OR162 and OR163

I missed the last two Roundups. Kendall hosted OR162 in Crucible and Column, and Martin hosted OR163 in Egoist. I should host one myself, one day.

Incidentally, our site had its first inspection by BASF people last week. There used to be four in the group, but two had to drop out. That left a Korean guy based in Hong Kong with fascinating stories to tell, who did the processes analysis, and an Australian based in Melbourne, who looked at the site for the SHEQ aspects. There are of course things I can't say, but from what I can gather they were impressed.

JJM

Hung Parliament and Republicanism

After our election on 21 August, we in Australia currently have ourselves a "hung parliament." A hung parliament is where no single party has a clear majority and so a Federal Executive Council (the Cabinet) - comprised of the Prime Minister and other Ministers of State - cannot be pre-determined by party operations and adopted by Parliament in a rubber-stamp fashion. Instead we get what we have now, a lot of wrangling between the major parties and each negotiating or whatnot with minor parties and independents. Until this is sorted we only have a "caretaker" government composed of the previous Council, insofar as Members retain their Seats in Parliament. Thus, despite the election, Ms Gillard is still our PM until a deal is struck somewhere that sees either Labor no longer have the upper hand or, if Labor does cobble up an alliance, she gets booted by her own party just as Rudd did.

This situation made me wonder whether I had underrated the importance of a particular reform. I have always been in favour of a republic in principle, but never got behind any of the Republican movements because their motives and priorities were, at best, skewiff. My own attitude had been that, yes, we should be a republic, but this was a low priority that paled in comparison to reform of powers of Parliament (the monstrosity that is Section 51). I still wont get behind any of the current Republican movements I am aware of and will until further notice consistently vote against them, but this situation has given me occasion to reconsider my own attitude.

(As to my own Constitution, I have since realised there were some errors in it, such as excessively making land ownership of the surface extend all the way down to the Mohorovicic Discontinuity. I'll resume posting commentary when I can get time.)

North Korea begins paying a debt

Headline from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's online news site:

"North Korea to pay off debt with roots"

You have to be Australian to appreciate that. Yet it fits, actually. It is not at all beyond the bounds of imagination to envisage NK's leaders forcibly turning the population to prostitution. Indeed, think of this: a damn fool woman gets herself into really serious trouble, and not surprisingly when she's getting close to bottom her thoughts begin turning to the streets.

That headline was, of course, totally deliberate, and apt even if crude. Most of the time the ABC is quite leftist, but every now and then someone throws in jibes against the left either because they can get away with it or because they are making token "See, we're not biased!" attempts. I have no idea which it is today.

JJM

Objectivist Roundup #161

Amy has OR161 up at The Little Things. First one for me in over half a year. That list of submissions is getting longer - awesome!


JJM

Work on value in my economics 'grimoire'

Short story: working a LOT and finding that seven months go by between blog posts of substance. There are a number of reasons, but honestly the main reason is slackness and low motivation to go online in the little spare time I had after work and before bed. As to work, my employer, Cognis, was also bought out by BASF, though the transfer won’t be complete until November. What happens to our site after that remains to be seen. It could be anything from a total shutdown to a large expansion, since we are a site that was already tiny by Cognis standards and is much tinier still by BASF standards. Time will tell.

Anyway, I’ve sorted out my response to the subjective-value criticism. Rather than go into a big song and dance here, and because most blogreaders presently don’t have the context for the criticism of my position anyway, I’ll just post relevant parts of the two offending chapters of my economics grimoire and note that the full response was included mostly as a new section in the later of those chapters and that the rest was included in a big edit of both chapters.

What follows is most of chapters 3 and 4 from Book 1, though I’ve left out material not relevant to the criticism of my position regarding subjective values. As an administrative note, I am posting these chapters section by section as individual posts because of their size, and reverse order so that they flow in proper order from top to bottom when viewed by the reader for the publication date. I am also well aware that much academic work needs to be done, and that there is probably way too much internal cross-referencing, but I’ll take care of all that over the course of time. My motive for writing it is primarily my own edification, and amongst other reasons I am retaining the heavy quantity of cross-referencing because in Word they are hyperlinks so I can flip back and forth between elements with ease. Thus, bluntly, you get what you get with no apologies! And, no, you’re not getting the other chapters – not yet and not without paying for them, that is.

Chapter 3 – Life, action, value

3.1 Organisms and action

3.2 The two-fold nature of value

3.3 The prerequisites of value

3.4 The measurement of value

3.5 Values as contextual

Chapter 4 - Man

4.1 Man and human action

4.2 Man’s need of morality

4.3 Man’s formation of values

4.4 Objective values

4.5 Non-objective values

4.6 Full rejection of intrinsic and subjective values

I also know that the material is probably too advanced for being in Book 1 (see below), and in time I will break it up and put the heavier material into Book 2. For now it is just important to present the material as it is, in draft form, for the sake of finally making good on what I said I’d do.

3.1 Organisms and action

3.1 Organisms and action

3.2 The two-fold nature of value

3.2 The two-fold nature of value

3.3 The prerequisites of value

3.3 The prerequisites of value

3.4 The measurement of value

3.4 The measurement of value

3.5 Values as contextual

3.5 Values as contextual

4.1 Man and human action

4.1 Man and human action

4.2 Man’s need of morality

4.2 Man’s need of morality

4.3 Man’s formation of values

4.3 Man’s formation of values

4.4 Objective values

4.4 Objective values

4.5 Non-objective values

4.5 Non-objective values

4.6 Full rejection of intrinsic and subjective values

4.6 Full rejection of intrinsic and subjective values