Theme: Truth

THE LIMITS TO OUR EXISTENCE

by Tim Beckley-Spillane

We’ve produced more objective truth than any other people – and with it more value than any other. In the process we’ve created incredible demand.

So we’ve demonstrated to all, including the most parasitic of all, that we have much to give, and have convinced ourselves, perhaps more than any other, that our means of productivity are inexhaustible.

They aren’t.

Our triumphs in art, science, and civilization and the universal demand created by them have made us overconfident and the gods have chosen to impose a natural limit on our ascent.

We’re now forced to choose oblivion if not godhood prematurely, or to return to the earth as a wiser people, to regain strength, to remind ourselves of the sources of our greatness, and, in time, to launch from the greater heights of our cumulative achievement free of the costs that others would gladly impose.

The production of truth, the source of our greatness, of course, requiring transcendence of our subjectivity.

Or, to express the idea in less romantic prose, we produce truth, which requires a maximal objectivity. The world is right to expect this of us. But the production of truth is costly and the benefits, though great, are limited. So we need to be discriminating in both our our expenditures and the distribution of benefits they produce, and for this, subjectivity is required.

We’re the only people on the planet expected to transcend our own subjectivity.

But we can’t afford to any longer.

—“Tim Beckley-Spillane:

Do we need to be discriminating? Yes.

Does it require subjectivity?

No. It requires reciprocity.

Excellent articulation. I just think OBJECTIVE ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

“—Bryan Nova Brey

We need to be discriminating in how we spend our resources in the production of value and in the distribution of value produced, because those resources are limited. We demonstrate subjective preferences when we make discriminations of the kind in markets. Reciprocity allows us to calculate our subjective interests. Because interests conflict, objectivity in such matters isn’t possible, is it?

A problem we’re still dealing with today is that we attempted to transcend our subjectivity and universalize our preferences. We need to content ourselves with the pursuit of that which is subjectively beneficial for us. And to the extent that our relationships with others are reciprocal, those benefits can be shared. Let me know where you disagree.

—“From what I can tell we (Propertarians) are descriptive and objective. We define law via negativa. How groups of people prescribe, subjectively and via positiva is up to market competition. Seems to be the completion of the intention of the Founding Fathers.”—Bryan Nova Brey