

The World is Socialist - yaddayadda
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/c8f0a6dfffab

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userulluipeste
What a skew prospective! I am not considering myself converted to objectivism
philosophy (I only saw "Atlas Shrugged" movies), but this "snowpocalypse" is
not much of an example against the Ayn Rand's point. The fact that there are
people (with equipment) ready to be deployed to plow the streets if needed is
an example that there is at least one capable person that thought about such
future problematic scenario, developed a strategy, and designed a system to
deal with that problem. I challenge one to contemplate about another very
real, present world's scenario - Indian cities. Omnipresent garbage and misery
(even crap on the streets) and it seems that nobody do much about it, even if
all live and "enjoy" the same public environment. That state of affairs may
literally exist EVERYWHERE unless out there wouldn't be capable people among
us that yes, deserve appreciation. Deserve appreciation starting from just
having potential they happen to have (this is a tough one, rarely happens even
if people are glad that problem solvers exist), then for their effort of
developing that potential, for applying their hard-earned capability on
solving problems (including the social ones) and in the end - for helping
others to grow and further develop/maintain systems in our world. We happen to
see from the Rand's view point the same things very differently.

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yaddayadda
Not only do we have socialist problems (e.g., snowstorms) and socialist
systems (e.g., roads), but we also have socialist opportunities (e.g.,
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_KLGw_b...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:_KLGw_b2nrUJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/07/1184668/-Future-
Politics-The-Automated-Workforce-and-the-Universal-Living-
Wage+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us))

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jared314
Which type of socialism? While I agree that Atlas Shrugged is young adult
fiction, I think labeling the world as socialist swings the pendulum too far
in the other direction. There are balances, minimums, maximums, and
extenuating circumstances. The world is too messy for any single ideology.

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bcheung
This is just the typical socialist "who will build the roads?" argument.

"snow storms are socialist". Ummm, no.

Socialism (n) "any of various economic and political theories advocating
collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of
production and distribution of goods"

What does that have to do with snow?

Ok, let me use that same defunct logic. Making food is capitalism. Without
food we would all die. Therefore socialism is evil and capitalism is good.

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yankoff
Yes, bad things happen to everyone, what point does it really prove? Her
philosophy was nothing about building a paradise for "good" people where
nothing bad will ever happen.

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adventured
Rather embarrassingly, Winer clearly didn't bother to read any of Rand's non-
fiction. She more than covers the issue of 'who will plow the snow,' as do
other Objectivist (free market, and libertarian) books and writings since.

It's amusing that Winer thinks we'd have a problem with snow plowing,
meanwhile he uses the private Internet, which is approximately a million times
more complex and difficult to maintain than plowing snow. And this isn't even
an optimal private Internet, as the government is currently shielding the
telecom monopoly system from competition, and it still works extraordinarily
well.

We can have a private Internet and Web, that took hundreds of billions worth
of private investment, supports a billion users, IP telephony, streaming
video, radically advanced massive scale search systems, and it can run at
maximum uptime as a system, meanwhile its speeds increase by a factor of 25 to
50 fold every decade..... but the roads! Oh the roads! Such a complex system
to solve. The free market could never solve the issue of roads. Oh geez.

Who plows my driveway? I pay someone to do it. The notion that the free market
wouldn't solve snow plowing is pure comedy gold. It'll lead to the iPhone, but
snow plowing is tricky!

Who would feed the people if the government didn't do it? Oh. Who would build
the cars if the government didn't do it? Oh. Who would fly the planes and
build the planes if the government didn't do it? Oh. Who would write the
software behind Android or iOS if the government didn't do it? Oh. But plowing
snow, yeah, that's a really complex problem to solve in a free market. Truly
hilarious.

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MindBoozer
It seems to me that opponents of 'Free Market' stuff their fingers into their
ears and begin to hum very loudly when they are told that people can organize
and contribute to a common goal without being forced to do it.

~~~
nickff
Those opponents of free markets often believe that intentions are the most
important factor in achieving results. They reach the conclusion that people
who sound kind and articulate will make the world better than well-
incentivized, intelligent people would.

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MindBoozer
I have noticed that as well. If you say you are going to help people and make
some cursory gesture towards that ends then you are lauded as some sort of
selfless hero. Whether or not people are actually better off is seemingly
irrelevant. Its just the act of 'wanting to help' that matters.

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jaibot
tldr: The default state of the world is not to respect meritocracy,
irrespective of government.

Creating a true meritocracy requires first cancelling out the anti-
meritocratic inclinations of the Universe, with basic healthcare and disaster
recovery and such.

(There are also a bunch of collective action problems whose obvious answer is
some form of the dread "collectivism").

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viggity
I doubt you'll find many libertarians/objectivists who actually think that
there is zero role for government. Of course we need roads serviced and a
legal infrastructure to protect people from coercion. Those are things that
can only really be done at a government level. Just because she doesn't focus
on that in a book of fiction doesn't mean you should throw the baby out with
the bathwater.

the new internet sales tax is called the "Marketplace Fairness Act", for fucks
sake, was that name lifted straight out of Atlas Shrugged? Governments are on
the hook for outrageously expensive union pension funds that will cause
economic collapse, but Ayn didn't mention snow plows in her book, so we should
ignore everything she says about collectivism, unions and government
cronyism?!?

what a load of horseshit.

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anon1685
Maybe sickness is socialist, but medicine is not...

