Re: Property Rights

From: Darin Sunley (umsunley@cc.umanitoba.ca)
Date: Wed May 26 1999 - 13:56:37 MDT


Anders Sandberg wrote:

>
> Hmm, an Objectivist borg? "We are Ayn of Rand, resistance is futile..." :-)
>

2 things:

1) Seems to me I recall Hofstadter doing a whole dialog on the very subject in
Godel, Escher, Bach. An ant colony that, when communicated with as a whole, was a
rabid free-market libertarian, even though it was composed of utterly selfless
collectivists (ants). Hofstadter was making an obvious parallel to us being
composed completely of cells that, before they mutated to adapt to this
collection they find themselves within, were quite separate individual creatures.

2) If one were to view the former Soviet Union as a (very nasty) (proto)
borganism, didn't they argue exactly this, that individual rights (national
soverignity) at the level of the borganism was very important? That was the
rhetoric anyways, as I recall.

Darin Sunley



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