http://web.archive.org/web/20010505221015/medusa.twinoaks.org/members/(I)An-ok/bakunin.html

Quotes are all from Bakunin. The page of quotes was collected by someone who likes Bakunin.

If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him. - God and the State, 1871

Godwin didn't hate God.

Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, and socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality. - Federalism, Socialism and Anti-Theologism, 1867

Godwin didn't criticize freedom itself.

There can be no equality between schoolmaster and pupils. - The Bear of Berne and the Bear of St.Petersberg, 1870

Godwin said there can and should be such equality.

No one should be entrusted with power, inasmuch as anyone invested with authority must, through the force of an immutable social law, become an oppressor and exploiter of society. - Statism and Anarchy, 1873

Godwin didn't see the people in power as exploiters. He saw them as victims, too, of bad ideas.

No theory, no ready-made system, no book that has ever been written will ever save the world. I cleave to no system, I am a true seeker. - correspondence, n.d.

Godwin didn't trash theories.

Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life. The urge to destroy is also a creative urge. - Reaction in Germany, 1842

Godwin didn't trust destruction and annihilation.

One must distinguish between the prejudices of the people and those of the privileged classes. The prejudices of the masses are based only on their ignorance and run counter to their own interests, where the prejudices of the bourgeoisie are based precisely on their interests. Which of the two is incurable? The bourgeoisie, without any doubt. - The Politics of the International, 1869

Godwin said the prejudices of the privileged classes were *not* in their interest. That means they would voluntarily change things if they understood more.

Everywhere religious or philosophical idealism(the one being simply the more or less free interpretation of the other) serves today as the banner of bloody and brutal material force, of shameless material exploitation. - The Knouto-Germanic Empire, 1871

Godwin never writes stuff that sounds like that.

I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity, and the happiness of men can develop and grow; not that purely formal liberty, conceded, measured, and regulated by the State, an eternal lie. No, I mean the only liberty truly worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the powers - material, intellectual, and moral - that are latent faculties of each; liberty that recognizes no other restrictions than those outlined for us by the laws of our own individual nature, so that properly speaking, there are no restrictions...

I mean that liberty of each individual which, far from halting as at a boundary before the liberty of others, finds there its confirmation and its extension to infinity; the illimitable liberty of each through the liberty of all, liberty by solidarity, liberty in equality; liberty triumphing over brute force and the principle of authority which was never anything but the intellectualized expression of that force; liberty which, after having overthrown all heavenly and earthly idols, will found and organize a new world, that of human solidarity, on the ruins of all Churches and all States. - The Paris Commune and the Notion of the State

I bolded the three parts of the quote I'm commenting on, and replied to them in order.

Godwin thought we should live according to objective morality, not follow our individual nature.

Godwin thought our liberty did need to halt at the boundary of the liberty of others.

Godwin didn't want to create any ruins, i.e. didn't want to destroy things.

The Enquirer, part 2, essay 2, page 168:

There is no alternative, but that men must either have their portion of labour assigned them by the society at large, and the produce collected into a common stick; or that each man must be left to exert the portion of industry, and cultivate the habits of economy, to which his mind shall prompt him.

The first of these modes of existence deserves our fixed disapprobation[1].

[1] Political Justice, Book VIII, Chap. II, octavo edition

Godwin is saying that communal sharing of labor and of wealth is bad, and that people working and using resources according to their own personal judgment is good.

Let's look up his cite:

http://www.efm.bris.ac.uk/het/godwin/pj8.htm

It has already appeared(1*) that one of the most essential of the rights of man is my right to the forbearance of others; not merely that they shall refrain from every thing that may, by direct consequence, affect my life, or the possession of my powers, but that they shall refrain from usurping upon my understanding, and shall leave me a certain equal sphere for the exercise of my private judgement. This is necessary because it is possible for them to be wrong, as well as for me to be so, because the exercise of the understanding is essential to the improvement of man, and because the pain and interruption I suffer are as real, when they infringe, in my conception only, upon what is of importance to me, as if the infringement had been, in the utmost degree, palpable. Hence it follows that no man may, in ordinary cases, make use of my apartment, furniture or garments, or of my food, in the way of barter or loan, without having first obtained my consent.

If, by positive institution, the property of every man were equalized today, without a contemporary change in men's dispositions and sentiments, it would become unequal tomorrow. The same evils would spring up with a rapid growth; and we should have gained nothing, by a project which, while it violated every man's habits, and many men's inclinations, would render thousands miserable.

We have already shown,(3*) and shall have occasion to show more at large,(4*) how pernicious the consequences would be if government were to take the whole permanently into their hands, and dispense to every man his daily bread.

The most destructive of all excesses is that where one man shall dictate to another, or undertake to compel him to do, or refrain from doing, anything ... otherwise than with his own consent.

It is therefore right that property ... should be defended, if need be, by means of coercion.

Persuasion, and not force, is the legitimate instrument for influencing the human mind

These quotes show Godwin's commitment to property rights, and against the use of force. If the best use of a piece of property is not with its owner, then he ought to voluntarily donate it to the better usage. If he disagrees, all you may do is offer him your reasons for your belief to try to persuade him. Consent is paramount.

Inductivists want to have a premise "the future is like the past". Because if it isn't, then they can't infer from past observations to the future.

Let me state the obvious: sometimes the future is like the past, and sometimes it isn't. The past had a living William Godwin but the future won't. The past had wheat and the future will too. So is the future like the past? It is in some respects, and not in others. It depends.

Insisting that the future is like the past, full stop, is ridiculous.

If the future is sometimes like the past, how are we to know when it will be and when it won't be?

Induction offers no answer to that.

I can offer an answer: some of our explanations apply to the future, and some don't.

Why is it important that induction is false, and explanation-based approaches are better? Because the methods of finding good explanations are different than the methods of induction. So inductivists try to pursue knowledge in the wrong way, and it works badly.

In other words, ideas have consequences for one's life. Deeply false ideas about how to think have especially bad consequences.

Godwin said "Poverty is an enormous evil". Does that mean he'd be a socialist sympathizer and a critic of the USA, today?

No.

Here is what Godwin meant by 'poverty':

The Enquirer, part 2, essay 1, page 162:

By poverty I understand the state of a man possessing no permanent property, in a country where wealth and luxury have already gained a secure establishment.

Why did Godwin dislike poverty? Here's two of the reasons he gives (p 164):

Every one can see however, that inordinate labour produces untimely decripitude.

the poor are condemned to a want of that leisure which is necessary for the improvement of the mind. They are the predestinated victims of ignorance and prejudice.

To Godwin, poverty meant you work hard all day, every day, so much that you don't ever have time to read books and think, even if you really want to, and you tire out your body so much that you live substantially fewer years, and for all this work you do not gain enough reward to accumlate any savings.

There is nothing like that in the USA today. The homeless don't work. Minimum wage workers have lots of time to read and think if they make it a priority (over watching TV, hobbies, socializing, etc), don't work all day, don't work every day, and can easily accumulate a savings if they are frugal.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/ipod-touch-not-lies-sets-kids-pants-on-fire-parents-sue.ars

At that time, he stood up and noticed that his pants were, in fact, on fire. "Plaintiff A.V. immediately ran to the bathroom and took off his burning pants with the assistance of a friend,"

...

[afterwards he] went directly to the doctor, where he was declared to have received second degree burns to his leg.

So his pants were on fire, and before removing them he went to the bathroom for some privacy. As a result he received second degree burns. That's how much people care about modesty: they will suffer severe injuries in modesty's name.

(Note: It's unclear if he could have escaped the burns by taking his pants off immediately. If not -- if his leg was already burning -- then no doubt he could have received lesser burns by removing the pants immediately.)

Here is what i take from _Objective Knowledge_ ch 8 and 9 regarding the correspondence theory of truth.

the correspondence theory of truth says a statement is true if it corresponds to the facts

people have trouble with this. what can that possibly mean? Popper used to have trouble with it, and wonder about that question.

i think it is straightforward. English already handles it very naturally. it means:

The statement 'there is a door there' is true if there is a door there.

well, it turns out that's basically what Tarski figured out. here is Tarski's breakthrough that Popper is impressed by. (I thought of my solution before reading Tarski's.)

Tarski's version is more complicated. he figured out you can do it using multiple languages. you say this:

yo hablo espanol is true if i speak spanish.

the advantage of the foreign language is you don't necessarily have to quote it. and you can give an explanation kinda like this: we use a meta-language which contains both spanish statements, and english facts, so we can talk about statements and facts together in one language, so we can discuss their correspondence.

then he noticed you can do it just as easily in one language using quotes. just say:

'i speak spanish' is true if i speak spanish.

that's the same as my example. English is a powerful language that can already discuss both facts and statements without any outside help.

I put a 37 second clip from a TV show on youtube. I titled it "Destroying Privacy" and wrote this description, "In this clip, one girl shows signs of wanting privacy, but the other uses common techniques for making it difficult to maintain privacy. This is unscripted." Today, five and a half months later, it was removed for copyright infringment.

I believe posting the clip falls under "fair use", just like quoting a small part of a book. Here are four criteria for fair use. It looks to me like my use does well for for 1, 3, and 4, and is neutral for 2. I added to the work (by adding commentary and a perspective that was lacking in the original presentation). I used a small, insubstantial portion of the show as a whole. It wasn't a key scene for plot purposes, and no one would skip watching or buying the show just because they saw my clip. My use has no negative affect on their market (in fact it's positive because it helps advertise the show).

The youtube informational pages make a strong effort to tell me that if I disagree with the removal of the clip, I may get in legal trouble. Basically, they tell Viacom who I am personally and then the only possible results of a counter-notification are Viacom files a legal motion or the clip goes back up. That's crazy. Why can't we try to talk it out? Just a few brief emails back and forth, and if we don't agree quickly then stop talking. I would like to tell them why I think it's fair use, and hear why they think it isn't. If they have good reasons, I could change my mind about posting the clip. If they have bad reasons, then I'd be less scared of a lawsuit, and I'd have the option to publish their reasons and make fun of them. The people in charge of searching youtube for clips to be taken down might learn something as well.

The description of what to include in the counter-notice and the sample counter-notice do not have any space for explaining why my use was fair use, or giving any reasons or arguments. I just swear, under penalty of perjury, that I didn't infringe on copyright, and get sued if they think I'm wrong, and no one explains themselves until court.

That is too much trouble for too little benefit. Even though I believe I'm right, and I would like to hear why Viacom belives this is not fair use, I am not going to file a counter-notice. I would take a legal risk, and in the best case scenario I still wouldn't hear any reasons from Viacom, the clip would just silently go back up. So it seems to me that Viacom can get whatever they want taken down *risk free*, without ever giving any kind of explanation or reasoning. If they are wrong and challenged, they can just drop it. They never have to justify their original claim.

And by the way, my video had a grand total of 67 views. That's even less than my other video which is 13 seconds of Safari loading an image while I roll my mouse. (I hope Apple doesn't sue me for providing part of the OS X experience for free!)

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Viacom International Inc. claiming that this material is infringing:

Destroying Privacy: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u0w07ELJds)
Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to prevent this from happening, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the "Copyright Tips" guide: http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_copyright.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=59826

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke

It says "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." is the most famous Burke quote, but is a misattribution!

Also on the page is this wonderful comment.

It has always been with me, a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Burke to be a great man.
William Hazlitt

Hazlitt also had good things to say about Godwin.