tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post97260851408602721..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Broken BeakersGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-43736869194100236922012-07-11T04:55:40.371-06:002012-07-11T04:55:40.371-06:00"With no state controls, we would all be Atla..."With no state controls, we would all be Atlases."<br /><br />I wouldn't go that far. Many would be Eddie Willers, and we do have free will, so there will be ne'er-do-wells no matter how good the culture is. But we'd all be far better off.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-74537768518686730722012-07-10T17:32:55.108-06:002012-07-10T17:32:55.108-06:00With no state controls, we would all be Atlases.
F...With no state controls, we would all be Atlases.<br />For all we know, today we might be sipping a martini on the deck of a space station circling a planet in the Alpha Centuri star system, if capitalism had been allowed to run its course.<br />I’ve often wondered if altruism is the reason we have yet to make contact with an alien race. Perhaps sentient beings usually destroy themselves in a frenzy of self-sacrificing.<br />But Ayn Rand was right. It’s the ideas which matter. Otherwise, American’s would simply look at their health care system compare it those in other countries and decide what they wanted on the basis of which one works better.Steve Dnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-26192942859718481852012-07-10T10:11:31.573-06:002012-07-10T10:11:31.573-06:00Your last question reminds me of a thought I'v...Your last question reminds me of a thought I've had about situations like this in our economy: With enough state controls, who needs Atlas to shrug?Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-1033938828235448692012-07-10T06:58:02.894-06:002012-07-10T06:58:02.894-06:00Hmm, the dreaded post-doc purgatory; the problem i...Hmm, the dreaded post-doc purgatory; the problem is a government that mostly controls the supply of scientists and a private sector that mostly controls the demand. (See in a socialist country the government could just decree that no scientists are trained – problem solved.) But massive government funding of science, performed mostly by students and postdocs means that a professor can reproduce himself dozens of times over his career.<br />‘"I couldn't answer the question of how this was any different from undergraduate work."’<br />Less course work, I guess. I know a lot of my fellow scientist who think the country needs more scientists. I would rather have fewer actual science professionals but a much more science savvy public.<br />‘What might our economy be like now, with so many hard-working, talented individuals performing more productive work?’<br />And what might our world look like today, if the trend towards freedom and capitalism from the eighteenth century had continued? Almost sounds like a good idea for a novel to me; the opposite of Atlas Shrugged.Steve Dnoreply@blogger.com