happiness

I think I'm going to vote against Sanders in the primary rather than for any particular Republican. What do you think of my strategy?

So while it's hard to predict that the dollar will collapse against other currencies, do you agree that it's reasonable to predict that it and many currencies may collapse against the value of hard assets? The markets are clearly in turmoil, and the Fed and other central banks explicitly operate on the principle of printing money every time their economies enter recession. The Fed increased rates by a meaningless amount last month—according to Schiff, a symbolic move—and we right now it seems the news is getting pretty bad. As Rogers often points out, we historically have a recession every 4-6 years in the U.S., and it has been almost 7 since the last one, and rates are still near rock bottom. How can one conclude that the Fed is going to do anything other than print, print, and print some more in the coming years and that we are going to suffer major inflationary pain?

Did Shkreli do anything wrong? I don't see that he did.

I had a hard time following that dialogue but I wouldn't debate the minimum wage by speculating about how many jobs would be lost if it was hiked to X level, as doing so is only a short-term analysis at best anyway. I explain it in terms of individual rights the and consequences of violating them. The minimum wage violates the interests of employers by forcing them to pay higher wages than what their employees labor is worth to them. If it is not in their interest to hire people or retain them, they will not do so, and everyone will lose both the jobs and the values that result from them, leading to less demand for labor, lower wages, and lower value of money. This would be a good point at which to insert historical examples of employers laying people off when the minimum wage was imposed. If your opponent counters by saying "but nobody who works full-time should be unable to support a family," you point out that his "should" statement reflects his own arbitrary feelings, not actual facts. If he says "but academic economists agree that raising the minimum wage doesn't affect the unemployment rate," you point out the logical fallacies there, and depending on his attitude, maybe insult him for posturing as an expert on economics while not even knowing the basic rules of reasoning. It won't change the person's mind, at least you won't be tongue tied.

I don't remember for sure where I read that, but I believe it was in "Ayn Rand Answers," which I no longer have. I should have checked this before posting.

Seems like a silly anarchist idea to me. You'd lose more value by separating from a semi-free society than the government would take away from you if you stayed.

There was a large amount of immigration to the U.S. between 1870 and 1930, during which time the country took its first big steps toward statism. Ayn Rand said that the corruption of American culture came about as a result of the importation of European philosophy. To what extend are these developments related? Did America lose its Americanism because European immigrants brought European values with them? Would an "Objectivist" country with an easy immigration policy be able to avoid a cultural-philosophical infection through the vigilance of its native intellectuals alone? Is this intellectual immune system what the U.S. lacked?

Is it a false cause fallacy since the statistics used in this case do not control for the degree of government control? This is aside from the fact that eftists often use the U.S. as a proxy for the "free market," which is a factual error that one has to take on separately.

I'm writing a blog post about a particular type of argument that I see frequently in favor of socialized medicine. It goes like this: we in the U.S. should determine our course on healthcare policy by looking around the world at what other countries are doing and imitate whichever other country's policy "works" the best. And since the policy that clearly "works" the best is single-payer, the U.S. should adopt that. Off the top of my head, the problems with this are: 1) Nobody ever clarifies what the term "work" means, i.e. by what standard they judge the success or failure of a policy. They bypass the philosophical question of what ends should be chosen and proceed to cherry-pick statistics that appear to reflect favorably on single-payer while ignoring and whitewashing the inadequacies found in all countries that have it. 2) The method of comparing one country to another under the status quo is wrong because there is no objective benchmark against which to measure whether single-payer or any other given policy really does "work." There may be an ideal policy that all countries fall deplorably short of, in which case the comparison is between one failed policy and another. Although I can't put my finger on why, I sense that these are actually two different ways of saying the same thing. Can anyone tell me the connection between them?

Is it straightforward anti capitalism, or does it have some merit in light of cronyism?

I recently decided to try my hand at sales. My long-term interest is in selling precious metals and related investments, but since the job I want is commission only, I decided to start with a non-commission sales job to get my feet wet and make sure I can stand selling at all. The company I’m selling for specialized in marketing online tech support services to seniors who are tech illiterate. I have no interest in the company or its product whatsoever and the further I get into the sales training, the less I like the company. The sales process goes like this: a confused tech illiterate person, usually elderly, types something like “I can't get into my email” into a search engine. Our company's site is one of the most prominent search results, and the link directs them to a page that prompts them to enter their contact information so we can call to help. They more tech illiterate the lead is, the more likely he is to assume this is part of his ISP’s service. Once we get his info, we call him. The sales agent asks to connect to the lead’s computer to do an audit of his system. The naive lead often thinks he's talking to some nice person who’s going to get him back into his email for free, but the real purpose of the audit is to see what kind of services his computer would benefit from (things like malware removal, software updates, security upgrades, cleaning up superfluous startup programs, etc. and to find out what he does with it) so the agent can upsell him on all the appropriate bells and whistles later in the call. So right off the bat, the agent is starting the conversation under false pretenses. The agent is required to start selling the “fix” for $149 regardless of how simple of a problem it is. The fix necessarily include a “tuneup and optimization” and malware removal even if the lead doesn't want it. The lead can talk the price down to $99 or $49, but I feel ridiculous even starting at $149 and suggesting that that's somehow good deal for something simple like a password reset. As a rebuttal when the lead declines because the price is too high, the suggests a script is, “I understand, but it's absolutely what needs to happen, and we're definitely going to be the cheapest option to get the work done.” Which is bullshit because it doesn't necessarily need to happen, and a few other services do offer cheaper options. The "fix" is meant to be a prelude to selling the person on a month-to-month membership that includes a lot of services like cloud storage and unlimited tech support in the future. These services are valuable to some people, so I have no problem with it in and of itself. However, although we're not required to use them, most of the suggested scripts we're encouraged to use are gimmicky at best, and in a few cases they're outright dishonest. For example, we’re taught to say that the particular antivirus program included in the company's service offering is better than whatever program the lead is already using (dubious, PC mag rates a few common programs higher) emphasize that it's used by “hospitals and universities” (while a few dozen institutions of those types apparently do use it, the majority of the thousands of other ones must use other antivirus programs), and then say it normally retails for $100 (the real price is $20-50). If the customer states that he owns multiple computers, we are required say ad verbatim “let's get that one connected too”—that is, assume the lead wants to do it rather than ask. Blaauurg. To the company's credit, at no point are we required to use high-pressure tactics, refuse to take no for an answer, or do anything flagrantly dishonest. But some of the things were expected to say are too far out of line with reality for my taste. Do you think the job is actually immoral, or am I just too conscientious for it?

Thanks for the correction. I had it in my head that this happened in the 30s. I'm trying to figure out whether German regulatory authorities approved thalidomide and doctors acted on the government's bad advice, but it does not appear to be the case. So far the best argument I can see is simply to say that one example does not prove the rule.

Any discussion of abolishing the FDA prompts leftists to scream "Thalidomide!" as if just saying that word over and over again somehow proves the need for government protectionism. But pre-Nazi Germany where the Thalidomide thing happened could not possibly have had a free market heatlhcare industry. Is there an argument that turns the tables on the left by showing that Thalidomide happend as a result or in spite of government intervention in the healthcare industry?

I don't know much of the story behind the schism, but isn't what they're doing basically tantamount to an attempt to destroy Objectivism by changing the fundamentals, i.e. Introducing a contradiction by saying the philosophy can be anything other than what it is?

Precious metals sales.

Noted, but I'm thinking non-Objectivist users might be more apt to watch a video on Objectivism than register to post on this forum.

I'm thinking about paying for an ad on reddit so that thousands of people will see a provocative Objectivism video. Reddit is very liberal, but there are a lot of young people there, and mentioning Ayn Rand always generates passionate response. Any suggestions as to what video would be the best to post there?

I paid to send a dozen-odd books today. I'm wondering what the pro's and con's are of donating books through this site vs. donating to ARI. Donating books targets an interested recipient, but is comparatively expensive per book vs. the expense that ARI incurs to donate books to high schools and whoever else. The shipping cost of donating your own physical copies makes it totally not worthwhile to do so—you'd be better off just donating them to your local library.

I agree with this and it was my initial reaction. I only asked because I posted the story on another forum and many people criticized the employer. Liberals I guess.

I had been entertaining two jobs. Job A, although I had not accepted it yet, was mine if I wanted it. I was also reasonably certain I that I could get Job B, but it was riskier, and I had some doubts about whether I wanted it and the company itself. A few days ago I emailed the owner of Company B to express interest and request a phone call so I could ask some questions about the company and demands of the job. He agreed to a 10 minute phone call today, and told me to call his cell anytime within a three hour window. This was not to be an interview, just an exploratory discussion. In the intervening period I became increasingly negative on Job B, and by this morning I had decided firmly to go with Job A. I assumed that hearing from me was a trivial matter to the other employer, and was embarrassed to have changed my mind that fast, so I just didn't call him.This afternoon he shoots me an email saying "You leave a very unfavorable impression by standing up the owner of a company. A professional courtesy would have been a simple phone call to cancel. Don’t bother contacting me again as we don’t have any interest in people that don’t honor their commitments." That stung pretty bad. On one hand, I do see that It was unprofessional of me to request a phone call, set one up, and then blow it off, and I definitely should have at least given him a courtesy call or email. On the other hand, I'm wondering if I didn't doge a bullet, because those were some pretty heavy shots to fire over a 10 minute phone call with no firm appointment time. I emailed him an apology and am moving on with a lesson learned in professional courtsey. My question is...how badly did I really mess up here, and was his response justified?

I doubt that a free market would sanction much of what comprises modern psychiatry. Basically the field labels negative, albeit normal emotional states as mental disorders that warrant medical intervention even though there is little to no evidence that such is the case. The government codifies the treatment of these alleged disorders as a medical specialty and forces medical students to attend schools that include the specialty in their curricula, and the FDA again helps legitimize psychiatric conditions by deeming them to be valid "indications" for treatment and approving of the drugs used to treat them, which insurance mandates force insurers to pay for. A free market, in which patients had to pay for drugs out of pocket and clinicians' reputations depended on them being thinkers rather than followers, would demand better evidence that these conditions represent real medical issues and that the drugs are of true long-term value. As for what Ayn Rand would think of the field, I think the following quote about emotions is applicable: Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism of man’s body is an automatic indicator of his body’s welfare or injury, a barometer of its basic alternative, life or death—so the emotional mechanism of man’s consciousness is geared to perform the same function, as a barometer that registers the same alternative by means of two basic emotions: joy or suffering. Emotions are the automatic results of man’s value judgments integrated by his subconscious; emotions are estimates of that which furthers man’s values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him—lightning calculators giving him the sum of his profit or loss. What are psychiatric patients doing by taking anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs if not simply suppressing the function of their emotional mechanisms?

My understanding of socialism is that it is by definition government ownership of the means of production. If regulation of private enterprise represents the government exercising the privileges of ownership, it's it a form of socialism, albeit an incomplete one?

I think the only time I've been an Objectivist in public was at a campus club meeting in 2010.

It's not that the U.S. is a worse country than anywhere else, just that it has the most to lose since its the USD holds reserve currency status and thus so many people have bought its debt and currency in the past under the false assumption that these assets are safe havens. Nobody ever believed that Japan was the world's best economy or invested in trillions of dollars of its debt or pegged its currency to the yen. The U.S. has been following wildly irresponsible monetary and fiscal policies for at least the last 15 years and probably a lot longer, but has been benefiting from memories of a bygone era when we were the world's uncontested economic superpower and had the industrial capacity to balance our trade. Meanwhile, the Asians have been building factories, underconsuming, and saving.

The high cost of goods in this scenario would create a strong incentive to invest in U.S. manufacturing, but for all the reasons we've already lost so much manufacturing capacity—all the taxes and regulations we have—I'm concerned the needed investment and industrial output would be delayed for God knows how long. And that instead of removing those barriers, the government, in the name of protecting the public from the businessmen whose greed they would blame for the high prices, would impose price controls that make it altogether impossible for said investment to happen at all.