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THE_TRUE_KNOWLEDGE

                                            October 30, 2013



   From Kenneth MacCleod's novel,
   "The Cassini Division":                  IN_DEEP

   "Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter,
   and if need be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression,
   and successful life is successful aggression. Life is the
   scum of matter, and people are the scum of life. There is
   nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which together
   make power. Nothing matters, except what matters to
   you. Might makes right, and power makes freedom. You are
   free to do whatever is in your power, and if you want to
   survive and thrive you had better do whatever is in your
   interests. If your interests conflict with those of others,
   let the others pit their power against yours, everyone for
   theirselves. If your interests coincide with those of
   others, let them work together with you, and against the
   rest. We are what we eat, and we eat everything. 

   "All that you really value, and the goodness and truth and beauty
   of life, have their roots in this apparently barren soil.

   "This is the true knowledge.

   "We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications
   of science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on
   our capacity for mutual destruction, and our liberty on
   determinism. We had replaced morality with convention, bravery
   with safety, frugality with plenty, philosophy with science,
   stoicism with anaesthetics and piety with immortality. The
   universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a world of
   words, and exposed a universe of things.

   "Things we could use."

                                        I've been meaning to include
                                        this quote for some time, but
                                        what's always stopped me is that
                                        Cosma Shalizi got to it already:

                                        [ref]


      I think the actual trouble with "the true
      knowledge" is that while it may claim to be
      a simplification, it is not at all clear
      that it is.

      It's always seemed striking to me that Ayn
      Rand's heroes in Atlas Shrugged go through some
      contorted reasoning to justify being nice to
      each other in terms of self-interest.
                                                     
      I've no doubt that much (though not quite all)       
      "altruistic" behavior can be restated as resting         RATACT
      on selfishness, but what exactly is gained by          
      doing that?                                            
                                                             
           An explicit admission of how much of             
           your rules are effectively "convention"
           might have some advantage.




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