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The God of the Machine - Tranche #1

Posted by mshupe 2 years ago to History
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Chapter One, Excerpt 1 of 3
The Energy Circuit of the Classical World

Nations are not powerful because they possess wide lands, safe ports, large navies, huge armies, fortifications, stores, money, and credit. They acquire those advantages because they are powerful, having devised on correct principles the political structure which allows the flow of energy to take its proper course. The principles of conversion of energy and of its appropriate mechanism for human use cannot change; these are universals.

The struggle between Greece and Carthage had been going on for centuries and was still undecided when Pytheas made his voyage. Within fifty years, Rome thrust between the two, commencing the long, bitter, intermittent effort that broke the Phoenician power, razed the walls of Carthage, and left the site a waste. Nor did the Greeks benefit by the ruin of their mighty antagonist; on the contrary, the subjection of Greece was to follow shortly. Economic determinism failed.

Pytheas opened the way, where the Phoenicians, for all their shrewdness and hardihood and their factual priority, did not; because he was endowed with the rare combination of disinterested curiosity, speculative intellect, and active enterprise, qualities which impelled him to slip through an official barrier of the utmost rigor to try the chances of the unknown. Pytheas ranks among the notable discoverers, an exemplar of a free mind. He could not know that he was looking toward America.


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  • Posted by 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    That is the complex problem. Put simply, the Ayn Rand Institute is working on this through academia, as Ayn Rand thought necessary. Others are working on this through Libertarian politics and refuting certain Objectivist principles. However, until an individual adopts rationality as a moral ideal and practices that, it is impossible to transmit it to others. In summary, altruism has infected every aspect of American culture. It must be identified and repudiated.
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  • Posted by 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes, the book is an amazing attempt. Hopefully we can reinvigorate the effort.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    If we accept msupe's statement as true, then 100% of mankind's
    governments must be of the dictatorial variety. What must we do to convince our fellow humans that
    this must change?
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  • Posted by VetteGuy 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Unfortunately, objectivists, and people who can think logically, in general, are in the minority. We understand the issues, and a few of us even have platforms, but very few are listening. when it comes time to vote (even if you believe elections are fair) those who can think and reason rarely come out on top against those who "feel" and shout.
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  • Posted by tutor-turtle 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    ...and thanks to the existence of America, we have the advantage...
    And one hell of a battle to wage.
    Never underestimate the strength and cunning of your enemy.
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  • Posted by CaptainKirk 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Because as we were trustworthy stewards we trusted those who sought power... Because we never envisioned them becoming so corrupt and inept.

    Imagine growing up where kids needed summer school. Our school district had to cancel it. Despite new teachers making < $18k/yr, the 8 teachers required to run summer school were costing over $200k... Well, looking into it. Unions made it so teachers who volunteered were selected by Seniority. Making only the most expensive, OLD, Crodgity Teachers apply for it.

    And their net income increase, also increased the EOY salary increases. After 10yrs of this abuse, the costs, which were originally designed to be the newest/cheapest teachers were transferred to the most expensive, and usually laziest teachers...

    1,000 small things like that. Eventually breaks. In Florida... The "Classroom Reduction Act" Is actually the "Hire 20% more teachers act".

    And they still think group kids by skill is Racist and Evil.

    They submit because they are too stupid not to!
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  • Posted by 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    However, as Objectivists, we have the two most confidence building axioms to human existence in our knowledge base: the absolutes or reality and of reason. That doesn't mean that America cannot go down in flames, it means that it can be prevented, and thanks to the existence of America, we have the advantage.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    And our mission is to figure out why so many Humans have submitted to the dead hand of dictatorship for so many centuries. To answer that
    point
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  • Posted by tutor-turtle 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    As nations rise, they inevitably fall.
    Most fail from without, some fail from within.
    No matter what metric you use for measure, America is in free fall.
    > Open borders.
    > Dirty & corrupt politicians too busy feeding at the trough to service their constitute.
    > Fiscal mismanagement in the extreme.
    > Needless and unjustified interference in external affairs.
    > Central Bank ownership and taxation that never passed congress.
    > 3-letter agency controlled media.
    > A woke public that can't determine what sex they are by looking down their drawers.

    I could go on, but you get the picture, this once proud Republic is failing on every front you can name. Stick a fork in Lady Liberty, she's done.

    Hate to be a Doggy-Downer, but no nation has faced even a fraction of these issues and survived. Wake up America, the ship is taking on water at an alarming rate. As the engineer on the Titanic said to the captain: "it is mathematically impossible for the ship to stay afloat." Make your plans for the disintegration. Hey think of it as an opportunity to refashion the country in the founders image, but make no mistake, the situation we find ourselves in is no accident, the small handful of people (Prussians) who actually run this world have set these things in motion for one purpose: to take this country down & over. These are the claws of the animals you will have to wrest the nation from. Do we have it in us? My observation has taught me, so long as people are comfortable in their circumstances, they will sit in their Lazy-Boy loungers while their houses burn down around them. Change only occurs when you make people uncomfortable enough to move.
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  • Posted by 2 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Actually, I believe there has never been a society and government founded on the principles of individualism. In fact, that is the point of this book.
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  • Posted by BCRinFremont 2 years ago
    It remains a truism that the winners write current history, rewrite previous history and destroy any remaining stories. Time itself then buries the lot in a jumble of broken statues, fossilized bones, and hidden scrolls.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 2 years ago
    What an amazing attempt to understand the rise and fall of countries and empires. The most fascinating for me is the Phoenicians. King Hiram of Tyre reigned circa 950 B.C. To have built Solomon’s temple “without the sound of hammer or axe…” required a level of advanced mathematics and engineering that ought not have existed nor disappeared. Yet, it did both. Likewise, that level of technical expertise should have transited over to political theory into the conflict between individual rights and State power. Yet, it didn’t.

    This book contains much that can help us understand what is happening to America today should we choose to use it.
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