature even when it is the unintended cumulative by-product of the actions of billions of human beings. None of those human beings is responsible as an individual and there is no human “race” that is responsible.”
His argument, which I note you failed to produce, represent or address fairly, is not the same as your “sub-threshold” idea. It isn’t even similar.
What you have been attempting to do is smuggle in your own concepts, assumptions and premise (none of which are provable one might add) while attempting to suppress those of the professor. That is an invalid approach.
Note that when I explained to you that each individual bears the consequences of a project outcome according to his particular situation and context I was writing in relation to a specific project such as your publication work or your organisation of a 10,000 strong gang of poisoners. You are attempting to stretch this into quite different context. Note carefully the term, “project.” See also, “particular situation” and “context.” Professor Reisman, on the other hand, is interested in a situation where an occurance is “still not the product of any individual human being.” He goes to some trouble to explain what he means by this.
Context. Probably too subtle for you anyway.
3/. Lee, a different point perhaps, but it is part of the same argument. Remember it was you who chose the analogy. I demonstrated that you smuggled in your premise and this prevented the proper examination of the central issues that were intended for our consideration. Establishing whether the professor’s points are valid requires a serious discussion without misleading analogies, smuggling of false premise and mischaracterisation of what his points actually are.
And so what did you do? Introduce yet more sloppy analogies with different premise and context (this time around you are in the process of utilising the precautionary principle). This is grossly misleading.
“Can’t you think in principles?”
4/. The point remains that your argument by analogy is a hindrance and not illustrative of the idea you may wish to convey. Actually what you appear to be going to great lengths to achieve is to hide the consequences of your intended conclusion and premise. Remember that third issue (coercive collectivisation).
Surely you must (by now) understand that the expression of a central plan with intent and organisation is not the same as billions of individual actions of centuries without such intent and organisation. It is not even similar. Your analogies are rather poor and mislead rather than assist with the identification of salient points and principle.
5/. Your error persists in the use of concepts relating to collectives or groups while minimising or ignoring the importance of individual entities and their attributes. Similarly your acceptance of the arbitrary undermines deductive conclusions on your part. Getting epistemology wrong had the effect of invalidating your entire approach to ethics, politics and so on (probably science as well). That’s too bad as you are not without intelligence.
Now I’d like to clarify what my points were. Here they be:
A/. People adapt. Individuals alter behaviour to suit the changes/challenges they encounter. Problems get solved or ignored (become non-problems). I think Professor Reisman is referring to this when he asks how people should deal with a changing environment.
Digressing; here is an area where great wealth can be generated. Lately I’ve been thinking about where to get more energy. Initially it’s a likely go for more oil from existing wells (geologists report that 90% of the oil remains in our outfit’s wells so I reckon that is crying out for a new technology to get it all out of there, something I’m keen to do). New ways to power transport are under development. Later, some may become popular. For example, Guy Negre’s automobile (which does not need to have fossil fuel, although it can use it as a range extender). Eric Buck’s approach is even better. And MIT built a liquid nitrogen car. As far as powering houses are concerned, that’s much easier. Still, whatever comes into popular use will need to be superior for the purchaser/user (and perceived as such by them). A potential fortune awaits the developer/entrepreneur. Surely that’s the way to proceed? Earn your money. Don’t take it away from others.
BTW I suspect much of the problems in energy, transportation and trade are caused by government intervention in the first place. Even the architecture of cars was fixed by government decree decades ago. It would be most helpful to the emergence of alternative (improved) technologies were the government to get out of research altogether and also stop its hidden subsidisation of its cronies. Stop stealing people’s money. Let them keep it and decide where the product of their labours should be directed. Were this to occur there is the likelyhood that devices with far more utility than the ones we currelty have would be made available. Many of them would not rely on fossil fuels. One is reminded of Bastiat’s warnings about “that which is unseen.”
B/. There is a theme of coercive collectivism that gets mixed into the climate debate without being properly identified and examined. You were guilty of mixing that third theme into the climate change argument. That was the idea coercive collectivism was the final solution to an asserted problem.
C/. There is a chain of logical proofs (previously I identified seven, there may be more) to get from the asserted problem to a political system based on coercive collectivisation as a final solution to said asserted problem. I do not expect this to be achievable.
Finally, we get to your appeals to the notion that everything is arbitrary and unprovable since we must start any proof or argument from some initial conditions. So what? That does not necessarily invalidate a particular argument at all. One needs to examine the argument in its entirety to check its validity (as I have been doing with yours). In this particular case you are executing a variant of the stolen concept error.
In previous discussion I referred to an axiom, existence. I also explained my premise. If you have trouble with those, well that’s too bad, although I expect you implicitly accept them anyway (you have to in order to survive). Let’s just say there is reality and you have to deal with it or you’ll cease to exist as an independent volitional entity soon enough.
One True Moral System? You speak for yourself. Remember you are the one who posits enforcing restrictions against other individuals and expropriating their wealth according to your values. I’m not sure I understand how you come up with your One True Moral System for that. Or even justify it. Anyway, your argument to the arbitrary certainly does not justify coercive collectivism. It opposes it. You DO NOT know better than anyone else how they should live.
With regards to your personal value system, you have built in an internal contradiction. Why should your ideas and values have primacy over everyone else’s? They don’t. How can you justify expropriations of other people’s wealth and enforced restrictions over their lives? You can’t. Your values do not trump theirs. And so you’re hoist by your own petard!
Sione
PS Leave people alone. Perfect your own life.
I believe any hope that Neo-liberal capitalism can solve the problem of climate change will prove to be utterly unfounded. To try to put this right without rectifying the clapped out global financial system is useless and environmentalists doing so will carry on coming up against a brick wall. They need to look at the way this system works and intellectually grow beyond the conditioning that economics and finance can only be understood by economists and financiers.
***New Paragph
***
Let me try to explain. The two main cornerstones of Western economies are usury and speculation. Usury in that almost all of the money in circulation has been electronically created by the commercial banks and is called by them “credit” and is lent to Governments and individuals for quick profit not for a particular motive of world betterment. Nothing moves when electronic money circulates when you use your debit card, direct debits, cheques etc and when Governments borrow money- all that happens is that one account’s data entry is debited (decremented) and another credited, (incremented). So this money can be created at negligible cost to the banks because it exists only as a data entry in the electronic bank accounts and is exchanged between them as such only. The stuff in your wallet/purse created by the Royal Mint for the Bank of England represents a tiny fraction of the ‘money’ that exists, the vast majority has originated as loans created by the commercial banks under this “fractional reserve banking system” and circulates electronically and the profit (interest) accrues to bankers not Governments. Even pretty low corporation tax is often avoided by the use of foreign tax havens, (At least £20 Billion total in the UK per annum avoided at 2003 figures- [War on Want pamphlet]). The need for the continuing increase of the assault on the world’s resources substantially stems from the imperative of “economic growth” which is necessary to keep up with the ever spiralling overall interest payments due on the explosion of different types of loans created by commercial banks and other private interests. I read that the exponential growth in private loans and private credit has been allowed to occur with all its wanton increase in the consumption of resources and debt hardship because of outsourcing by corporations of huge amounts of skilled & unskilled jobs overseas under globalisation (“corporate flight”). To make ends meet governments and individuals in most developing nations have had to be allowed to borrow more and more. I recommend the reading of the internet and books by the US professor of economics Ravi Batra who has a lot of hard hitting and extremely interesting things to say on this matter, http://www.ravibatra.com.
***New Paragph
***
I refer to the ‘cornerstone of Speculation’ in that National economies and their populations are utterly dependant on the $2 Trillion or so (equivalent) that changes hands electronically every DAY- untaxed- around the world on the “financial markets” in search of speculative quick profit unrelated to any exchange of real goods or services. Utterly dependant because National Governments create hardly any of the money that is in circulation at all as I have already explained and they need to compete to keep on attracting this privately created globally mobile electronic money which has become the lifeblood of all our economies. Financiers and corporations increasingly trade IN money not WITH money, since deregulation in the 1980s- eg Removal of foreign capital exchange controls which happened then. Why create, innovate and trade in cumbersome goods when one can make far more far quickly and with far less risk just by moving money and money instruments between computers around the world? Almost all the global financial institutions and even many corporations are at it. A “monstrous global casino” in the words of sustainable columnist Hazel Henderson. Any government that even publicly SPEAKS of restricting it, or taxing it, or significantly environmentally regulating the stock market listed business that it invests in, or getting off the absurd merry-go-round of competing with other nations to clamp down on corporation tax so as to attract essential employment and capital, or creating their OWN electronic money, or even threatening tax havens, faces economically disastrous capital flight to nations NOT doing so within hours on the trading computers on the stock markets and the derivatives computers of the international corporations and banks. You see how the financier oligarchy has got us all over a barrel? No Government dare even publicly consider democratically demanded change to the status quo. No corporation dare significantly reduce the current quick profit return to its international capital investors by SIGNIFICANT investment in alternative forms of energy & transportation as to do so invites a declining share price and capital flight to corporations not doing so. The intellectual economist Lyndon LaRouche in Executive Intelligence Review (see below) actually uses the term “Financier Oligarchy” referring to the way our ‘democracies’ are going under the economic & corporate globalisation I have already described. A POSSIBLE SOLUTION to re-establish control over international capital and corporations by electorates and governments is proposed by “The Simultaneous Policy” at http://www.simpol.org and I believe progressives might feel their strategy warrants consideration.
***New Paragph
***
Most mainstream media outlets are owned by stock market listed corporations. Does anyone believe such a corporation will allow SERIOUS debate in its pages or TV stations, of reform to the international financial system when it is this system that is the investment hand that feeds it, both owning the shares and placing the corporate adverts? Does anyone seriously believe that one example tabloid and TV/news station owning international corporation that currently pays no corporation tax in the UK by the use of tax havens will seriously allow such debate in its media outlets? I’m not suggesting columnists and editors are directly told what to say and what not to, but they know there are limits which they must not cross if they are to retain their jobs which are mostly in the form of shortish term renewable (or not) contract posts. And most of them seem never to have asked themselves what money really is, who creates it, who administers its circulation, who profits from it and why no Government of left OR right credentials strangely refuses to reinstate fair corporate taxation and environmental regulations ONCE IN POWER despite the obvious dire financial state of our public services, worsening annually, and the developed countries paltry aid to the developing ones whose populations are starving to death in their millions monthly for the want of the huge surplus of food per capita that exists worldwide (Some 10%- look up UN Statistics).
***New Paragph
***
I believe that Planet Earth’s environment is in a sad and perilous state which each day brings it nearer to the critical, and that even the most dire prophecy falls short of the calamity facing the world today, (this quote from http://www.share-international.org). Anyone who seriously believes that humanity can burn off gigantic amounts of carbon into the atmosphere daily over some 200 years (in the form of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels) that had been gradually accumulated beneath the earth over hundreds of MILLIONS of years, and while annually cutting down tens of millions of acres of atmosphere purifying tropical forests- all of this without incurring MAJOR upheaval and destruction to the earth’s life supporting natural climate systems- is conditioned and deluded indeed.
***New Paragph
***
I believe that only a total and systemic collapse of the world’s financial system will bring humanity to its senses and- (even though I know this itself would cause major trauma for a while because we have allowed stock market listed corporations to take over most food and energy production and distribution worldwide)- it is my belief and hope that this is coming to pass. (I refer again to the writings of economics professor Ravi Batra). The men of money’s selfish greed and competition is over-reaching itself at long last and the frantic efforts to prop up the system behind the scenes are at long last crumbling. “The REAL economy has fallen out from under the markets which have been artificially propped up by accounting tricks, enormous and unpayable debt loads, and mass delusion on the part of the markets and the public” (John Hoefle banking columnist, and refer also to the writings of economist’s Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review for more information, http://www.larouchepub.com). The signs of the oncoming collapse are obvious for those who look beyond their own narrow interests and look below the surface at powerful people’s MOTIVES- not what they SAY but what they DO and WHY that might be- with objectivity. People who bother to READ & STUDY widely. Anyone who thinks that substantially unrestrained powerful people in today’s out of democratic control globalised capital/corporate world will not try to manipulate to retain and enhance their own selfish interests, and who denounces those who highlight this as “conspiracy theorists”, is deluded and conditioned indeed. They have just not reflected seriously on the sad condition of greed and fear of loss as well as Spiritual poverty and poverty of intellect that dominates the natures of most of our fellow human being financier oligarchs in power. We’ve all got some major waking up to do if we are to survive.
I believe any hope that Neo-liberal capitalism can solve the problem of climate change will prove to be utterly unfounded. To try to put this right without rectifying the clapped out global financial system is useless and environmentalists doing so will carry on coming up against a brick wall. They need to look at the way this system works and intellectually grow beyond the conditioning that economics and finance can only be understood by economists and financiers.
***New Paragph
***
Let me try to explain. The two main cornerstones of Western economies are usury and speculation. Usury in that almost all of the money in circulation has been electronically created by the commercial banks and is called by them “credit” and is lent to Governments and individuals for quick profit not for a particular motive of world betterment. Nothing moves when electronic money circulates when you use your debit card, direct debits, cheques etc and when Governments borrow money- all that happens is that one account’s data entry is debited (decremented) and another credited, (incremented). So this money can be created at negligible cost to the banks because it exists only as a data entry in the electronic bank accounts and is exchanged between them as such only. The stuff in your wallet/purse created by the Royal Mint for the Bank of England represents a tiny fraction of the ‘money’ that exists, the vast majority has originated as loans created by the commercial banks under this “fractional reserve banking system” and circulates electronically and the profit (interest) accrues to bankers not Governments. Even pretty low corporation tax is often avoided by the use of foreign tax havens, (At least £20 Billion total in the UK per annum avoided at 2003 figures- [War on Want pamphlet]). The need for the continuing increase of the assault on the world’s resources substantially stems from the imperative of “economic growth” which is necessary to keep up with the ever spiralling overall interest payments due on the explosion of different types of loans created by commercial banks and other private interests. I read that the exponential growth in private loans and private credit has been allowed to occur with all its wanton increase in the consumption of resources and debt hardship because of outsourcing by corporations of huge amounts of skilled & unskilled jobs overseas under globalisation (“corporate flight”). To make ends meet governments and individuals in most developing nations have had to be allowed to borrow more and more. I recommend the reading of the internet and books by the US professor of economics Ravi Batra who has a lot of hard hitting and extremely interesting things to say on this matter, http://www.ravibatra.com.
***New Paragph
***
I refer to the ‘cornerstone of Speculation’ in that National economies and their populations are utterly dependant on the $2 Trillion or so (equivalent) that changes hands electronically every DAY- untaxed- around the world on the “financial markets” in search of speculative quick profit unrelated to any exchange of real goods or services. Utterly dependant because National Governments create hardly any of the money that is in circulation at all as I have already explained and they need to compete to keep on attracting this privately created globally mobile electronic money which has become the lifeblood of all our economies. Financiers and corporations increasingly trade IN money not WITH money, since deregulation in the 1980s- eg Removal of foreign capital exchange controls which happened then. Why create, innovate and trade in cumbersome goods when one can make far more far quickly and with far less risk just by moving money and money instruments between computers around the world? Almost all the global financial institutions and even many corporations are at it. A “monstrous global casino” in the words of sustainable columnist Hazel Henderson. Any government that even publicly SPEAKS of restricting it, or taxing it, or significantly environmentally regulating the stock market listed business that it invests in, or getting off the absurd merry-go-round of competing with other nations to clamp down on corporation tax so as to attract essential employment and capital, or creating their OWN electronic money, or even threatening tax havens, faces economically disastrous capital flight to nations NOT doing so within hours on the trading computers on the stock markets and the derivatives computers of the international corporations and banks. You see how the financier oligarchy has got us all over a barrel? No Government dare even publicly consider democratically demanded change to the status quo. No corporation dare significantly reduce the current quick profit return to its international capital investors by SIGNIFICANT investment in alternative forms of energy & transportation as to do so invites a declining share price and capital flight to corporations not doing so. The intellectual economist Lyndon LaRouche in Executive Intelligence Review (see below) actually uses the term “Financier Oligarchy” referring to the way our ‘democracies’ are going under the economic & corporate globalisation I have already described. A POSSIBLE SOLUTION to re-establish control over international capital and corporations by electorates and governments is proposed by “The Simultaneous Policy” at http://www.simpol.org and I believe progressives might feel their strategy warrants consideration.
***New Paragph
***
Most mainstream media outlets are owned by stock market listed corporations. Does anyone believe such a corporation will allow SERIOUS debate in its pages or TV stations, of reform to the international financial system when it is this system that is the investment hand that feeds it, both owning the shares and placing the corporate adverts? Does anyone seriously believe that one example tabloid and TV/news station owning international corporation that currently pays no corporation tax in the UK by the use of tax havens will seriously allow such debate in its media outlets? I’m not suggesting columnists and editors are directly told what to say and what not to, but they know there are limits which they must not cross if they are to retain their jobs which are mostly in the form of shortish term renewable (or not) contract posts. And most of them seem never to have asked themselves what money really is, who creates it, who administers its circulation, who profits from it and why no Government of left OR right credentials strangely refuses to reinstate fair corporate taxation and environmental regulations ONCE IN POWER despite the obvious dire financial state of our public services, worsening annually, and the developed countries paltry aid to the developing ones whose populations are starving to death in their millions monthly for the want of the huge surplus of food per capita that exists worldwide (Some 10%- look up UN Statistics).
***New Paragph
***
I believe that Planet Earth’s environment is in a sad and perilous state which each day brings it nearer to the critical, and that even the most dire prophecy falls short of the calamity facing the world today, (this quote from http://www.share-international.org). Anyone who seriously believes that humanity can burn off gigantic amounts of carbon into the atmosphere daily over some 200 years (in the form of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels) that had been gradually accumulated beneath the earth over hundreds of MILLIONS of years, and while annually cutting down tens of millions of acres of atmosphere purifying tropical forests- all of this without incurring MAJOR upheaval and destruction to the earth’s life supporting natural climate systems- is conditioned and deluded indeed.
***New Paragph
***
I believe that only a total and systemic collapse of the world’s financial system will bring humanity to its senses and- (even though I know this itself would cause major trauma for a while because we have allowed stock market listed corporations to take over most food and energy production and distribution worldwide)- it is my belief and hope that this is coming to pass. (I refer again to the writings of economics professor Ravi Batra). The men of money’s selfish greed and competition is over-reaching itself at long last and the frantic efforts to prop up the system behind the scenes are at long last crumbling. “The REAL economy has fallen out from under the markets which have been artificially propped up by accounting tricks, enormous and unpayable debt loads, and mass delusion on the part of the markets and the public” (John Hoefle banking columnist, and refer also to the writings of economist’s Lyndon LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review for more information, http://www.larouchepub.com). The signs of the oncoming collapse are obvious for those who look beyond their own narrow interests and look below the surface at powerful people’s MOTIVES- not what they SAY but what they DO and WHY that might be- with objectivity. People who bother to READ & STUDY widely. Anyone who thinks that substantially unrestrained powerful people in today’s out of democratic control globalised capital/corporate world will not try to manipulate to retain and enhance their own selfish interests, and who denounces those who highlight this as “conspiracy theorists”, is deluded and conditioned indeed. They have just not reflected seriously on the sad condition of greed and fear of loss as well as Spiritual poverty and poverty of intellect that dominates the natures of most of our fellow human being financier oligarchs in power. We’ve all got some major waking up to do if we are to survive.
Nick Bradley,
Sorry I’m late to this blog, but I just noticed it. I would like to address your assertions
“Secondly, your assertion that the “climate is changing rapidly” is unfounded. You probably haven’t done any research on the issue at all. Here are some facts:
– Today, it is not nearly as warm as it was during the Medieval warm period that ended 700 years ago.
– CO2 levels are 1/7th of what they were during the Jurassic Peiod.
– The sun is currently undergoing one of its “warm phases”.
– The VAST MAJORITY of CO2 that is pumped into the air is absorbed into the oceans, although it can take a century or so.”
1. Today is much warmer than the MWP that ended 700 years ago. The temperature in the norther hemisphere does not represent the temperature of the planet. The unusual warmth is a product of what is called the Arctic amplification effect.
2. The Jurassic period was about 2.5 to 3 C warmer than now and human did not live then. Are you saying we would be better off in a Jurassic climate? Can you tell me where to find Jurassic Co2 Levels. I am interested in that.
3. What do you mean by the sun is going through one of it’s warm phases? Are you referring to the Schwabe cycles? If so we are in a cool phase which removes .3 W/m2 from the average climate forcing on earth. If you have other data, I would like to see it. The cycle average 11.1 years and we are expected to renter the next warm phase soon.
4. The ocean take up about 2 Gt of Co2 on average per year and mankind produces about 7Gt (still increasing) per year so you assertion that the oceans take up the “vast majority of Co2″ is incorrect.
I see that some individuals are more aware of the relevant science than others but it is good to see the discussion here.
The whole article seems rather muddled.
For one thing, primitive man had to cope with major climate changes, and adapted generally very well with relatively little ecological harm. However, today, we have private landowners in southern Australia having invested over very long periods large sums of money to farm a large belt of land from Geraldton through to Sale that has become part of the arid zone as a result of man-made global warming. It is difficult for any of these people to withdraw their investments from such land, and the rainfall declines are taking place more rapidly than technology can be developed to adapt.
Again, with the opening up of more northerly land, there is the problem that forestry and tourist interests have already invested over decades much money and would find it almost impossible to lose it if it became more economic to farm.
What I think likely is that we will see a future of desalination-based agriculture in southern Australia dominating the world food supply – and that would make the global warming problem worse because Australia’s natural glut of mineral resources does everything to encourage inefficiency. An alternative possibility is that as the humid tropical belt expands food choices will quite radically change. In the tropics, like in Australia and Southern Africa, farming in inherently more efficient even though soils are drastically poorer than in Eurasia, North America, New Zealand or the Southern Cone. We could in this scenario see wheat and other temperate cereals disappear from food shelves for (less nutritious) tropical crops.
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Thanks George Reisman for the share
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