From: lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA (Michael Lewchuk)
Subject: Re: A minor problem
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 04:53:19 GMT

jredford@shearson.com (John Redford) writes:
>   responsibility is in the present, which means that neither the past nor the
>   future is in any way "responsible".  We are (or are not) responsible in our
>   present actions, which in turn combined with present circumstances determine
>   the future.

>Gee. Did you get help with that concept? 'We' _are_ responsible for
>the things that we 'do'. That dosent mean only things that 'we'
>complete, or succeed in, or even physically act towards, it means
>everything. That is what responsible means. It does not (here) mean
>'can be held accountable for in a court of law' or any such specific
>case. It is the entire range of responsibility.

I did not mean "held accountable in a court of law" or any such thing.
To me responsibility is simply action.  To me, the best course of action
seems to be not only to correct past mistakes but to plan for the future.

>   We have a responsibility to both ourselves and society in general with
>   regards to the future, if we wish to act sensibly.  

>This is the kind of redundant crap that polutes most posting here.
>What is considered sensible is based on a notion of responsibility.
>You are trying to define your terms with themselves.

Here I use "responsibility" to mean "duty" or "obligation", and thus
equate "moral action in a sensible fashion" with "responsibility".

I do not consider this to be a truism but a statement of morality, since
I do not think that humans act rationally all of the time.

>                                                       It is amazing how many
>   people would agree that a dollar saved today, and invested today, is worth
>   two a few years from now, but will also not invest in improving the "green"
>   envrionment, the work environment, and the social environment.

> Anyone who thinks that merely 'saving' money is good is a nut. Point
>them at a graph of inflation and say "this is your money devalueing
>while everything you could buy increases in value."

Uh, very little of what I buy increases in value with time.  The old computer
I sold for $200 was worth quite a few thousand when I bought it.  Try selling
old stereo equipment or even a used car for what you paid for it.  But your
point is irrelevant; I did not speak just about saving money, but investing it.
I am surprised very few people consider "investing" their time and effort into
society and the envrionment, when they easily invest in business.  Perhaps
nobody ever pointed out the profit/loss in terms of social impact before.

>   >You cant punish people for the sins of their ancestors and at the
>   >same time ask them to care about their children.
>   Judaism did.  Christianity probably did at one time.  Shall I go on?
>   The point they made is that the mess we're in now is a result of the
>   past "transgressions" of our forefathers.  It is invariably correct: the
>   "sins" and "victories" of the past determine the present, and our actions
>   determine the future.
>This paragraph of yours makes no sense at all. Despite the fact that
>your examples are bogus, you also make no specific case for either.

Judaism essentially taught the Jews that they had to suffer for the sins
of their ancestors, which made them much less capable of staging revolts.
Their entire Old Testament argument was "you suffered because you offended
God".  They justified current suffering by saying it was a divine judgment,
a concept that is not alien to even Christian thinking (although becoming
much more rare today as social, environmental, and economic concerns
replace religious fervor).

As far as I know, Judaism always demanded care for your Jewish countryman,
thus not only your children, but your "people".

>The idea that the past 'determines' the present and that
>the present 'determines' the future is too simplistic and prone to
>interpretation to even take seriously. I personally dont believe that
>anything is 'determined' in the sense that there was ever a choice.

I have not questioned reality as being deterministic or free-will based.

We have created the laws of physics (and thus science),
mathematics, and even social structures and morals based on repeated
past examples.  We choose type of action (if any) based solely on the
notion that certain actions will lead to certain conclusions.  Although it
may not be the Truth, it is the fundamental basis for rational behavior.
There is no real "interpretation" here.  What we do in the present leads
to future states, unless you believe that the universe is not logical
(expressable by a coherent set of universal laws); thus rational thought
would be useless.

>   >Personally, I see it
>   >as more sensible to expect people to care about the future than the
>   >past, as they cant do anything to change the past.
>   Remembering past failures is also good since it leads to future successes
>   by process of elimination.
>Assuming you believe you can run out of ways to fail. Assuming you
>believe there IS a way to succeed. Assuming you generally believe a
>lot of shit that might or might not be true.

But this is one way humanity learns.  It cannot be ignored.  Even not being
able to "run out of ways to fail" does not mean that failures are useless.
Simply not trying the same thing again when it's proven to be a failure is
one BIG help in something like evolution, or, in general, learning, whether
it be on an individual level, a species level, or a genetic level.

>   I believe the jist of the statement, which you seem to have missed is that
>   government regulation based on present observations can force us to come to
>   terms with facts which are not very appealing, like the fact that in order
>   to maintain environmental balance we might just have to cut back on our
>   usage of resources.
><* Sarcasm *> My god! Of course! It was just an Illusion that a lot of
>NONGOVERNMENT persons happened to pressure the GOVERNMENT into doing
>anything at all about admitting that the enviroment should be taken
>care of. I never realized that the 'Green Movement' started with
>Government Insiders!

The point here is that government regulation based on maintaining quality
of life can enforce restrictions that would otherwise be unappealing to
the majority of the citizens.  There is no question of the innovation of
people to come up with "solutions".  But there is a question whether the
populace is strong-willed and mature enough to admit it's been wrong and
childish and now has to part with some of its toys to make for a more
workable society.

Point:  Do LA drivers like living in a smog-filled city with lots of traffic
jams, or do they just abhor busses and mass transit so much?  Mass transit
especially would probably reduce the traffic congestion in the LA area
GREATLY.  Busses would also reduce it.  Even sharing your car with 3 other
people would be helpful.  But unfortunately the cultural stigma about
driving your own car to work seems to be greater than any sense of
*responsibility* (gosh there's that word again).  This is one case where I
would seriously consider governmental legislation simply because civic
maintenance IS the business of the government and if it becomes unwieldly
then the government should tell the populace that the populace is demanding
the impossible, or, in this case, the impractical.

>    Many people will not think something is wrong unless it's illegal

>You could sum this up as 'many people have no morals of their own and
>will murder their associates if the government tells them to.' I dont
>disagree with this. <* Think Third Reich *>

You could also sum this up as "many people have no morals of their own
and will murder their associates unless it's illegal".  The point I was
making was that with many people, they will not consider something a problem
(even if it is a problem) unless it is made illegal.  For example, if toxic
waste dumping was not illegal, they'd happily pollute themselves into oblivion,
because they simply didn't know and didn't care what they were doing.

>Now consider the environment.  Let's say we have no legislation about shooting
>your wild eagles.  So a few hunters kill the last ones off and your national
>bird becomes extinct.  The eagle laws are an example of effective environmental
>legislation if only for the sole purpose of keeping your national bird from
>the extinct list.  
>The government is capable of getting Men With Guns to make Men obey
>laws... That dosent imply that the laws are useful in even one case.
>They might be, but the fact a law CAN BE ENFORCED does not make it
>right. <* Think Camelot *>

It also doesn't imply that the laws are useless.  Environmental legislation
has prevented environmental degradation.  In my opinion, this is just a
subset of "responsibility" as you define it: making sure today that there
still is a world tomorrow for our children to grow up in.

You have made an irrelevant point, in my opinion.  In my opinion environmental
laws are just, if only to prevent fools from making blunders which would cost
us all.  I wait for a better reply.

>   Now again consider public resources such as fire, ambulance, police, army.
>   And sidewalks, and schools.  What else can we add to the list?  How about
>   water and air.  Air's a REAL public resource 'cuz there's no real possible
>   ownership of air.  Of course you can bottle it, but who says the bottling
>   firms own the air in the first place?  Air quality, just as public lake
>   quality, is a public resource and thus the government has the right and
>   obligation to protect its property.
> Here you apply a similar argument in reverse. Just because I cannot
>enforce ownership of something does not mean that I do not own it.

There is no quetion of "enforcing ownership" here.  Again you make a totally
irrelevant point.
1.  Ownership of air would mean ownership of the material components: oxygen
    nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other stuff.
2.  Any usage of air which pollutes the air to unsafe levels would be a direct
    violation of the right to life.  We all use and share air, and any
    tampering with air quality to unsafe levels is attempted murder.  Any
    ownership of air, thus denying air, is also attempted murder.
3.  Who would you sell the air to?  Legal ownership of a public resource
    would have large implications: the person could legally forego peoples'
    right to breathe air, or could legally sell air quality, thus polluting
    entire tracts of air and making the area uninhabitable.  I fail to see
    *any* possible benefit for private ownership and many possible misuses.
    In contrast, I see *many* benefits through government regulation and
    *few* possible misuses if government mandate is clearly addressed (which
    it would be under an Objectivist government to make sure the government
    didnt' tread on individual rights).

>Just extend the phrasing & it works: "If humanity is too stupid to
>ensure its own survival it shouldn't survive." This follows from the
>belief that it is 'Right' for the 'fit' to 'survive' which cannot be
>proven to be true. It can be show that natural selection tends to
>follow this model though, so unless you can beat nature, you lose.

So because some person is too stupid to keep from poisoning his farm, I
have to die even though I knew he shouldn't have done it?  Or does this
give me the right to kill him and take over his farm because his poisoning
of his farm would mean my death if he continues?

>I dont think it is wise to destroy all or almost all the fish in the
>oceans, but it isnt universally morally wrong.

However, it is more sensible to ensure a sustainable supply.  The main
problem I have with sustainable supplies is that not only are they not
generated due to immediate need (like rats eating so much they eat the
roots themselves and thus destroy their food source), sustainable supplies
are also being destroyed for the sake of present greed.  By greed I mean
irrational desire for increased wealth -- not just to like it, but to
be addicted to it.

>Humans dont know precisely how much
>they consume and how long it can last. Even if they did, is there a
>'moral' reason why they should "hunger and survive 1000 years" rather
>than "be full and survive 10 years"? How about 1000 years and 999
>years? Does that make a difference? If so then you must be using some
>highly flexible morals.

Is there any moral reason for us not to consume vast quantities of heroin
as a species and all die out from ODs?  Not really.

But we DO know how much (precisely) we need to live on.  Unlike the rats
we DO know better.  Personally I'd rather see us create some sort of
sustainable economy NOW rather than an economic collapse in the future.
Personally I like the concept of survival of our species.  And personally I
don't think we as a whole are ready to die off.  If you are, fine, buy a
batch of drugs and die happy on an OD, or find a natural high and do it until
you die.  Personally I see what we can become (not will, since I'm not gonna
try to predict the future, since I don't even know if we have one yet) and
think that it's quite inspiring.  Thus I'm not ready to curl up and die yet.

>   The problem with (a) is twofold:
>   1.  You must establish personal credibility
>   2.  You must get past personal prejudice of the form "well, MY crops are
>       still looking good, so I don't think my soil will fail, and besides, I
>       can't afford the extra cash" -- the fear of lack of cash now, or the
>      willful ignorance of possible outcomes tends to blind rational decisions.

>Sorry, I cent even pretend to 'answer' this crap. What kind of asshole
>can use the phrase "blind rational decisions" is a mystery. Rational
>decisions are never blind in the sense of ignoring available data.
>Thats partly why they Are rational. Perhaps you meant 'blind emotional
>decisions' or 'blind reactionary decisions,' but I somehow doubt it.

"The fear of lack of cash now tends to blind rational decisions":
Blind: verb, transitive, to mask, conceal, withhold perception of.
Thus, restated, "willfull ignorance tends to negate rationality".

In your own words, "If you can't understand, read, and think.  Or is this
concept beyond you"?  Somehow I believe that if you were a bit less hasty
in your remarks, people would be a lot more willing to re-explain things
you didn't grasp.  Your mistake here is the same as my mistake above with
the meaning of "responsibility": your sentence structure confused me in
the first part, and this sentence structure confused you here.

>   Which, in the case of products which are not easily disposable, is probably
>   a good idea.  Remember, the government still has a monopoly on waste
>   disposal.
>No, the government does not have a monopoly on waste disposal. They DO
>most of it, but that does not mean that you cannot dispose of waste on
>your property so long as you do not violate enviromental safty
>regulations and the like.

However, taxes on government disposal of hazardous waste would not be
inappropriate, and taxes on waste based upon its "wasteness" would also not
be inappropriate.  Where government provides a service, it is due compensation.

>The fact that the government might tax some products though does not
>mean that they will tax wisely. They could just as easilly do damage
>as good, so it is not something that can be said to be unquestionably good.

Of course, but the Constitution or Bill (or Charter) of Rights and
Responsibilities of Government, or whatever fancy name we wish to give to
such a document, would specify limits on governmental action.

By the way, waste disposal IS a service thus government COULD easily and
legally charge you for it based on any type of cost setup.  My guess is that
it would be much like the postal system: a large government operated public
system and small private firms which cater to speific corporate needs.

>Gee. Debt leads to improved savings and investment. Proof: mortgages.
>Stupidity in government is no different than stupidity in individuals
>and society as a whole.

I don't follow unless you're talking about leveraging investments.
I don't see how mortgages lead to improved savings and investment.
Please explain.

>That's just wonderful. I am all for fun. I do a lot of things that are
>not Right and Moral for Fun, but that dosent excuse doing them.

Uh, if you really do have this attitude you are in a wonderfully
self-contradictory position: you have a responsibility to be miserable
since your fun is immoral and there is no excuse for having it.  Although
it may explain why you were so sharp in your criticisms...  Hmm... 

					Michael Lewchuk
					lewchuk@cs.UAlberta.CA
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.environment