Sea Wasp wrote:
> Tetsubo wrote:
>
>> Sea Wasp wrote:
>
>
>>> (RE Galt's Gulch and the "heavy lifting work)
>>> The people who were willing to do so. People like Eddie Williers
>>> (the one truly great injustice of AS was that (at least as of the
>>> ending of the book) they hadn't brought him in. Rand never said
>>> there was no worth in people who weren't supergenii, and in fact
>>> specifically addresses that people like Dagny and Hank Rearden did
>>> much of their work expecting to work with such people, and have them
>>> benefit from the work, as the world benefits from the presence of
>>> those people.
>>
>>
>>
>> It's been my experience that when dealing with supergenii (or just
>> plain old people with knowledge and positions) that many are NOT
>> willing to get their hands dirty.
>
>
> The most polymath and capable people I know DO "get their hands
> dirty".
>
> That aside, the point is that the people who do the other work are
> the ones who are WILLING to work -- to have human transactions,
> exchange of value for value -- but who cannot do the work which the
> Galts and Dagnys of the world do. Eddie Willers and other honest, good
> workers shown in the books, for instance.
>
> The flaw isn't in the idea that there aren't people who could do
> the work; the flaw is in assuming people are truly rational, even
> about things that involve emotion. This is the same flaw Marxism has
> and that almost ANY "here's my solution to all the problems of the
> world" approach has. It assumes EVERYONE sees your logic, agrees with
> you, and can adjust their emotional and rational reactions to go along
> with you.
True that. Few people are fully rational.
>
>
>>>> And how did they plan on keeping out the "riff-raff"?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That engine-killing invisibility screen seemed to be a real good
>>> start.
>>
>>
>>
>> But that isn't going to stop people on foot. And once one person
>> discovers the Gulch and its functioning (possibly functioning...)
>> social structure they are going to start heading there... if you
>> build it, they will come... and there are a WHOLE lot more people
>> that would want to "use" the Gulch than those that would want to join
>> in and help...
>
>
> You tell them they can't come in. If they initiate force to GET
> in, you stop them. How do you stop people from coming into your house
> uninvited? You don't let them in. If they try to force their way in,
> you may use force back.
>
What happens when they vastly out number you? I can't see the Gulch
having a standing army. And a militia is not the same thing as a
standing army. I like the idea of the Gulch, don't get me wrong. I just
can't see it be a practical achievement. I think the best chance at
something like this working would be to put it on an island. If people
can walk in, they will. In numbers that the Gulch can't absorb.
> Galt's Gulch, or any country founded on its principles, would be a
> country founded on voluntary association ON BOTH SIDES. If you won't
> provide services/work they need, you have no place in the society.
> (Note that Rand clearly considered things like caring for children and
> composing music to be "services and work that we need". It was not a
> purely mechanistic society she envisioned; entertainment was clearly
> something just as im****tant to a healthy society as the ability for
> people to eat. In this case, at least, she thought farther ahead than
> some people.)
>
>
--
Tetsubo
My page: http://home.comcast.net/~tetsubo/
--------------------------------------
"The apparent lesson of the Inquisition is that insistence on uniformity
of belief is fatal to intellectual, moral and spiritual health."
-The Uses Of The Past-, Herbert J. Muller
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