dcyphyr

I have been impressed by your articles as well as your skill with puzzles. You have found many excellent people here! LFNO RG

I agree to some extent, yet the danger of becoming a cog in a gear (so to speak) or even an engine itself do not appeal to me if I am never allowed to steer. One's performance as an engine counts for little if your headed for a short drive off a tall cliff. When I speak of centralization I do not mean just "of place" I mean "of power of force" - Power by which a corrupt government controls it's master's/slave's. This centralized power distorts the system and promotes further corruption - i.e. Enron, etc.

Is it more expensive than supporting a corrupt government and social system? I do not think so. What do you think?

Ah, but it's the insight itself that leads to cheaper products, not the specialization. Once, specialization was required because the information could not be acquired fast enough any other way, today that is changing at an accelerating rate. RG

I actually wouldn't worry with cows milk, I don't think people are really adapted for it, anyway. Nevertheless, It's easier than you think - easier than many peoples hobbies. I'm not saying it's entirely easy, of course - I'm saying that if you aren't able to say to someone, "No, I don't agree with your methods and I won't buy from you." Without starving, etc, in a short time then I would question how well you can capitalize on whatever freedom your market offers. If you don't think that our level of freedom is subject to.."fluctuations" I ask you to please read the Patriot act, newspapers, etc.RG ←

Will a rational philosophy make your body physically stronger, or will that require exercise and the knowledge of How to exercise? This is not meant to be rhetorical. I would really like to know your answer and what philosophy is able to work such magic. Though to be honest, I've never heard such claims from anything short of a religious faith. See, I believe that the answer is essentially - no. I don't think Objectivism will in and of itself increase your muscle mass or strength. See, The relationship is the same. Knowledge can reduce the need to practice but doesn't reduce the need to act on that knowledge. A rational philosophy is the "Why" to that "How" and in fact a large part of the internal "How" within your mind, as well. Still, a rational philosophy is more likely to allow you to get rid of fleas, lice, and tapeworms on your own body with only the power your thoughts (telekinesis) than it is to prevent you from becoming a victim of Hijacked Capitalism without appropriate action. The point of the first three paragraphs was to get to the forth paragraph, of course. Please reread them if you didn't understand them the first time through, as they bear heavily on this discussion. Feel free to ask any questions you might have. Hopefully, I can answer them or at least send you in right direction.

Thank you, those are good examples. Thought I hope your familiar enough with biology to realize that they are not examples of centralization - if indeed, that is what you meant. The biology is quite fascinating and well worth looking into. These are all distributed systems that employ specialization. Don't be confused by popular myths such as that these are all examples of effective centralization or perfect communism or utter selflessness. Also, Jellyfish is spelled with a J. They aren't communist, their specialist. Still, that is a weakness exploited by various parasites (similarity to government is striking) and also by humans (as anyone who's used the newer ant killers should know). You can note that with more complex creatures (i.e.birds,fish) specialization is limited by scalability (such as flocking and schooling, respectively) within those distributed systems. As creatures become more intelligent and complex their intelligence allows for them to react to the parasites that are able to turn their specialization to the parasites ends. This allows for the groups of the higher mammals and other intelligent animals such as packs of wolves, Pods of dolphins, elephants' extended families and the similar associations found within our own species to exploit the usefulness of specialization without falling prey to it's weaknesses. Yet, scalability still remains a limiting factor. So, now we come to our world today. Where, I think, specialization has exceeded its safe scalability and parasites are fast destabilizing the system. This is due to a failure of preventing the parasites (in this case centralized government, criminals, etc.) from using the system to hijack the productivity of those within it. The only way to prevent this is to backup your specialization with enough decentralization that you can, if necessary, survive independently. This is my point and what I wish to make you aware of. This is not a hopeless goal ( I don't think Ayn Rand thought so - as Galt's Gulch is a testament to) nor would it be wise to ignore.

Would it not be better to have your own peaches growing and producing fruit year round in your own home? Could they be fresher than fresh from the tree? Could you be more sure of what chemicals were used on them and whether they were safe? Could you be less dependant on international regulations of each country and their effects on shipping? Could you be more sure that you weren't paying a tax that keeps the collectivists at bay or whether a hurricane would leave you without for months? Specialization leads to short term gains but I think it's destructive in the long run because no matter how well you do your tiny job the quality of your peaches ,etc depends on someone else. It Actually depends on hundreds to thousands of people and their governments and their "lowest common denominator" type results. When you have many options this flaw is minimized, however centralization and regulation at the point of a gun brings this weakness to the forefront and bears it as a powerful weapon in the hands of the irrational. There is good reason why living things are not centralized systems. They are inefficient due to their instability. Millions of years of evolution probably has some pretty good points to make. Perhaps we should pay attention. One strength of capitalism is how well it promotes Decentralization. The question in a truly free economy is whether or not you can do it yourself cheaper, more dependably, etc - not merely which heavily regulated specialist can cut the most corners without you knowing it. I think that the same principles that define proper love define proper relationships with all people. You should love someone not as an act of dependency, but as an act of honor - to the both of you. You should interact with people because you want to, because you choose to, not because you have to. In closing, I generally think international trade (in fact, all trade) is a powerful and blessed thing. Yet the centralization of our day leaves it with an Achilles heel. True Capitalism would empower it and likewise the individual. However, let us not be blind to it's costs and weaknesses nor forget what options we really have, today. Geez, I'm such a downer - but the upside is this, while many things have been tainted by these flaws information itself has persisted to an extent that one may take ideas such as growing peaches in your home from being the dream of kings to the plan of anyone with enough forthought. So Hurrah! To the ability to search for the best that we can to any extent possible (and hopefully even more so in the future)!!!

One happened because a better way had not been found and or was not acted upon, the other happened because a better way Was found and Was acted upon. One of these is history and one is fiction. Lets change that. RG

Well, I have an idea also. I want to see it happen (so I can use it) more than I want to profit from it in other ways so here goes. (It's Glaringly obvious to me anyway, so I doubt I'm the first to think of it.) Just make a wikipedia that requires all people who modify it to submit their personal info to get a profile and confirm it via their ssn ,etc. You'll have a profile (which won't show any of your personal info) and rating which will only be affected by trolling and harassing and such - NOT whether the moderator agrees with you. - For an objectivist's version, change that to where it is affected by posting things obviously against objectivist principles, moderator's decision. Here's where it gets fun. Every person who enters or modifies any entry has a link to their profile. If 5 people have modified something there will be a link to the links to all of their profiles, etc. On their profile it shows the original entry (before them) and their contributions and changes. Their profile also links to EVERY entry and change they have ever made to any entry. In this way everyone becomes accountable for their work. For many their profile will be a badge of honor to be proud of, yet for those who lied and vandalised it would leave them without the safety of anonymity. If you have a profile you would be able to block viewing of any changes made by a specific person. After blocking them, you would see every entry MINUS their input. They would not be a part of YOUR wikipedia world any longer. It would list on your profile everyone that you've blocked, it would list on your profile everyone who has blocked you. Hence justice via ostracization for trollers and other evils and of course people would end up seeing people who they respect more often, bringing together people of similar interests. The version that everyone sees even without having a profile will show the entire culminative entry but it tell you how many times the entry has been changed and how many of those people have blocked each other and will use that to compute a rather basic meter of how controversial the subject is. Find a very controversial subject and you wanna change it? Then you can start a profile and for an extremely small fee add your 2 cents to that one article or you can buy a subscription for various periods of time. Enjoy. While the publicly viewable version would still be subject to errors you'd be warned by the controversy level and you'd be able to peel into the entry for a price. This would allow you to find the truth underneath the controversy and also the price would pay for the additional computing/programming needed. Now please, would somebody make this already. I'm game if anyone's interested.

Thank you! This is very exciting! LFNO RG

One of many pics from my Canada trip. enjoy! LFNO RG

Amen, It's kind of like trying to change the course of an ocean-liner headed towards certain destruction. Only the ocean-liner is a world. RG

Wow, I never suspected that it had anything to do with feminism. Thanks for the heads up. LFNO RG

I have always thought, even before I was either an objectivist or an Objectivist, that pornography could be either a gross depiction of the sexual act or something truly beautiful. In my experience finding pornographic video (by this I'm excluding photo's and statue's etc. -which are out there if you look) that glorifies sex as it should be and hence in the context it must be - is well...more or less non-existent. Perhaps it is something that cannot be shared? Yet - I wonder if that must be so. I have seen the occasional movie which almost captured it, a few brushstrokes from a masterpiece. Am I the only one who saw the love scenes in Ayn Rands work as erotic? There was no voyeurism to that. Was that not a means to her end? Appropiate and more - Necessary. I think If someone depicted sex as something beautiful and unshameful they would find a larger market than you'd think. Even before I explicitly new why it was wrong I couldn't stand to see it like that. I can't stand not to see it beautiful. LFNO Ryan Gregory