Value of the Gulch
Posted by epluribusunum 10 years, 6 months ago to Business
I'm interested in discovering the value of the Gulch. I am going to take full advantage of the free membership for the following reasons; There must be value found by the Gulch in offering a free membership, for if there is none, then it is a foolish endeavor to undertake with the understanding that the Gulch has the power to revoke it. Further, if choosing the "Moocher" option is ultimately a contradiction of the objectivist philosophy, the Gulch has devalued its own service by not only allowing it to exist, but by actually creating it in the first place. There either IS value provided to the Gulch by creating a free membership option, or the Gulch is, itself, a depraved and diluted version of objectivism. My uncertainty regarding this matter stands as my reasoning for choosing the free membership option as stated in the opening line of this note: I'm interested in discovering the value of the Gulch.
The only moochers I have seen in here are the lurkers and the trolls. By troll, I do not mean those who sign up, do not like AR or Objectivism and wish to debate respectfully. Those are producers. No, trolls are those who come in and taunt, use false forms of argument intending to deceive, generally disrupt in a non-intellectual way. Lurkers are gleaning the content without contributing to it. Everyone else? Producing!
Maybe we need to change "Lurkers" to "Moochers" and come up with a new name for "Moochers."
but-hey! a post by someone new and we start changing everything? saying moochers and producers are keeping the Objectivists away?! I think not
"The only moochers I have seen in here are the lurkers and the trolls... Everyone else? Producing!"
That's what did it for me.
http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/ad...
Never heard of a techno thriller. Sounds cool.
Since trains are so prominent in AS, maybe we could have Producers, and conductors (or: engineers)?
I am a co-founder of a medical software company, and we decided to offer a free version of our software a couple of years ago. It is a genuine free version, not one that is limited in time or usage count. We did this because it is to our (everyone's!) advantage if a small hospital in Tanzania has a lab system (for which they had no budget). Anything that can mitigate the next outbreak of Ebola may well improve the health of all of us.
We are also getting potential customers of significant size quietly requesting our free version to use as a preview of our system. We have made a number of sales that way.
So we have received value for our free LIS. It just depends on your definition of 'value'. Sometimes Free is viable.
Jan
Either way, remove the word "elitist" from that second-to-last sentence, and i think Im ok with that.
Nice to meet you, too.
I thought that was classic.
I asked Monty (and Cindy), since he taught English, what the BEST work of literature he had ever read was. Without hesitation, (& Cindy in unison with Monty, even though the question wasn't directed to her).....BOTH immediately said "Atlas Shrugged." I replied that I had never even heard of the book {& they didn't mention it was a 1200 page book with sentences that are longer than most college professors paragraphs---perfectly intact grammatically....flowing like poetry}.
So, I said.....okay, what about the 2nd best book-----to which, they both replied again in unison, "The Fountainhead." I was like....okay, so who is the author of that 1st one you said---"Ayn Rand!" Hmmmm....never heard of her I said. And the Sec.. "Ayn Rand" they interrupted together.
They loaned me the book for my "Summer Reading" list. It took me ALL summer to read too! Shoot, all of my Tarzan books didn't even total 1200 pages.
Subsequently, after dozens of major life changes and disruptions and terminations and a painful divorce.....yada yada yada.. I re-read "Atlas Shrugged" again about a year ago--in 2 weeks this time. I couldn't put it down. I guess it boosted my "Snarkiness" exponentially because I ended up getting terminated from my teaching position in a small western Kansas town with 2 weeks left in the Spring Semester. Oh sure, they paid out my entire contract, but it was another BLEMISH on my person, my character, my affect, and my professional credibility that I did NOT need!!
Last summer, I read "The Fountainhead" in about 3 days in the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Zona Rosa "outdoor Spanish-style" mall just south of the International airport in Kansas City, Missouri.
Both books have really done nothing more than AFFIRM many of the basic character, moral, and work-ethics my parents brought me up to employ. We never had much money, but we made economical primitive camping trips to dozens of "Galt's Gulches" all over the entire western half of America before I even hit age 12.
In my current position as a "Grunt" on a Four-Man Crew that chemically reacts & produces liquid fertilizer all over the country, I frequently find NEW "Galt's Gulches" including a town by the name of Ord, Nebraska.....a well kept secret of 2500 persons in the "Absolutely Dead-Center" point of Nebraska----a state whose slogan is "The Good Life!"
If I could secure gainful employment here, I'd relocate the VERY FEW material possessions I still have after all of my attempts to live as Jesus Christ, my personal Lord & Saviour has directed me to live AND by doing the strong character--great work-ethic things my parents, Roy & Ruth Horton taught me to do. Be Kind, Be Industrious, Be Friendly, Be Diligent, Be Courteous, Be Fearless, Be Respectful, Always Give Your Best.........on & on & on.
I just completed a 48 minute run in 32 degree weather with snowflakes falling straight down like shredded cotton balls along a 9 foot wide, beautifully paved trail/path lined with Fuschia bushes, Rust & Auburn Trees, Forest Green Conifers with sagging branches laden with an inch of pristinely white freshly fallen uncontaminated snow where my footprints are the ONLY FOOTPRINTS in town. At Rosie's Deli, I had to direct a 70-something year-old woman chewing the fat with her friends over coffee to swivel her head 180 degrees and look out upon the town's picturesque Court House & Groomed Town Square at what appeared to be White Half-Dollars falling at Half the rate of Newton's Gravitational Constant of 32 feet per second per second. She looked for 16 milliseconds, nodded her head, sort of grinned and turned back to her friends & coffee & dishwater conversation in what I am now christening as "Galt's New Gulch," also known to a few as Ord, Nebraska.
99% of our fellow humans are going gravely about their comfortable protected lives too afraid to risk exposing their flesh to a gorgeous, Blessed Day, painted in His Glory sucking the life out of our atmosphere.
When will our Fellow Humankind wake up and realized how truly blessed we are....living in the Creator's Louve.....He's given us "Galt's Gulches" all over the place. We need to stop looking for what we can GET and for what we can TAKE and doing what "jlc" advocated earlier for his software company when he offered his best works, his "Reardon Metal," FREELY.
You see, FREELY and FREELY GIVEN and just merely GIVING is His Divine Order. It's what He did for all of us. In spite of sending His Son to Die on a Cross so that we would get it.......still, MOST just don't GET IT!!!!!
Thank you for the FREE OPTION to Galt's Gulch! Horton
With your beliefs, you will have some dissonance with Objectivism but not completely. Ultimately, jlc was able to show value for value exchange. As long as your definitions for value are consistent with Rand, I have no problem with what your are saying. But if you are saying altruism is a virtue, I strongly disagree. People often "give of their own free will" against their best interest. There is no value for them in that.
Sometimes I talk or write too fast and don't really consider what path I'm going down.
Let's hold off on the "Altruism is [or is NOT] a Virtue" discussion.....it is tangential to what I really was trying to state.
Having been a professional Salesperson for more than a decade employed by some of the premier sales' training institutions in several different domains {Bristol-Myers Squibb, MiniMed, Edward Jones Investments, PageNet [Motorola], Alltel Wireless} and having acted as the sole provider for a household of 5 persons for ten years.....6 of those years @ Edward Jones on PURE COMMISSION, I believe that a person ought to be compensated based upon the value of the services & products they are providing or creating. And, I don't mean compensated by some corporate muckity-muck who has never "humped-it" on the real turf. Some executive with a lot of "Say-so," but with the interpersonal skills of a gerbil who sets the commission structure of their company and it's bonus program with some sort of "governor" on the Workhorse's throttle like they are a school-bus. Too often the commission & bonus structures reward solely those who compromise their personal morality or the ethics of society at large....those who know how to "play the game," yet actually contribute nothing of real value and serve as barriers to progress & to profitability.
The Salespersons and the Inventors are truly the "cogs" in John Galt's "Motor." There should never be ANY barricades placed in these "Work-horses'" path so long as their conduct is ETHICAL, LEGAL, & PROFITABLE.....and, furthermore, they should be compensated Extremely Handsomely--& I mean "Multiples times the Executive Management Team's compensation as well as the Owner of the Corporation".....The Inventor's & Salesperson's Commissions & Bonuses should be uncapped all the way to Positive Infinity.
Envy among the "Uppity-uppities" against the GIFTS of the Inventors & the Salespersons in any corporation is not only unethical, it is USURY in its truest sense and is the very breeding ground for Moochers.
Horton
agreed on the no-cap commission. capping it has never made any sense to me. the incentive is taken away and hurts everyone.
I think that the flat amount paid to the salesperson for accomplishing "x" needs to directly correspond to the improvement in the bottom line of the company. Whether it is a straight dollar amount for that particular sale or a percentage of the total sale is irrelevant.
The big key is: Does the compensation make that salesperson hunger & thirst to do even more, to do even better or does it break the salesperson's spirit?
Horton
now-when did you work for Edward D Jones? do you know Brad Seibel out of Hutchinson? dang-two small worlds in one day int he Gulch.
The word is "Salesmen".
Ethically, giving away all your stuff irrationally is not consistent with Objectivism or Objectivist ethics.
Are there passages in those books you can point me to that are opposed to giving all or some of your stuff away?
They're very much against people convincing you to pretend like you want to give it away. They're against doing things to get a reaction from other people. That leads to people like the ones Cherryl turned to for help when she was suicidal. Those contemptible women were looking to "help" someone but only in a way that stroked their ego by fitting into the narrative about them being so pure and righteous. A hard working woman disillusioned with her husband who was a top executive couldn't fit into that narrative. They needed a drug addict or something.
My reading of the books, though, is they're strongly for doing whatever weird things in life you want.
The Mote in God's Eye, I think.
Followed by "The Prince" (formerly the Falkenberg's Legion series, "Falkenberg's Legion", "Prince of Mercenaries", "Go Tell the Spartans" and "Prince of Sparta").
Best polemic ever is "Fallen Angels". Talk about Randian themed literature...
Horton
We've got an interesting post on a movie called Dragon Day. Any opinion on it?
What's your take on the Fed's prosecution of a merchant over selling the controversial coffee mugs and t-shirts?
Any opinion on Chris Christie? Food stamp participation levels? Tophers' videos? Whether left-right distinctions make much difference anymore? Or are you only here to have an argument about "moocher"? That would be pretty boring and no, I wouldn't suggest you spend money if that's all you're here to do.
- I created my profile less than 24 hours ago. I'm exploring the possibility of moochers being valueless here. However, that's not all I'm here to do.
I have a hard time keeping up with "current events". That is one thing I'm looking forward to improving on here. A dose of objective, emotion-free debates should spur me to interact with those issues more. I'll try to dig in.
The trouble with using emotions to decide complex issues is emotions will lead you quickly to things that are mutually exclusive or disagree with reality. From there you end up bumping around capriciously as you say.
Let me ask it another way...
Why do ANYTHING if it's "emotion free"?
Let me provide two examples of "emotion free"
http://media.photobucket.com/user/kathle...
http://media.photobucket.com/user/eeborm...
Without emotion, rational thought is pointless.
Emotion is a lolipop rolled on the tongue.
Thanks.
don’t over think it. Welcome to the Gulch. I haven’t met a moocher yet.
If you do not "get" anything out of this site I would leave and not contribute. However if you believe you are benefitting from this sites content I hope you would consider contributing. I am not trying to pass judgement, I am a realist and this is reality as I see it! Your results may vary!
Are moochers not creating a form of payment by creating value, via intellectual stimulation, in the Gulch?
If they ARE NOT, then why are they allowed in the Gulch.
If they ARE, then why are they moochers?
On a personal note; I'm happy to pay full price for every service I accept, but you'd better believe I'm going to find the best product and price-point in the unregulated marketplace.
Tradesman suggests that the 47% of people who don't pay fed income taxes except for payroll taxes are "moochers". I categorically reject that. Many of those people live their lives, comply with the tax law, and would gladly pay whatever the current law says is their share. I have known very honest hardworking people who pay almost no fed income tax, and they're not even into policy. They didn't ask for the tax law to be progressive. I actually do promote progressive taxation, so maybe I should be branded the moocher.
It has been shown that a progressive tax system actually brings in less revenue than a non-progressive tax system. so supporting it would be purely for punitive reasons
Think of the 20th Century Motor Company.
The better you did, the more was expected of you.
Why I support the general idea of what we have (rates ranging from 0% to 43%) would take too long. Ultimately I want gov't spending to fall so that the budget is balanced with lower rates than we have today. I would like for everyone to receive their all earnings and send taxes to the gov't w/o withholding, so people can see how much they're sending. Every time Congress passes a law to do something (e.g. help kids from troubled homes, lengthen prison sentences, protect oil freighters, fund cancer research, develop a new fighter plane) your next semi-monthly tax payment should increase to fund the cost of the program. That psychological stuff is more important than progressivity. A few months ago a smart employee apologetically called me on my day off and asked why he didn't get twice the pay when he worked twice the hours; I had to explain the progressive W/H tables. Otherwise smart people, but who don't follow gov't policy, don't realize how the system works.
Are you re-defining progressive tax rate to mean your example above? You'll have to give it another name, because there is an accepted definition for the other.
No, I brought up an unrelated issue that came to mind.
I'm still for progressive taxation, as in higher rates for higher earners. The main reason is I believe marginal utility decreases with earnings, so each additional dollar some earn is less critical. The first dollars that allow me to buy food and keep the lights are the most important. Following this logic, gov't programs could buy food and other basics for the poor, but I would rather cut out the intermediary and just let them keep their own money. The only reason the gov't has any business worrying about indivduals' purchases of excludable goods is having a society in which no one goes without basic needs is a non-excludable good. Everyone benefits, but you can turn off that the benefit for those who don't want that benefit.
Progressivity is not a primary cause of tax evasion. Consider one tax structure where you pay 40% on all earnings over the median income. In another structure you pay 20% flat rate. You have more incentive to evade the 40% taxes than 20%, but in both cases there is an incentive to evade. It's hard to calculate how many people when faced with an opportunity to evade would choose to do so if they were in the 40% bracket but not the 20%.
second part: All income tax concepts are based on a punitive model. Why don't we have taxation based on how much people utilize the system? that would be more honest. A wealthy person enters into many more contractual arrangements than a middle class earner. They also purchase alot more things. Taxes based on sales makes alot of sense to me. Income taxation has no connection to the stated goal of collecting revenue for the government. The only purpose is to gain favors/contributions for politicians to "fix" the system for the wealthy and connected and to push a punitive agenda.
Taxation based on utilization: Yes. That is the goal. When somethings excludable, people should just pay for what they use, preferably from a private business. In areas of low population density, for example, fire depts could theoretically only serve paying customers, like home owners' insurance. You can't do that with policing though. If someone says they're not using the police b/c they have their own security, they can't opt out. Even if the police had a note not to respond to them, they benefit from police patrols and policing catching criminals who might target them in the future. I am fine with the concept of a sales tax with exemptions for the poor. I agree the income tax becomes an unhealthy game of gov't trying to use it to push people into doing things and citizens trying to come up with ways to avoid the tax.
I am a conservative, not an objectivist. I disagree with objectivism, yet I still participate here.
Is any form of payment sufficient? If I go to McDonald's and buy a $5 hamburger, but only have $4.50, but the person taking my order let's the 50 cents slide... am I a moocher?
if moochers are not creating a form of payment and are still allowed in the gulch... what business is it of yours?
1. Is the site worth your time to read and write articles and comments? (A larger membership means more people providing (hopefully) interesting and stimulating content).
2. Is the site providing value to its operators? (The site can run at a loss, but still provide positive value if it results in more people seeing the AS movies, buying the DVDs, etc).
3. Are the benefits for a paid membership (whether access to additional content or supporting a cause you believe in) greater than the cost? (not just the monetary cost, but also the time spent managing payments and the risk of trusting a third party (potentially several third parties) with a hook into your bank or credit card account).
Isn't a moocher providing value to the operators? Is it possible to "produce" through the hard work of providing value to other members, or is it cut and dry - You're a moocher or you ante up?
The moocher status is meant to denote that you're using something that other people have payed for without contributing anything yourself.
Moochers support the site --> Moocher status denotes usage without contribution.
Are moochers supporting or using someone else's service without contributing?
There seems to be a contradiction to me (and we all know they don't exist... check your premises, right?).
(just like Obama)
I have been on and off four Objectiv-ish boards, so I know the culture. I have been online with BBSes since 1984, so, again, I know what to expect from the medium. I simply trusted the Movie producers to do a good job at providing a forum for discussion. I figured that getting burned for forty bucks was unlikely.
A: Yes, I do know Brad...he was in a different region than me, but he comes from GREAT heritage.
The Patriarch, Darrell Seibel from Hays opened Branch Office #6 or #7 in the country. Now there are in excess of 11,000 branches. Darrell had the tenacity to endure the market's harsh punishment for the post-WWII 20-year bull run.
As far as I know, Darrell's still going strong...50 years plus now in the securities business!!! What a tremendous and noble human being he is.
None of his apples fell far from the tree either....& much of the credit goes additionally to their mother, but I never really got to know her.
Their son Jeff Seibel and daughter Linda (Seibel) Carriera work out of the same "palace" there in Hays next door to the Sternberg Museum. Another of their daughters is married to Roger Steffen in Winfield and he's a Winner as well.
khalling....if you could do me a favor, my personal email is scottruns365@yahoo.com. Or, feel free to "Friend Request" me on Facebook at Scott A. Horton.
I do not have a problem answering your personal questions, however, I'll feel more comfortable doing so "outside" the Gulch so that ALL of us can focus on how to survive as PRODUCERS in our world as it currently exists.
I wish Hank, Dagny, Ken Daggett, Francisco, or somebody would "stop by" and offer me a plane ticket to the real "Galt's Gulch" so that I may join the rest of the STRIKERS like you, khalling....the people who are still left that actually "get it."
I am very grateful for the opportunity to discuss, debate, and affirm other PRODUCERS here in the virtual "Gulch."
Horton
I don't think the website is foolish.
I'm just saying if they did something foolish and offered something for free that was not in their own interest, they're free to do so. Someone is free to accept the gift, without being branded a moocher. They're only a moocher if they use coercion.
Yes, it's just less obvious than bringing guns.
"what if you understand the moral consequences of being a moocher but you remain silent in the face of them because you want them to like you? are those people moochers?"
That's a good question. Can you think of any characters in the books like that? Maybe Gail Wynand. I think Wynand was a second-hander but not a moocher. He creates a newspaper that people freely paid to read and advertise in, but he does it only for a for power that comes from his past.
Anyone who goes against his beliefs for others' approval is a second-hander. I'm on the fence about at what point someone seeing approval of a moocher become an accessory to mooching.
I firmly believe, though, that the OP is not a moocher for taking something freely offered. Telling me I'm wrong to give my stuff way is as bad as telling me I'm wrong not to give my stuff away.
When we refer to the moochers in the "outer world" we are not so jocular...