The Puget Sound Regional Council (the metropolitan planning organization for the Seattle-Tacoma area) is seeking comments on its draft 2040 transportation plan. The Antiplanner has long been critical of long-range transportation planning, and this plan is, if anything, even more repulsive than previous efforts.
For one thing, even though it is supposed to be a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), it is written in a patronizing question-and-answer style reminiscent of a children’s book. This sends a clear message that planners think the readers are idiots and need to be guided by the hand or they might want something that is politically incorrect. As it turns out, the data in the document show it is the planners who are the idiots.
The DEIS considers five supposedly different alternatives. However, a chart on page 7 of the executive summary shows that every alternative dedicates over half the region’s “program investment” funds to transit, even though transit carries less than 3 percent of trips today and is projected to carry no more than 5.2 percent of trips under the most transit-intensive alternative in 2040 (see exhibit 1-10 on page 19). I realize that Seattle voters have already agreed to spend billions on a light-rail line that hardly anyone will ride, but at least one alternative could have considered wasting less money on transit programs that don’t work.
Incidentally, the DEIS claims that transit currently carries 10.7 percent of commuters to work. But the Census Bureau says that only 8.7 percent of Seattle urbanized area commuters say they “usually” take transit to work. A Department of Transportation study found that commuters who say they usually take transit sometimes drive, while commuters who say they usually drive in fact nearly always drive (see p. 1-19). This means the actual share taking transit to work on any given day is about 23 percent less than those who usually take transit, or in Seattle’s case about 7 percent. Since the Census Bureau’s boundaries for the Seattle urbanized area are pretty similar to the Puget Sound Regional Council’s boundaries, the Antiplanner wonders where the DEIS got 10.7 percent.
One of the big flaws in the DEIS is that it expresses transportation in trips, not passenger miles. As much as planners would like to think so, walking or transit trips are not equal to auto trips. The average auto trip in the Puget Sound area is about 9 miles, while the average transit trip is 6.5 miles. Since the area accessed is the square of the distance, an auto trip accesses almost twice as many jobs, shops, and other potential activities as a transit trip — probably more than twice as transit doesn’t go everywhere. Walking and cycling trips are even shorter and therefore access even fewer opportunities.
The DEIS compounds this error by includng vehicle trips and transit boardings in the same tables, as if the two are equivalent (see, for example, exhibit 4-26 in chapter 4). Not only are the vehicle trips longer, the average vehicle carries between 1.5 and 1.6 people. Meanwhile, the average transit boarding represents only about 0.9 trips because some transit riders transfer (which counts as a second boarding) in the course of a trip.
Using the DEIS’s estimates of vehicle occupancies and vehicle miles per auto trip (from exhibit 4-20), and assuming the average transit trip is 6.5 miles (which was the average in 2007) and the average walking and cycling trip is 1 mile, then transit’s share of travel ranges from just over 3 percent to just under 4 percent in the various alternatives. This demonstrates either that the range of alternatives is very narrow or that the tools used in the plan have a negligible effect on people’s travel habits.
Incidentally, exhibit 4-20 claims that average auto occupancies will vary by alternative from 1.54 people per car in alternative 2 to 1.60 people per car in alternative 5. The Antiplanner is skeptical that transportation models are accurate enough to estimate 2040 vehicle occupancies to the nearest one-hundredth of a person per car.
The DEIS basically considers two financial tools for paying for new transportation facilities. Alternatives 2 and 3 use tolls to pay for new roads. Alternatives 4 and 5 use tolls to pay for new roads and new transit. That’s not very imaginative, but it is clear that at least some people hope to divert even more money from highway user fees to transit.
Assuming the trip lengths mentioned above for each mode, alternative 2 produces the greatest amount of regional mobility, about 178 million passenger miles of travel per day, 96 percent of which is by auto. Alternative 5, the transit-intensive alternative, has the least mobility at 159 million passenger miles per day. Clearly, alternative 5 is doing more than just putting more people into transit vehicles: it is actually suppressing mobility, probably by charging punitive tolls to fund the transit programs along with bike and pedestrian paths.
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Due to the decline in auto driving, alternative 5 is supposed to have the least congestion. Yet, measured in minutes, work trips in alternative 5 are the longest of any alternative — 42 minutes vs. 38 in alternative 2. Is this because a higher percentage of trips are on slow transit vehicles? Transit’s share of work trips is supposed to be 19.0% in alternative 5 vs. 15.4% in alternative 2, which hardy seems enough to account for a 10 percent difference in travel times.
The DEIS’s analysis of energy consumption and CO2 emissions is flawed by an assumption that the average auto in 2040 will be no more energy efficient than the average auto today. This is demonstrated by the fact that the CO2 emissions in exhibit 1-17 per vehicle mile in exhibit 4-20 are the same in 2006 as in 2040.
This is an absurd assumption. If automakers meet Obama’s fuel-economy standards and then do nothing more to improve fuel efficiency after 2016, the average car on the road in 2040 will consume 45 percent less fuel and emit 45 percent less CO2 per passenger mile than the average today. If, by 2040, a significant number of cars are powered by, say, electricity, then emissions will be even lower.
This means that even alternative 2, which is projected to have nearly 40 percent more driving in 2040 than in 2006 (as opposed to 18 percent more in alternative 5) will use less than 80 percent as much energy on transportation as the Puget Sound uses in 2006. The credibility of the plan is further reduced by the fact that the DEIS doesn’t even count the energy consumed by buses and other transit vehicles (see page 11-6 of chapter 11).
The DEIS does assume that future cars will produce less toxic pollution per mile than today’s cars (exhibit 6-6 in chapter 6). But if future cars are more energy efficient, then the reductions in toxic pollutants will be even greater than projected by the DEIS.
The basic problem with long-range planning is that there are simply too many variables to adequately account for the benefits and costs — especially since no one really knows what things will be worth next year, much less 30 years from now. The Puget Sound long-range transportation plan combines so many highway, transit, and pedestrian projects that it cannot possibly evaluate each individual project.
We would be much better off relying solely on short-range planning that evaluated each potential project against quantitative criteria such as safety and the cost of reducing congestion. Exhibit 1-4 of the Puget Sound plan does list criteria, but since the alternatives are a mish-mosh of projects it is hard to tell just what makes different alternatives produce different outcomes.
Safety, which should be the number one priority, is mysteriously absent from the criteria in the plan. It is also hard to see where the value of mobility is included in the criteria.
Congestion reduction is a top criterion, but the results are puzzling. For example, alternative 5, which I’ve called the transit-intensive alternative, is projected to have the biggest reduction in congestion. Yet the transit and pedestrian facilities provided by this alternative cannot be responsible for this reduction as they account for only a small part of the reduction in driving. As noted above, I suspect the real cause of this reduction in congestion is punitive tolls. If so, why not just charge enough tolls to reduce congestion while still dedicating the revenues to the projects that are most cost-effective in reducing congestion rather than wasting the money on transit projects that don’t work?
This approach would enhance mobility instead of reduce it as alternative 5 does. While the long-range plan leaves readers guessing, a project-by-project evaluation in a short-range plan would easily identify what works and what doesn’t work.
Comments on the Puget Sound 2040 transportation plan are due July 13.
Antiplanner wrote:
“As much as planners would like to think so, walking or transit trips are not equal to auto trips.”
Sorry, I don’t have time today to work through the report.
But this sentence is telling. You advocate sprawl, then argue that walking is not a valid trip method (you can’t walk far enough), so only cars really count, so we need more sprawl to enable more cars. That sounds circular to me.
Good point, Francis.
That said, I do like the idea of government being more open and reports like this being easy to understand. We’ve just had a lot of hoopla here in the US over making credit cards companies present key information on the card in an easy to understand manner. Maybe it’s time for the same legislation to ensure government does the same?
Randal, you are reeeeeeally reaching to have an argument here. Your reed is so thin it is almost transparent. Way back when I was part of the set of groups that directioned this document, and the intent is to channel growth so it doesn’t choke salmon streams and degrade the landscape. The precious Market does not do this.
But much, much more importantly for apprehending reality on the ground, if people didn’t want to live there because of the tyrannical soooo-shullllll-izm!!!!! then the population wouldn’t be increasing and the equilibrium rents wouldn’t be so high.
The 5% of the population who has memorized a cheesy novel can go live somewhere else and MYOB, because the small-minority’s views have no play in most places.
DS
I have to strongly disagree with the Antiplanner about the format of the DEIS. The question and answer style of EISs make them much more clear and less like bureaucratic gobbly gook. It is also makes the paragraphs much more focused and ensures that the key questions are addressed.
I have to strongly disagree with the Antiplanner about the format of the DEIS.
Bah.
One post, it is too much plannerese. The next, too much bureaucratese. Now it is too laymanese. It doesn’t matter. Any excuse.
DS
The Antiplanner’s “logic” is now exposed.
If 2.5 million miles of daily walking allows people to access the same equivalent set of daily needs that that otherwise requires 20 million daily miles of driving, then this walking is functionally equivalent to the “mobility” of driving. Since daily, mundane urban transportation is a means to an end (excluding joy rides or those cases where people want to drive to “get away” from their families, bosses, whomever), then “accessibility” to daily needs by whatever means ranks far above “mobility” in overall importance to both individuals and society.
ROT:“One of the big flaws in the DEIS is that it expresses transportation in trips, not passenger miles. As much as planners would like to think so, walking or transit trips are not equal to auto trips. The average auto trip in the Puget Sound area is about 9 miles, while the average transit trip is 6.5 miles. Since the area accessed is the square of the distance, an auto trip accesses almost twice as many jobs, shops, and other potential activities as a transit trip  probably more than twice as transit doesn’t go everywhere.”
ws:So if I get a loaf of bread 9 miles away via a car, that trip is more “meaningful” than walking 5 minutes to the store? You’re right, people have access to plenty of amenities via the car – assuming there’s no congestion, 5 parking spots per 1,000 sf of retail/commercial, and ample roadways that are not inhibited by mountains or natural bodies of water nor a growing population. Thanks, you just described nothing resembling Seattle.
ROT:“Walking and cycling trips are even shorter and therefore access even fewer opportunities.”
ws:I think if you asked most people if they would like to travel a shorter distance for goods and services that would be a positive thing. Fewer “opportunities” via walking are present in the typical sprawl land use patterns you are promulgating, but not so in an urban or inner-suburb environment.
If we pave over everything and spread out, you’re right, everyone can have an automobile and drive everywhere by themselves. But this is not an option that people want to endeavor in the Puget Sound region especially w/o violating endangered species.
Was it last week someone was arguing that ROT is indifferent to density or alternative transportation methods, etc.? Really, I just don’t see it.
Dan: Way back when I was part of the set of groups that directioned this document, and the intent is to channel growth
Nice! Thanks for admitting you advocate your particular viewpoint because you are in on the hustle of planning, and the Antiplanner’s positions, if widely adopted, could cost you your meal ticket. I long suspected as much, but the outright admission is helpful. We can now discount everything you have to say on the matter of planning, as it is clear you are not a disinterested party.
I think the more concerning thing is that you’re obviously commenting from work, costing taxpayer dollars while you goof off. Get back to work, civil servant! Or, more worrisome still, is this what you have been instructed by your government superiors to do?
“Mike” spaketh:
We can now discount everything you [Dan] have to say on the matter of planning, as it is clear you are not a disinterested party.
By this standards, we can also discount everything The Antiplanner has to say because he’s paid by ideological think tanks such as CATO and the Reason Foundation–both funded partially by large corporations including oil companies and automobile companies. Unlike Randal, I’d never get paid by their ilk for my work, no matter how objective or factual.
msetty: The Antiplanner makes his bias clear up front. It’s in the name of the webpage, no less. He also makes clear how his position is monetized, as his institutional credentials and book offerings are clearly stated up front. Conversely, until today, Dan had never made a fair disclosure (and still hasn’t really… just a partial disclosure tells us plenty). He represented himself as a disinterested third party who happened to disagree with much of what the AP wrote. Accordingly, he hoped to gain credibility for his position by intimating that a “reasonable person” would disagree with what the AP wrote, just as he has. Dan already stated in past threads that he is in the business of obfuscating his true purposes in order to accomplish his ends, so this is really no surprise, but to have it reinforced by his own admission is still telling.
He represented himself as a disinterested third party who happened to disagree with much of what the AP wrote.
Speaking of thin reeds, sheesh is this the best you can do?!
Dan already stated in past threads that he is in the business of obfuscating his true purposes
I call bullsh–.
DS
my “title” s don’t appear in preview below. I had an appropriate mouseover for the link. Ah,well.
DS
Dan, I know it was a whopping 5 days ago that you admitted obfuscating your true purposes to accomplish your ends, so I’ll give you a little refresher. You wrote:
Dan: “We didn’t call it ‘Smart Growth’ or ‘New Urbanism’ or ‘Compact Development’ or ‘Bob’ when we worked on it, because such labels would have been a death knell.â€Â
I replied, calling you on your crap:
Mike: How typically leftist. Can’t call it what it is because the public sees through the euphemistic label; must instead deceive and misdirect and hope the regulations can ram through before any citizens notice.
You never did refute that argument, just launched into an ad-hominem attack and spun off some buzzwords in hopes that people would give up on scrutinizing your methods and the methods of statists like you.
We haven’t.
See, bias in and of itself is not a bad thing when presenting advocacy. As long as someone knows what you represent, they can weigh your argument appropriately based on its content and your perspective. In fact, it can even be a positive when you illustrate that you have the credentials to be making the claims you make. The problem is when you have a bias but never cop to it, which has long been the case with you here. (If today’s candor on your part is a sign of things to come, then that’s good.) Misrepresenting your one-sided advocacy as neutral observation is deceptive shilling, or as I believe it is called in internet parlance “astroturfing.”
In the interest of full disclosure, showing that I walk my talk: I am a professional writer and an Objectivist, and I oppose government planning beyond the minimum necessary to protect individual rights and property rights. I believe in the absolute transparency of motives, means, and purposes in this process, no matter whose personal hustle gets exposed to the light of scrutiny.
Mike-
Since you’re a new arrival on this blog, for the record, Dan has been known to be a gummit’ planner for quite a long time, and this has hardly been a secret. So let’s get back to the real issues. I’m sure I’ll annoy you numerous times since I concluded a long time ago that “objectivist” premises are, objectively speaking, pure bunk. But I digress…
Msetty: Long time reader, actually, only recently a poster, and the fact that some of you have made up your minds already does not dissuade me from trying to present a better viewpoint. I never saw in the past several months any such admission from Dan, but I’ll stipulate it on your claim. Still doesn’t answer (and this is for him to address) why he feels the need to deceive and obfuscate his purposes to get his planning rammed through the political process, as above noted. If an idea is truly valid on its own merits, there is no need to disguise it as anything.
Objectivism is like that. It means exactly what it says. 99% of the criticisms I see of the philosophy substitute a straw man representing what someone wants to read or interpret Objectivism as being, rather than addressing the actual philosophy itself.
why he feels the need to deceive and obfuscate his purposes to get his planning rammed through the political process, as above noted. If an idea is truly valid on its own merits, there is no need to disguise it as anything.
That’s your false premise, in order to have play. It’s rather low-wattage, and mischaracterizing something to have play is tactics that most abandon after 10th grade or so, about the same time most find fantasy novels by a certain author not reflective of reality.
That is: if the approved development actually, in fact, resembled a label you think I should have used, or in fact didn’t get rammed thru and instead took four+ years to approve and carry the private paper for, you wouldn’t look like an fool pushing this clownish angle.
If this weak brew is the best you can do, boy, let me know now so I can ignore your weak sh–.
DS
You know how I know I’m winning this argument, Dan? By the character and substance of your responses.
Enough of this; it’s off-topic. Suffice it to say I am in complete accord with the AP’s skepticism that a government entity can even present plausible conclusions for a 31-year plan based on massaging woefully insufficient present-day data.
Mike-
If an idea is truly valid on its own merits, there is no need to disguise it as anything.
Objectivism is like that. It means exactly what it says. 99% of the criticisms I see of the philosophy substitute a straw man representing what someone wants to read or interpret Objectivism as being, rather than addressing the actual philosophy itself.
Says you. With such an attitude, your evangelism efforts will not get very far–and don’t deserve to. Many of the objections to Objectivism are NOT strawmen–just different points of view that I can assure you are just as valid in their minds. You know, Scientologists and members of various cults also make such statements.
ON the other hand, I agree that it is unfortunate that most people really don’t argue the merits of an idea, but rather react based on their a priori prejudices, political and ideological brainwashing! It is the rare person to take the time to understand the viewpoint of another, as I strive to. In my view, the most devastating objections to Objectivism (sic) are valid, NOT strawmen.
That you seem to reject most criticisms as strawmen reminds me of the general “Austrian Economics” rejection of empirical real world data; based on this insistence by its advocates alone alone, one can summarily reject Austrian economics as a load of bullshit! Such an intellectual stance is quite convenient, but also telling…
Mike: DNFTT. As you have surmised, Mike is a douche bag who infantilizes others when called on his bullshit. As you have also surmised, Dan is a bureaucrat wasting government money posting dozens–possibly hundreds–of comments per week on this blog; who knows how many other blogs he shits on during work? It’s a good thing the AP is believes in freedom, because I’m sure he has Dan’s IP and knows where he lives. Someone less libertarian would hunt him down and get him fired.
The key problem with these documents which present five scenarios, or long term futures, is that they assume there are only five long term futures to consider.
In reality there are an infinite number of futures and we should be wondering what happened to all the others which are not investigated.
Of course we cannot investigate these other long term futures because they are unknowable.
Hence the Anti planner is right. We should plan for short term gains and keep our options open.
It is also worth noting that the great architectural icons we admire today, and the great urban spaces, and the great engineering works made no attempt to deal with the long term future. They did the best they possibly could to solve the immediate problems they faced at the time. Look at the aqueducts or Rome, or St Marks Square, or the great cathedrals, or the pyramids.
Trying to deal with the unknowable future leads to compromise based on ignorance. Not a happy recipe for great design. Virginia Postrel makes these points well in “The Future and its Enemies”.
The only benefit of thinking about the future is that it can bring some people up to date with the present.
One has to think about the short term & the long term. Though this is just one aspect too which is transportation, what you do today wil have an impact down the road, at best try to have things open.
Mike said: The Antiplanner makes his bias clear up front. It’s in the name of the webpage, no less.
THWM: We all know he’s biased in favor of cars and roads.
You know how I know I’m winning this argument, Dan? By the character and substance of your responses
Ah. So calling you on your evidenceless, baseless accusations based on zero information means you are winning.
I suggest that if this is the cutting edge of the ideology, it is time to start looking elsewhere.
That community elected three of the Planning Commissioners under my tenure to Council. Because we rammed it through, yeah. This sort of thing happens wherever I go.
You got nothin’, boy. Oh wait: you got making sh– up. That you do have. Other than that, nothing.
Dan
Owen McShane:It is also worth noting that the great architectural icons we admire today, and the great urban spaces, and the great engineering works made no attempt to deal with the long term future. They did the best they possibly could to solve the immediate problems they faced at the time. Look at the aqueducts or Rome, or St Marks Square, or the great cathedrals, or the pyramids.
ws:Not to get picky, but the pyramids were built to house a Pharaoh’s remains for their eternal afterlife. Every bit of their planning, construction, and design had to do with the future.
Architecture is not ephemeral. It is built to meet present needs but is often planned for changing times. I think you might reassess your statement that cathedrals were not designed to have merit or place in the future – they were constructed for religious purposes, afterall. That fact alone by itself is a huge contradiction to your assertions.
msetty: I have yet to encounter the argument that actually trumps Objectivism, and I am actively looking for it even today and will consider any and all such arguments. This has wandered pretty far off topic, so I will close by, once again, walking my talk: I am a frequent reader at Objectivist blogs, particularly The New Clarion and The Rational Capitalist. I extend to you, Dan, Frank, and anyone else who cares to try, an open invitation to debate any Objectivist principle there, and I will respond to any such questions or arguments at my first opportunity. Bring your best shot, your most “devastating” position. I want to hear it. There are daily discussions of Objectivist issues on those blogs as well, so there should be ample topical material for you to bite into. My own blog is social/family oriented and so would make a poor venue for this, or else I’d offer it.
Suffice it to say that if anyone believes an Objectivist “follows Ayn Rand” or that Objectivism actually has to be “evangelized” — that it depends on taking even one micron of anything on faith, that person fundamentally fails to understand Objectivism.
One last bit: I’m not sure I believe Dan has the personality to ever be elected to anything. What precinct/jurisdiction, Dan, and to what position do you claim you were elected/appointed?
The key problem with these documents which present five scenarios, or long term futures, is that they assume there are only five long term futures to consider. In reality there are an infinite number of futures and we should be wondering what happened to all the others which are not investigated. Of course we cannot investigate these other long term futures because they are unknowable.
Hence the Anti planner is right. We should plan for short term gains and keep our options open.
AIUI the chosen scenarios – which I had some issues with as well – were a result of some sort of decision-making to focus only on a few likely scenarios in order to not get bogged down in analysis paralysis. Likely because many others would result in heavy environmental degradation and thus weren’t worthy of conjecture or consideration.
Nonetheless, scenario analysis and adaptive management does indeed plan for short-term gains (well, short-term considerations) and is flexible wrt future trajectories.
DS
What precinct/jurisdiction, Dan, and to what position do you claim you were elected/appointed?
Never made such a claim. Mike’s unfortunate habit of leaping at tiny snippets and filling in with fantasist wishes is a serious impediment, ISTM. You’ve again gone off on a snippet of incomplete information and blown it up into a large unsupported assumption.
One hopes, for your ideology’s sake, this shortcoming is not common amongst the young adherents.
DS
Mike,
Please, define your sense of Objectivism.
How would one objectively define Objectivism (a necessary thing in order to argue with it, as you would have some here do)?
I presume as you are an Objectivist, you believe in the indisputable, absolute, self-evident fact of Objectivism itself. Of course, you must (it is self-evident and Objectivists seem to argue for the self-evidence of reality). If Objectivism is an independent fact, then it must exist outside of, and prior to, Ayn Rand, yourself, and other adherents to the philosophy. But how would one study it? Such an effort would require either an historical interpretation along the lines of religious studies (looking at the various interpretations of Objectivism by Rand, you, and others) or it would require approaching it as a logical argument (in which case, the facts to be studied would not be objective facts, but a priori deductions). Either method of study seems very non-objectivist.
Such an approach will ultimately lead to divergent (not necessarily contradictory, but certainly not absolute) definitions. What method would be used to objectively resolve the conflict?
“the intent is to channel growth so it doesn’t choke salmon streams and degrade the landscape. The precious Market does not do this.” -Dan
Not entirely true. There is legal president for communal property being protected from private entities and individuals polluting it. Part of the problem is that a lot of regulations are a green light to pollute in all sorts of ways and there’s essentially nothing people can do about it to change it from occurring. In fact, I would argue the planning allows for the damage just as often as it protects. Recent increases in ethanol mandates are a classic example.
In fact, I would argue the planning allows for the damage just as often as it protects. Recent increases in ethanol mandates are a classic example.
No. That is not ‘planning’ that is ‘politicking’.
Pols wanted the ill-fated ethanol mandates. Not th’ plannurz. The planning discussions were the trade-offs of more expensive food for the poor being a bad tradeoff, in addition to the EROEI being bad (yes, at the time we knew this).
And the incorrect phrase: ‘communal property‘ – salmon are not ‘property’. Free Markets (were they to exist – we get something less along a continuum depending upon location and laws) nor any other markets do not protect pure public goods, like ecosystem services that salmon provide. The issue IMHO is the asymmetric information and its processing, undervaluing these services.
DS
t g: Objectivism, a philosophy of objective reality, holds that reality is knowable and understandable independent of anyone’s perception of it. It demands no belief and no faith whatsoever, only reason. Every facet of reality, under Objectivism, is subject to exhaustive scrutiny. The philosophy is based on three axioms: that existence exists, that consciousness exists (else we would have no means to argue the matter), and that consciousness is identity (a thing cannot be itself and not-itself simultaneously). From there is built the philosophy’s epistemology based on reason being man’s tool to perceive reality as it extends from the three axioms. Objectivism is logically studied based on the three axioms. I am perhaps a poor teacher of the philosophy, but I am confident I have not grossly misrepresented anything so far.
See, to define “my sense” of Objectivism would be unobjective. The defining characteristic of the philosophy is that it requires nobody’s sanction. Rand developed its epistemology, but it does not require her or any aspect of her knowledge or life to stand on its own. In point of fact, once one understands its epistemology, it is no longer necessary to consider Rand at all… her writings serve as the Cliff’s Notes, as it were.
Mike,
On our understanding (our knowing) of an independent reality:
One can make a million observations on a specific thing and make a universal law according to those observations. But it takes only one observation of a counter-instance to refute that universal law. Observation of reality does not confirm a universal law, for there is no way of knowing if the counter-instance exists and one has merely not seen it. Observation of reality can only disprove a law.
So though things have a reality independent of our consciousness, our ability to know that reality is always suspect.
My point above (#28) was that defining a philosophy is a historical exercise. Your interpretation of Objectivism is not the same as Rand’s. And historical study is anything but objective. The historical reality of Objectivism may be immutable, but our interpretation of it is not. And economists have developed few (if any?) measures which are indisputable and accurate reflections of reality. So though there might be an independent reality (which I believe there is), our ability to know what it is is always approximate and in instances of human behavior, especially historical, likely fantastic.
I highly recommend Taleb’s Black Swan for a thorough discussion of our ability to ‘know’ economic behavior.
t g:
No argument that a couner-observation refutes the “universal law”, but what is the universal law after all but an “as best we can tell” description of the reality observed, subject to the emergence of contrary evidence? Objectivism is consistent: man uses reason to perceive reality, and as man’s capability of perception improves through knowledge, technology, and experience, that perception will become more refined and more closely approach an accurate description of the reality observed. Objectivism demands evidence and requires that nothing be taken on faith whatsoever. From a philosophical point of view, which is the more functional: going by the best known observation, or ignoring it in favor of someone’s wish that the state or Gaea or God or Buddha or whomever has a better answer that we can’t know except through (irrational) revelation?
I would not say our ability to know the reality is suspect, only that it is a work in progress, continually subject to application of a better method. It took a while before Copernicus, Galileo, etc determined facts we take for granted today. Does that mean that reality was irrelevant before their discoveries?
I do not understand my interpretation to be any different from Rand’s, though it is not important that it is hers per se, only that it is consistent with the application of the epistemology of Objectivism. Do not discount the (very real) possibility that I am simply communicating it poorly to you.
Indeed, there has been only an approximate knowledge of reality through history, far too often fantastic, and Objectivism discards such irrational perspectives whenever they are discovered. I can’t describe how liberating it is to reckon the world plainly, as an independent atheist, free of any notion that I have to trust or believe anything that runs counter to a rational observation. From a single person’s life to a notion of running a government, the ability to address reality rationally instead of evading it in favor of aesthetic whims or desires is a powerful thing.
I’m not an Objectivist, but unlike others, I actually read Atlas Shrugged before making critical comments about it. Thank you for explaining Objectivism, Mike.
And BTW: Peter Schiff = John Galt
Mike, I do not disagree with any of that.
What about the wavelengths at, say, 750 nm that we can’t perceive? 335 nm? What’s going on at 320 nm that makes butterflies alight on a surface? The frequencies at 35k hz that we don’t hear, but things happen at each second – why do cats cock their heads but I don’t? What part of reality do cats react to that I can’t see? Why do trees react at different time scales than, say, Kim Jong-Il or a fruit fly? I see lots of dogs sniffing things – why? I know my brain takes shortcuts with the nerve images along my optic nerve, splicing and editing things to keep my balance. Half of the population is not rational for some point in the month, yet their ways of knowing transcend rationality. Why do people overtip the waitress, even though this is irrational? Why do I notice a waist:hip ratio of .6 but not 1 and the eyebrow arched at 1/6 the distance from the outside edge? Why does she like the square jaw at ovulation but not 2 weeks later?
What, you say? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Huh.
DS
Frank said: And BTW: Peter Schiff = John Galt
THWM: Explains the former town of Galt in Ontario, Canada!
http://www.soto.on.ca/northern_grand_river_country_and_the_headwaters/galt.html
Re #37
Dan’s funny.
You been reading some Tom Robbins, ds?
I don’t disagree with any of that either.
Never have read Robbins, I’m using an ecologist’s perspective on Shakespeare’s admonition:
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” Hamlet I:V (~186-187).
DS