Subject:
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Re: A question for my Canadian pals
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 7 Oct 2004 14:10:37 GMT
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Viewed:
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1401 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Frank Filz wrote:
> Dave Schuler wrote:
> > But underlying technology is only one aspect. If any of the
> > designers (at MS, Intel, or wherever) went to a public school or
> > received a government grant for college or for subsequent research,
> > then you are benefitting from public money.
>
> Have you thought through to the logical conclusion of the path you're
> following? The logical conclusion is that there should be no private money
> at all.
Might the logical conclusion instead be that there should be no money at all,
without niggling about public vs. private? I don't suggest that I have a fully
fleshed-out alternative to offer, but it seems clear that the consensual
hallucination called "money" is at its roots a system for funnelling power to
those who are in position to dictate the "value" of objects to which they have
no fundamental claim and/or services which they claim to be able to provide
solely as a result of their own labor.
> But then that raises an interesting question: Who decides what is
> reasonable to spend money on? Here's another question: What makes that
> entity any better at making decisions than the people who make up that
> entity?
There are a bunch of answers. What makes a team of highly-trained neurosurgeons
more likely to make correct decisions about your brain tumor than any single
member of that team? Alternatively, why doesn't Athlete X run the 4x100 meter
relay all by himself? The answer, clearly, is that the members of the group
provide resources to the group that, in the aggregate, can exceed the utility of
any subset of that group.
> I think you also have to demonstrate that private entities are
> entirely incapable of making decisions.
That's not my claim, so I don't see why I should have to demonstrate it.
> How many people here trust the UL
> label as an indication of electrical product safety? How many people trust
> Consumer's Union's (Consumer Report's) ratings of products?
That's anecdotal, of course. How many people trust Arthur Anderson to police
the so-called confidential accounting practices of, say, the giants of the
energy industry?
In contrast, how many people trust the federal highway system as a means of
travelling across country? Does any private business offer a comparable means
of transit?
> Which entities
> have been quicker to provide benefits to committed same sex partners,
> government or private?
The government is beholden to a larger shareholder base than is any private
corporation, so comparisons between the government and any corporation (or group
of corporations smaller in the aggregate than the government and its
shareholders) are flawed. However, if you can demonstrate that every single
private corporation in the United States has been quicker to provide benefits
for same-sex partners than any single portion of the government, then I'm
willing to entertain the analogy.
Dave!
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: A question for my Canadian pals
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| (...) Have you thought through to the logical conclusion of the path you're following? The logical conclusion is that there should be no private money at all. But then that raises an interesting question: Who decides what is reasonable to spend (...) (20 years ago, 6-Oct-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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