Boris Rarden

Adrian, I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, 10 years since my previous reading. I found that she repeats the same point a lot upon my first reading, and perhaps the second reading, but I don't find it anymore. The repeating is necessary, to make it more convincing and dramatic. To stress the importance of the point. You know, the principle that altruism is evil can be summarized in one sentence, but it's the role of fiction to put the principle in as many concrete terms as possible, making the reader to discover it for himself. It's the principle of "show, don't tell."  By the way, do you find "War and Peace" as repeating the same point many times? 
Rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, I'm dumbfounded by this book. It's remarkable on so many levels. For one, it is cross genre, it defines categorization. Is it a science fiction, a romance novel, a detective story, a self-help book, a philosophical treatise, a political satire, a prophecy, an action adventure, a poetic hymn (like the Greek myths)? 
Second, many books are spoiled if you know the ending, or if you know the hidden secret. But, this book reveals a secondary meaning and depth only if you know what's coming at the end. You say that the dialog is not as developed: the dialog is ingenious because every sentence is first understood as metaphorical, while on a repeated reading (once you know the secret), it's read as literal! She hid things in plain sight.  

Adrian, I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, 10 years since my previous reading. I found that she repeats the same point a lot upon my first reading, and perhaps the second reading, but I don't find it anymore. The repeating is necessary, to make it more convincing and dramatic. To stress the importance of the point. You know, the principle that altruism is evil can be summarized in one sentence, but it's the role of fiction to put the principle in as many concrete terms as possible, making the reader to discover it for himself. It's the principle of "show, don't tell."  By the way, do you find "War and Peace" as repeating the same point many times? 
Rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, I'm dumbfounded by this book. It's remarkable on so many levels. For one, it is cross genre, it defines categorization. Is it a science fiction, a romance novel, a detective story, a self-help book, a philosophical treatise, a political satire, a prophecy, an action adventure, a poetic hymn (like the Greek myths)? 
Second, many books are spoiled if you know the ending, or if you know the hidden secret. But, this book reveals a secondary meaning and depth only if you know what's coming at the end. You say that the dialog is not as developed: the dialog is ingenious because every sentence is first understood as metaphorical, while on a repeated reading (once you know the secret), it's read as literal! She hid things in plain sight.  

Adrian, I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, 10 years since my previous reading. I found that she repeats the same point a lot upon my first reading, and perhaps the second reading, but I don't find it anymore. The repeating is necessary, to make it more convincing and dramatic. To stress the importance of the point. You know, the principle that altruism is evil can be summarized in one sentence, but it's the role of fiction to put the principle in as many concrete terms as possible, making the reader to discover it for himself. It's the principle of "show, don't tell."  By the way, do you find "War and Peace" as repeating the same point many times? 
Rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, I'm dumbfounded by this book. It's remarkable on so many levels. For one, it is cross genre, it defines categorization. Is it a science fiction, a romance novel, a detective story, a self-help book, a philosophical treatise, a political satire, a prophecy, an action adventure, a poetic hymn (like the Greek myths)? 
Second, many books are spoiled if you know the ending, or if you know the hidden secret. But, this book reveals a secondary meaning and depth only if you know what's coming at the end. You say that the dialog is not as developed: the dialog is ingenious because every sentence is first understood as metaphorical, while on a repeated reading (once you know the secret), it's read as literal! She hid things in plain sight.  

Are you looking for an answer in the realm of Ethics? I don't think that's where the answer lies. The Ethics answer is easy: we must act in accordance with our nature. Go against our nature, and there will be negative consequences.

What our nature is is the tough question. We need to establish what sex is. What evolutionary, physiological and psychological purpose it serves? (we need to establish its evolutionary purpose, because from it we can draw insights into the physiology and psychology of sex as well).


Here's my argument in defense of that statement by Rand, succinctly and perhaps a bit oversimplified:

If our hierarchy of values is geared towards choosing "that which enables us to live according to our nature - the only way to live, in the long run, really", and if a species survives by its members choosing sexual partners most fit to survive, how could a species which is geared towards choosing sexual partners based on something other than its highest values, survive?

It can't. Therefor, our sexual urges, as a rule, mirror our hierarchy of values. If a man likes to sleep with supermodel Stalin, that means he values looks over character. It doesn't mean that he likes looks over character for the purpose of sex, but other than that his values are fine. At least not as a rule (exceptions are possible, I suppose), because if that was a rule that applied to most men, then the human race would not have survived in nature all this time.

Sex is treated in two different ways in our culture due to the mind-body dichotomy. The mystic versions (i.e. religion) sees love as “sacred” or “profane”, with the sacred pertaining to the spirit and the profane being the body. With sex being a pleasure of the body you get the classic hostility over sex as evil but compromised later to only being available to marriage for the necessity of procreation. Thus it was a necessary evil.

The modern version of this is the other side of the coin with the collectivist view realized in the modern materialist mentality that considers the mind irrelevant. You can find this philosophic and political theme dancing across the news. The modern mentality considers conservative taboos on sex dated and wrong but largely agrees with their opponents that sex is still a physical act. The only difference is they see man as an animal and treat sex as they would for any other animal. In fact they consider all human acts, when you get down to it, animal functions since the role of the mind in men’s lives are disregarded. They are just more honest about it when it comes to sex.

To quote “The Basic Principles of Objectivism”:

“Such are the two alternatives that men have been offered – A choice between the spiritualists and the materialists, between those who believe in values without pleasure, and those who believe in pleasure without values. The spiritualists preach that man must pursue moral values, but must not expect any pleasure from them. The materialists preach that man may pursue pleasure, but must not pretend that it involves any moral values. Both accept the premise that pleasure and values have no relation to each other.”

There is an interesting analogy later that explains the decisions one makes on sex is not determined in the bedroom, but in the study. By the thinking you have done (or not done). This goes back to the fundamental premises a man holds all the way through his ethical choices later.

The point that is crucial to this topic is that when one integrates the mind and body, you don’t lose sight of the fact sex is a physical act (and an intense one at that) but you must realize that you have the choice to let it run on automatic pilot of its own will or make it be a tool of your own mind, just like any other act for which man should take responsibility.

Further, ask yourself this, if it is simple physical pleasure you want, frankly you could just masturbate. Or if you are heterosexual you could easily solve your physical desire by taking a partner of the same sex since no mental consideration is necessary. It is only physical, right? You only need to provide the stimulus and let your mind wander through a fantasy, right?

There is a reason you don’t, however, and that is the truth you need a partner to do this – One of your choosing. Even in autopilot your mind fills in the minimum it wants.

So the choice is do you accept the minimum happiness in your life, or do you take responsibility for your life and happiness and set about maximizing it. Do you learn the values you want to gain or keep, and then get out there any realize them in a partner?

Which sounds like a better Friday night?

There is nothing wrong with “one night stands” by the way, as long as they are made by not compromising your values (which include honesty with your partner). In fact it might be practical for two rational adults that can handle such a mature arrangement, arguably sounding not practical today simply because of the way the majority of people treat this subject.

I hope that helps clarify the subject better.


Edited for clarification

I'm with you on this one.
As time goes, I become more and more convinced that porn has such a bad rap because of ages of Christian influence on the culture. Like drugs, since porn had to go "underground," it picked up a lot of shady characters in the process. Knocking porn as such is like knocking your own sex drive.

Objectivism doesn't define the virtue of productiveness as "producing a product many want to buy". That's pretty much the Libertarian definition, at least the one I've heard them use.

My impromptu, Objectivist definition would be "adapting the environment to one's own needs (to further one's life) through a creative, rational process". In the modern context, in which one is a part of a vast, rich marketplace of goods and ideas, that would translate into a creative, long-term, specialized career.

The fundamental difference between the two definitions is that yours is subjective, it isn't built on any objective idea of what is and what isn't good (as in objectively furthers a man's life). Instead, it assumes that whatever people want is the good. That's obviously wrong, people want bad things all the time.

The fundamental reason why doing (certain kinds of) porn isn't productiveness is because (certain kinds of) porn is objectively bad. I'm adding the (certain kinds of) tag to my sentence because prudes and religious opinion makers love to characterize art and photography which celebrates the human body and sexuality as porn. When I'm saying that porn is bad, I am referring to the kind of grotesque porn which denigrates women (or men I would guess, in the case of gay porn), trivializes the body and cheapens sex, not to erotic imagery in general.

People trade to mutual benefit. I give you X in exchange for Y, because I value Y higher than X, and you value X higher than Y. They are not of "equal value" because values are agent-relative. We are both better off as a result of the trade. Thus the free market is not a zero-sum game.

Regarding your equations, my signature seems fitting.

Boris, your equations seem to assume that the economy is a zero-sum game; that somehow you can put a ceiling on value. This assumption contradicts two facts of reality. The first is that humans are capable of adding value to existing resources (rearanging them, cutting out waste, finding new uses, etc.). The second is the law of comparative advantage. Some goods are actually worth more to some people. That's why people trade. Your equations might be true in an economy where the values of all goods were fixed for all people (edit: and the goods were fixed). That's not the world in which we live.

The technical website about pliant is http://www.fullpliant.org

pliant is a language that aims to replace C++.

Just like the benefits of C++ are visible only on large projects (on small you can use scripting) same goes for Pliant. Only a large consistent project will show clear benefits of using pliant (extensibility, expressibility, strong libraries, minimal code, high abstraction, low level optimization)

Hello,

I have started a donation website called Online-TipJar. I have created a tipjar for this forum:

http://www.online-tipjar.com/tipjar/objectivism-online

My primary focus at the moment is free software -- software that everybody uses but the creators of it are making no money on it (but they get better salary on their day jobs, because they are deemed to be better experts).

I would be curious to know what you think about my site. Is Free Software Foundation (fsf.org) and GPL is consistent with Objectivist point of view ?

I also embrace bicoin, since in my opinion it is the same as the gold standard.

Thanks,
Boris