mdegges

The best, most beneficial, way that I've found to interact with "normal" people, is to first realize that I, and you as well, am also a "normal" person (insofar as "normal" is even a valid concept, which I hesitate to believe).
 
When I first got into Objectivism, also in high school, I had this whole ridiculous phase where I saw everyone around me as a "Keating" and a few, select people as actually rising above the rest. This is a stupid viewpoint. Everyone around you is not a "Keating," you just don't know the people around you, so you assume. Almost everyone I've ever met has personal interests, goals, ambitions, things and people they care about. Yeah, some select few people truly are hopeless losers who will only bring you down. Learning to avoid those people isn't an Objectivist task - it's a people task, because everyone has to avoid that kind of person. But most people aren't that kind of person.
 
But sometimes we get into the habit of tribal thinking. Everyone who isn't an Objectivist, or who doesn't strictly adhere to the tenets of Objectivism, is a lesser person, or at least you're a greater person for doing so. It's the same kind of thinking that leads to religious extremism, and it's the same kind of thinking that causes people looking at some Objectivists to pronounce that they are dogmatists or cultists: that inside-vs-outside sort of attitude, where you're somehow more special than people who don't believe, is the exact kind of thing that causes people to believe Objectivism is a cult. You are no more a "true" individual (as the first responder would have you believe) than anyone else is - this isn't to say that you aren't an individual, but rather that everyone is.
 
If you have trouble conversing with people because of your beliefs... well, than either the problem is your beliefs (which, seeing as there are plenty of Objectivists who are capable of living normal social lives, I hesitate to believe) or the problem is your social skills. Either way, the solution is simple: whatever problems you have with other people based on your beliefs, get past them. Until someone truly slights you, you have no reason to think less of them by default. Try to get to know people, discover their interests and their ambitions instead of simply assuming that they are "Keatings". Be a good person, and discover the good in other people. Share your interests with other people, and discover people who care about what you care about - or discover new things to care about by learning about other people's interests.
 
Ayn Rand's fiction, while brilliant, did not portray a world that reflected the real world. Its limited cast of characters were almost always on one side or another: die-hard Objectivist ideals (with resumes that most of us could only aspire to) or clear cut "moochers" and "looters". There were a few exceptions, but Rand's fiction encouraged - perhaps not intentionally - the view that the majority of people are simply mindless drones. It's an easy belief to fall into when you're a teenager and you haven't developed that sense of perspective that allows you to be aware that, indeed, everyone around you thinks, everyone around you goes through hardships, everyone around you has goals and loves and passions, and everyone around you sometimes, also, feels left out.
 
 
 
As for the problem of not enjoying school itself, take everyone else's advice: find a subject you enjoy, and learn it yourself. I did that in high school, and I've continued doing it in college, even when I didn't need to. 

Stick to railroading.  I don't see you as an academic.
 
Your contempt for gay people is surprising in light of your stated desire to fuck David Hume.  He's all yours - too old for my tastes and, to judge from portraits, not particularly pretty.

Are you asking if it would be moral for you to kill him? Or for me?
 
For me, it wouldn't be moral to kill him, or anyone who is a threat to my life on a societal level. If a country's politics poses a sufficient threat to my life to warrant drastic action, that action for me would be to move to another country. I don't need to go on a killing spree in the foolish hope that it would make my life better. 
 
In general, fighting (in the literal sense) at great personal expense and with little or no hope of success, for some remote goal or against some remote threat, is not a moral choice. 

Why do so many people seem to think it is O.K. to kill a man simply because you disagree with him? It is neither fun nor prudent. I do not recommend starting fights you cannot finish without a good exit strategy, your intended victim may have friends who agree with you about killing people. 

I have no idea, but one could track down the references listed on the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_taxation

Indeed.  A material *is* its chemical arrangements.  A triangle *is* a closed geometric figure with three angles.   A thing is its properties.
 
Existence *is* identity.  A thing does not "cause" its identity.

I finally got a chance to go see The Butler and I'm really glad I did. The movie follows a white house butler from his childhood (where he worked in the cotton fields of georgia) up through Obama's election in 2009.
 
After Obama was elected I remember watching the news and seeing everyone crying and saying how remarkable it was that a black man was elected president. At the time I didn't think much about it- I didn't think it was that important- but now I realize what an achievement it is and how emotional it must have been for those who had been fighting for racial equality for so long.
 
I wasn't alive during this time so sometimes it feels like the civil rights movement happened hundreds of years ago instead of a mere 40 years ago. It takes movies like this to remind me that this DID happen recently, and to help me understand that Obama's election was an achievement on its own, regardless of his politics. 

You are right about the tower you are building, but remember that sometimes you'll need to pull out things that are somewhere closer to the middle of your tower, not just on the very top. Sometimes its a bit of a mess and requires a lot of re-thinking.
 
The bottom floor, however, should never move.
 
Oh, and be careful about classifying knowledge as belonging on the first floor and therefore being immutable. Not too much belongs there. It feels great to put stuff down there because you can feel comfortable that you won't have to go through the pain of re-thinking a whole bunch of things, but if you truly commit yourself to reality you must keep what is often called, "an open mind" (which is to say an active mind). It means you don't shy away from questioning any of your long-held beliefs. You can do this because you know that your deepest beliefs in reality and reason will never change.

In my view, absolutely it is.  It is important to take a wider context than simply one instance in order to address issues like this, where you are not consciously making a wrong choice, but rather your 'default' setting or level of attention leads you astray.  (If this is really just an isolated incident, and you're usually very attentive to stuff like this, then the rest of my post isn't really relevant to your situation in particular.  However, this is an issue that I've given some thought to, so either way I'd like to lay it out.)
 
I'll give you some examples from my life to make this a little more concrete.  I have a tendency to fail to look for opportunities to show those that I care about just how valuable they are to me.  Far too often, when other people tell me about something they did for a friend or loved one, I find myself chiding myself for not thinking of that, or for not doing something similar when I had the chance.  For example, it just didn't occur to me to call my sister after her first day or few days of college, to see how it was going.  I haven't seen my grandparents in quite a while, and I didn't even think that it might be a good idea to visit them until my sister mentioned that she was flying out there to see them.  For a more mundane example, I'm sure you know those people that, when they go shopping, are constantly finding gifts to buy that their friends or family would appreciate.  I'm kind of the opposite.  I could be looking at something that would be perfect as a gift for someone I care about, and I probably wouldn't even realize it; it wouldn't even occur to me to buy it for them.
 
I'll stop embarrassing myself with examples of my failings, but my point is this: even though none of these are bad choices that I consciously made, the end result is that, if I follow my 'default' setting with things like this, I end up neglecting people that I care about and whom I definitely don't want to neglect.  In my case, I need to find ways to consciously and actively seek out these opportunities, because they don't just 'occur' to me like they often do with others around me.  I may not mean to miss out on these opportunities, but the fact is that I do, and I really don't want to.  The solution is for me to take responsibility for what my 'default' setting is, and find ways to counteract it and eventually shift it more towards were I would like it to be.
 
Presumably in the future you want to avoid forgetful mistakes that inconvenience your mother (or others around you).  Actually achieving that goal requires not hiding behind the explanation of 'well, I didn't mean to' and taking a longer viewpoint, where you are able to change how forgetful you are, to some extent at least.  But again, if you're generally much better about this sort of thing, I don't mean to offend.

Does that change involve getting rid of the RELIGION part and replacing it with a rational system of thought? That would be a good move, but it doesn't seem that minor.

"A child is a person and not a subperson over whom the parent has an absolute possessory interest. The term 'child' does not necessarily mean minor but can include adult children as well as adult nondependent children. Children are generally afforded the basic rights embodied by the Constitution." ~ http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/childrens_rights
 
Those would be life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (property); the point being that parents may not abuse their children because a child's rights are in some kind of trust until they come of age; a child's rights are recognized at birth.  The issue of who owns a child's possessions (property) seems trivial when considering the great responsibility parents assume in raising their children.  Children being regularly encouraged to share their toys and having their toys removed as punishment, reinforces the idea you present; that a child's possessions are the property of their parents.  That goes unchallenged primarily because a child (and their toys) reside on their parent's property, but just as renters don't lose possession of objects they bring onto the landlord's property, the objects children possess remain their property as well, subject to permission by the parent/landlord to keep them on-site.
 
The test of actual ownership comes when a parent's fitness is legally challenged.  I suspect in these cases a child's possessions follow the child, and not the parent.

Children are themselves property of the parents. They have ultimate legal and moral control of a child insofar as they properly retain this right and do not violate the rights a child does have.
 
However, the question you might be asking might not pertain to the legal or even the (directly) moral: you may be asking for an opinion about good parenting. This isn't in the realm of philosophy, but certainly a good question.
 
In this case, my opinion is that you'd want to teach your child not to be dickish by keeping a toy they don't even play with or care about just to keep it from somebody else, and instead see the value in helping out somebody that you (and they) might care about and see them enjoy something. Teach them that things are not ends in themselves, but rather a means to and end, and a toy you don't play with has no value (and that clutter from a bunch of crap you'll never use is an anti-value :-)). Also, generosity, among people whom you care about, is a virtue. A good parent would teach their child this, I think...

While I agree with the gist of this article (that it's good to recognize and praise achievement, especially when it directly affects you), "owe" is the wrong word to use here. The poor do not owe the rich anything, and the rich don't owe the poor anything. The point Biddle should be making is that we are not indebted to each other.

So much stupid crap can be avoided if you just think about issues correctly, and that ability can only come from critical thinking skills and a decent philosophical framework. 
 
  I think one really concrete way philosophy has helped me is that I no how to be fair and to judge others correctly. Some people I meet are just storms of emotion that have no ability to regulate themselves. They blame others for their mistakes and give other people passes for superficial reasons. Having a good sense of judgement helps so much in dealing with others. It allows one to avoid bad people and reward good people, which creates a social circle that can function. Another benefit is that people take you seriously when you show that you are fair in your dealings.

Yes I would think Trayvon would probably not match an 11 year old girl. Please feel free to point out where I said otherwise so that we can make all the necessary corrections.
 
In any event, either there is basis in reality for the proposition "there are instances of rapists following, stalking, watching their victims" or there isn't. It seems to me there is basis for it, and I would have thought that to be a common item of knowledge among most people. How it follows from that that Trayvon must be linked to the case of an 11 year old girl escapes me.
 
You ask me what I think Trayvon might have been thinking. And I don't know, we only have Jeantel's cellphone conversation to indicate what he might have been thinking, wherein she replies (basically) that, hey, maybe it's some kind of rapist, you should be careful, which I think is a reasonable reaction. To wit, she also said that he didn't want a "creepy ass cracker" going to his father or girlfriend's house, where his little brother was. Other than that, I find your statement in #129 to be reasonable.
 
If you want to summarize, here's what all I actually said instead of what you want to pretend/imagine/assume I said:
1. there are instances of rapists following, stalking, watching their victims, which is common knowledge to most people. (#136. #144)
2. if your friend calls you and tells you someone is following and watching you, a reasonable response might be, hey, maybe it's some kind of rapist, you should probably be careful, the basis of that being (1) (#127)
3. If we believe Jeantel's account of the cellphone conversation with Trayvon, it's reasonable to assume he was creeped out at being followed and thus confronted Zimmerman rather than allowing him to follow him to his father's home
 
Here's a list of things I didn't say, just in case people were wondering:
1. Trayvon is the same as an 11 year old girl
2. Trayvon has anything to do with an 11 year old girl
3. Trayvon had a reason to believe he was going to be raped
4. Trayvon was justified in smashing Zimmerman's skull on the pavement
5. Zimmerman is a rapist
6. Zimmerman can likely rape Trayvon
7. Zimmerman was stalking Trayvon
8. Zimmerman was trying to rape Trayvon
Did I miss anything?
 
It seems to me that, contra the ethics of discourse, people want to treat discussion as if it were some kind of sport wherein one scores points, rather than a search for the truth. I think that reduces discussion to sophistry and argument from intimidation, which is all we see mainly out of some people. Representing what someone says accurately is an absolute necessity for responding to what someone actually said, and responding to only what someone actually says instead of pretending they said something else and responding to that is the only helpful way to proceed for participants seeking the truth, not to mention that such tactics are deductively invalid.

There's just one little fault with your logic there. It's that fights aren't caused by someone failing to "know how to handle themselves", they are caused by someone failing to not physically assault another person.

They are caused by someone initiating physical force.

So, unless you have evidence that Zimmerman was the one who physically assaulted Trayvon Martin (which you don't), you are wrong to blame him for this fight.
 
The person to blame is the person who threw the first punch. I don't know for a fact who that was, but, based on the evidence available to me, it was more likely Martin than Zimmerman. In fact, based on physical evidence, Martin was the only one to throw punches.
 
Just as importantly, the jury in the case unanimously agreed that there is no proof that the person who initiated the fight was George Zimmerman. You shouldn't unequivocally blame someone for a fight you don't know they started. It's wrong. Stop it. The person to blame is always the one who started the fight. Even if that person is 17, and the victim 30.
 
I'm 30. If I was attacked by a 17 yo., I would refuse to accept any responsibility for the fight. No matter what I supposedly said or did to prompt him to attack me, no matter what the outcome. I refuse to accept a society in which people, adults or minors, can't refrain from initiating force on principle. I refuse, I refuse, I refuse. I can't make it any clearer than this. I refuse legally, I refuse morally, and I refuse in any other context you wish to define the word "responsibility".

I said earlier that "The question really comes down to this: Do people choose to do evil because of the facade (a certain philosophy, religious dogma, etc) or is the facade a sanction that gives people the freedom (or the moral go ahead) to do evil? In other words, is religion the catalyst for evil or just the excuse? I think it is a little of both" and "I agree that 'militant' Islam is evil and should be fought." So no, I don't think that "everyone else is exempt." (See my last paragraph for further explanation.)
 
I took many of those points (specifically: vengeance (ie: being emotionally impacted by a tragic death - a trigger event), wanting to be significant/ be a hero, environmental factors) from Arie Kruglanski's research. In short, he believes that: "...there are three basic components in the tendency of a person to become a suicide bomber or active terrorist. There’s the social element — being part of a group; the ideological element — a set of beliefs that condone violence for the sake of the group; and the emotional element, which triggers both the acceptance and personalization of the ideology. The ideology doesn’t need to be intricate or profound. There’s a grievance, a culprit responsible for the grievance and a method of regressing the grievance by violence."
 
From what I've read, ideology is not usually the primary motivation for becoming a terrorist. It can be for some people, sure, but there are usually other more personal and more important factors involved.

in #39 harrison said
Tadmjones-  I didn't quite catch that; would you be so kind as to phrase it as a syllogism?
 
 
if you mean my comment as #32
Dude not sure, but you may have at least a minor case of orifice disassociativeness
 
 
That was a slight, I was suggesting that your post 'sounded' like someone talking out of the their ass, I apoligize for the snarkiness, but of course not for the content that precipitated it as it was yours.
 

Can't edit my other post, but I wanted to add something:
 
The only 'evidence' I've seen about gender roles is from participant studies. From these, generalizations are made with respect to people's personal anecdotes, feelings, experiences, etc. I don't know if this form of evidence is valid- wiki says "it is accepted only in lieu of more solid evidence (regardless of the veracity of individual claims)" and "the process of verification is necessary to determine whether a generalization holds true for any given situation."
 
So IF these studies are the only 'evidence' available right now, there's not much we can do except to say "that generalization is false in these specific situations" and leave it at that.
 
What Delaney and other romance bloggers/radio-hosts do (see tom leykis) is try to help people along in their relationships and/or make a living. Where do they get their info? Cherry-picked anecdotes, their own experiences, and maybe a few studies or articles on google. Obviously their advice is not going to work for everyone or even be appealing to everyone, because their info is based (at best!) on generalizations.

This is really the only counter in this thread that makes sense.
 
When I said that a terrorists motivations are personal, I meant that they are not shared by the majority of others in his religion. True, militant Islam is a real branch of Islam (and probably has a number of sub-branches), and it is dangerous and should be fought. But shouldn't the primary fault lie with the men who accept this philosophy? My posts on this page were meant to convey that. There's a reason why terrorists or others who do evil believe in these sorts of philosophies. All the philosophy does is give them the facade of a sanction to do whatever evils they want (ie: bomb innocent people, kill dissenters, etc). 

Yes, the views of muslims will differ. Even the few thousand Objectivists have have differences, so its natural that the major religions will have various denominations and sub-groups, with various ideologies.
Nevertheless, there are common aspects that give the broad concept (e.g. "Muslim", "Christian") meaning. When one names a smaller sub-class and qualifies it (e.g. Orthodox Mormon), one is looking at a group where the members' ideology is much more uniform. There is a certain brand of militant-Islam that was common to all the 9/11 hijackers. They were all individuals, but they did share a certain ideology. There are many others who share that ideology. It does not matter what we name it: some will call it "true Islam" others will call it "a corruption of Islam" or a "fake Islam". The name is not primary: the ideology is really out there, and there are people who believe in it and actively spread it. In this sense, the ideology is a threat to the U.S.

Agreed:  Although, a normally developed male (mentally, i.e. emotionally and cognitively) in his 30s will likely have different very values, experiences, knowledge, and goals from a "normally" developed female in her late teens/early 20s.
 
Unless the woman is exceptionally experienced, accomplished, and mature emotionally and cognitively etc.  OR unless the man is exceptionally UNDER developed there generally will not be the conditions for what objectivists define as a state of love ever occurring between the two or even one for the other.
 
If one were to speculate one could say that, probabilistically speaking, "real" romantic love (according to objectivism) is likely not actually being experienced by the man (irrespective of whether or not this would or even could be reciprocated by the female).

Funny. I consider myself as spiritual, and am also unsatisfied with traditional (or even untraditional) religious organizations. Nor is a focus on 'Higher Causes' required beyond a more thourough understanding of causality as it established by the relationship between identity and action.
 
Analogies can be constructed between many systems of apparent compatible values without establishing the veracity thereof. An analogy is not a substitute for the application of logic to the process of reasoning.
 
The distinction between faith and belief might be better served as the distinction between faith and reason. Beliefs can be established by faith or reason. To the extent beliefs are established by reason, faith is powerless to undermine them. To the degree beliefs are based on faith, reason may or may not undermine them depending on the practitioner's understanding or disregard for a logic based process of reasoning.

Believe it or not I say go for it and have fun.  If you do it for good reasons that are important to you then you should go for it instead of living with the dreaded "what if" your whole life.
 
As Snerd said experiencing other cultures like that can be very rewarding.  Once upon a time I drove truck and it was very satisfying to experience so many fascinating places, music, food, and people.  And that was only America!  More importantly, as my wife says, don't be a  tourist so this would let you experience the world as it is, not as it is sold to travel agencies. 

... or resurrected, depending on your POV
 
I think mdegges point isn't rebutted by listing general interpretations;  various interpretations (including yours) remain.  Generalities might be given about Objectivism as a whole that individual Objectivists (or those from the Kelly camp vs those from the Peikoff camp) could and do regularily argue on this forum.  Appeals to authority (divine or otherwise) aren't exclusive to persons of faith.
 
The primary difference between Christianity and other religions has to do with the issue of revelation, which I think was effectively rebutted by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason.