From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Sat Apr 07 2001 - 18:49:10 MDT
On Saturday, April 07, 2001 1:42 PM Eliezer S. Yudkowsky sentience@pobox.com
wrote:
> > As you may have already heard, Pacific Gas and Electric
> > declared chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. Our so-called
> > governor Gray "Red" Davis declared the move on the part
> > of PG+E as "selfish" for it "does not have the interest of the
> > people of this state at heart."
>
> That is almost surreally similar to _Atlas Shrugged_. It reads like
> something that Ayn Rand would make up for the sake of driving the point
> through your head like a railroad spike, not something that would actually
> take place in the real world. Be afraid.
Most of the government-run-amok-scenarios Rand used in _Atlas Shrugged_ had
already happened. Government control of the railroad industry, making the
best in an industry pay for the worst, wealth redistribution all predate
Rand. She wasn't making this stuff up. She probably, given her early years
in the Soviet Union, had a better personal experience of the extremes than
most of us here.
Davis' attack on PGE is also mostly to draw attention away from himself.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
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