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From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

(Individualism) does not assume, as is often asserted, that man is egoistic or selfish or ought to be. It merely starts from the indisputable fact that the limits of our powers of imagination make it impossible to include in our scale of values more than a sector of the needs of the whole society, and that, since, strictly speaking, scales of value can exist only in individual minds, nothing but partial scales of values exist--scales which are inevitably different and often inconsistent with each other.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-one

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Breaking the format a bit, we start this post with the end of the last one . . . the actual sunset at Signal Hill, Cape Town, South Africa:

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The point which is so important is the basic fact that it is impossible for any man to survey more than a limited field, to be aware of the urgency of more than a limited number of needs. Whether his interests center round his own physical needs, or whether he takes a warm interest in the welfare of every human being he knows, the ends about which he can be concerned will always be only an infinitesimal fraction of the needs of all men. This is the fundamental fact on which the whole philosophy of individualism is based.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty

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November 19 (Thursday, Day 22, Cruising the Coast of South Africa) -

Boobies in formation

We woke up around 10 AM. We think we slept so long from the Dramamine. Filbert went to the 10:30 Cape Town port lecture and Snookums stayed in the cabin. Our stick-on thermometer said it was 65° and it looked kind of cool and dreary. We were surprised to find out that it was gorgeous outside by the pool. Although the ship was still rocking and rolling a little bit and there were whitecaps on the water, there was no breeze or wind whatsoever by the pool. We enjoyed our lunch and then Filbert went to the Observation Lounge to watch for dolphins and whales while using his PC. Snookums read her book outside for awhile before returning to the cabin and updating the journal.

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

To direct all of our activities according to a single plan presupposes that every one of our needs is given its rank in an order of values which must be complete enough to make it possible to decide among all the different courses the (central) planner has to choose. It presupposes, in short, the existence of a complete ethical code in which all the different human values are allotted their due place.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Nineteen

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November 18 (Wednesday, Day 21, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) (continued) -

Our Hluhluwe game drive continued, and we were immediately faced with one very real and somewhat intimidating question:

Why did the rhino cross the road?

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The "social goal" or "common purpose," for which society is to be organized is usually vaguely described as the "common good," the "general welfare," or the "general interest." It does not need much reflection to see that these terms have no sufficiently definite meaning to determine a particular course of action. The welfare and the happiness of millions cannot be measured on the single scale of less and more. The welfare of a people, like the happiness of a man, depends on a great many things that can be provided in an infinite number of combinations. It cannot be adequately expressed as a single end, but only as a hierarchy of ends, a comprehensive scale of values in which every need of every person is given its place.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Eighteen

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November 17 (Tuesday, Day 20, Richard’s Bay, South Africa) (continued) -

Beached hippos

More after the jump . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

Quote from Adam Smith: "The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be as dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it."

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

Climategate is not going to go away soon.

Here's the problem: science isn't based on trust. It is based on proof, on argumentation, on testing. On refutation or confirmation. On repetition of results, and validation of results by independent, adversarial colleagues around the world.

Science is fundamentally adversarial. One scientist tries his damndest to disprove another scientist's hypothesis. And scientist #1, by calling himself a scientist, accepts the adversarial interest of scientist #2, provides scientist #2 with his data and methods, and stands back with his chest puffed out, saying "prove me wrong, if you can."

That's not what the University of East Anglia climate change advocates did. That's not what they're doing, even now. The most damning thing about the leaked e-mails is that these advocates (they are self-evidently not scientists) are completely uninterested in having independent third parties look at their data and their methods.

In fact, they don't have their data any more. It's gone. Lost. Deleted.

Their data is gone.

Let me repeat that: their data is gone.

What that means for the scientific community is that all--ALL of the work of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, and ALL of the papers and studies which have been based on the work of the CRU MUST BE DISCARDED. To be credible, all of that work must be re-done, without any input from the CRU's now-tainted and now utterly unrepeatable work.

Thus the entire edifice of the current "scientific" argument for anthropogenic global warming comes crashing down.

Does this mean that human-induced climate change doesn't exist? No, not necessarly. But it is the obligation of those who assert that it does exist to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it does exist. The result of the CRU e-mail leak and subsequent revelations of data loss and apparent corruption by the climate change advocates at CRU is to provide a heaping dose of doubt on their results.

The job of climate change advocates just got harder. They now--all of them, must be required to show all of their data, and show all of their work, and allow truly independent third parties--adversarial third partys to tear their data and their work apart. If they do not do this, and do this with alacrity, then reasonable people can conclude that they do not have the confidence of their conclusions, and so we lay-people should not have confidence in those conclusions, either.

The "climate change" movement isn't dead. But it's taken a serious blow in the past week or so.

Only total, complete transparency and openness can save the climate change movement now.