Re: Einstein on socialism [was: Re: Dyson (Was: Paths to Uploading)

Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Sat, 09 Jan 1999 15:50:58 -0500

Mike Linksvayer wrote:

> "David A. Kekich" wrote:
> > Maybe he came to his conclusions because he never really profited from
> > his grand discoveries, while lesser mortals got rich selling widgets and
> > hitting home runs. A purely capitalistic economy would have enriched
> > him. Then he probably would have been a capitalist. The inequality of
> > the system might have simply pushed him towards socialism. Maybe he
> > never gave it as much thought as most assume.
>
> There is no certainty that a purely capitalistic economy would
> have enriched Einstein. Perhaps he would have found it easier
> to make lots of money. Producing "good stuff" isn't enough --
> you have to get other people to pay you for your stuff.
> Discoveries in theoretical physics are pretty hard to leverage
> into a really large fortune.

He did get the Nobel Prize, did he not? That prize comes with it a cash award of about $1,000,000.00 in today's money, which should have been around $100,000.00 back then. Not a bad return for some doodling in a patent office in one's off hours....

Not to mention the nicely paid position at Princeton with plenty of grant money flowing in. The grant scam is a great business to be in, where its easy to scream poverty while caching away huge chunks, reselling old lab or field equipment to a new grant project, that has been used in other research several times and paid for each time).

How many plain old socialists get a chance to bend the President of the U.S.'s ear on occasion?

>
>
> Dick.Gray@bull.com wrote:
> > If no objective standard is possible, how are we to come to any agreement?
> > Fortunately, most of us are able to get along reasonably well with each
> > other most of the time. Why is this, do you suppose?
>
> Because there are many seemingly objective facts about our
> environment, including the fact that most of us hold
> similar, though subjective, opinions about what is right
> and wrong.

Subjectivity only exists as a consequence of each individual conducting analysis with incomplete facts, and purposely excluding commonly obvious facts that conflict with one's prejudices, while rationalizing that denial. Both are errors of logic.

Mike Lorrey