CartsBeforeHorses

The universe is man's to enjoy, not for the universe's sake, but for man's.

April's In Paris - "Feels Like I Just Can't Take No More"

This explains a lot.

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. Does this deserve its own thread?

Invictus has me on ignore so I will not respond to him point-by-point, but I think that he and I generally agree that prison (if it does exist) should be about rehabilitation rather than vengeance. The question of whether or not prison should exist as such, and if we are not better served by penal colonies, he did not address... one of the drawbacks of putting somebody on ignore is that you miss their ideas. By putting somebody on ignore for disagreeing with you, you essentially put yourself in your own little "prison" of sorts, insulated from the outside and any other ideas which might conflict with your own. No intellectual growth, no challenge to your ideas. I would vehemently disagree with the following, though: I don't believe it is ever appropriate to confine somebody individually as is done in a Supermax prison, other than for very brief periods if they are an imminent threat. But not for an "extended period," AKA years. I view such treatment as tantamount to torture. If somebody is truly that dangerous and cannot change in short order, the death penalty is warranted. Furthermore, how do you learn a lesson about respecting rights when you are not in a position to interact with others? When you are isolated? How does that at all serve any rehabilitative purpose whatsoever? I guess I'll never know, because Invictus has isolated himself from me. It's the most basic of jokes. I have none, other than that the article relies on the assumption that prison should exist. Insofar as prisons do exist, it is proper to reform them in such a manner. However as I've stated, I view prisons as unnecessary. A penal colony would serve nearly every recommendation that the article gives, and be far cheaper to boot. It would be similar to the outside, it would enable productive work and the accumulation of wealth by prisoners, it would respect prisoners' right to privacy within whatever house they can build themselves, and furthermore it would allow for prisoners to exercise their right of self-defense against gangs instead of having to rely on guards--though guards would still probably have to exist to maintain order, I don't think that self-policing would work but maybe it could. As for mental health services, I'm sure that there are many private practitioners who would set up shop in said colony, assuming their safety could be guaranteed. That is where the role of guards come in. Others could have the right of visitation, however it would be up to the person who is visiting to pay their fare to the penal colony--depending on where it is. For more detail, I think we should put our hypothetical penal colony in the Australian Outback, and that's how Australia could pay us back for the massive billions we pay for their defense every year. Visitation would probably be the biggest hurdle to this plan, however.

Pick one or the other. History has shown you can't have both. I'll make a new thread.

Should state government exist, in your view? What should its role be?

That's why I said "one of the most evil" rather than the most evil. One can debate whether or not other laws are more or less evil, but that would not gain you anything... especially if your opponent agrees that what you mention is "still evil" even though it does not fit in the hierarchy of "most." All that aside, why has the ARI refused to write even one article surrounding this piece of vile legislation? Instead we get rehashed article after rehashed article from Onkar Ghate and others on Donald Trump and why he's evil. We get article after article on the welfare state and why it's evil. Yeah, it's evil, gotcha. No need to write over a hundred articles about it. Blind repetition gets us nothing. The ARI supports diversity, yet has very little diversity in its own content. They're the most basic of jokes. Would you consider yourself an anti-federalist? I've seen some Objectivists argue against the existence of state governments at all. This is, in my view, a giant mistake.

That sounds Kantian. We "must" tolerate that which we do not like, for the sake of "national unity?" I'm no fan of Nazis, and this Bill Regnery doesn't sound like someone who I would want to grab a beer with... but that being said, it seems as though he has established a level of comfort for himself by moving to a majority-white community. Are we to deny him his right to freedom of association? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the most evil pieces of legislation to have ever been passed in America. I never see Objectivist articles from the ARI which describe why it was evil... it destroyed freedom of association in this country. One of the most fundamental rights in the Constitution.

I think that every stolen concept fallacy leads to a contradiction... denying a concept while then affirming that concept implicitly. This might be just a regular contradiction, but I think it's still worth pointing out because of its pervasiveness in the tech sphere, and beyond... see Sam Harris' Ted Talk on the issue. While I think that there are certain precautions that it's wise to take when dealing with a new and poorly understood technology, denying man's understanding of what he has built essentially renders him powerless, like some Maximum Overdrive scenario.

Interesting premise! I'll have to add it to my watch list Personally, I find prisons to be immoral. They do not offer the chance for inmates to change for the better. They are founded on the principle not of rehabilitation, but retribution. Additionally, with taxpayer funded prisons, you have the dilemma of parasitism... the person in prison is not paying his own way. What is the result? Idle hands are the devil's plaything. The rise of gangs in prisons is a predictable symptom of a broken system which locks a man away for years so that he can "serve his debt to society" alongside other men who, at least half the time, are in there for even worse crimes. For the really bad prisoners who have committed heinous crimes, have no chance of reform, and show no remorse, the death penalty is warranted. For instance, the Charleston church shooter, or Anders Brevik who shot all those kids in Norway. They have had years to repent but they have not, and they've said that they would kill again. The guillotine would serve those people well. For those who commit minor crimes, jail is warranted, but any sentences longer than five years or so are immoral... both to society and to the prisoner himself. For the rest, I'm an advocate of penal colonies... send them off someplace and see what they can build. Australia, while hardly up to the same standards as other Western nations, is certainly better off than most of the Third World. I think they are doing (fairly) well for themselves considering their convict origins, other than their international parasitism on America's good graces. Were I president, I would put a stop to that in an equitable way, but that's a different topic. America needs a penal colony of our own, which would be more effective at rehabilitation, and would also be cheaper than maintaining our massive prison system, currently the most massive in the world.

Don't tempt O.O. like that, or you'll have three pages of discussion over definitions rather than an actual answer to your question Damn, now I'm tempted to clarify this definition further. I warned you! I like your definition, but I would add "deliberate type of communication." Sometimes people offend and cause emotional distress with communication styles that could not be construed by a reasonable person to be rude. Especially in today's messed-up society, a person can make an honest mistake in communication, or merely express his opinion, and people will take offense and be emotionally distressed. They'll be "triggered," as it were. I think if being rude to somebody to "get back at them" causes you selfish pleasure, and there is no particular reason that you'd ever need to engender that particular person to you in the future, then you could argue that rudeness towards that person is justified. Of course, if you derive selfish pleasure from rudeness to begin with, I think that this warrants a critical self-examination. Could you also derive selfish pleasure from being nice to those people in spite of the qualities in them that you don't like? Turn the other cheek, as it were. That's a strategy that I often employ... if somebody is being rude to me, I usually smile at them. If I get bad customer service someplace, I usually smile at the person who is far too often caught in the middle of a broken system. It's not the cashier's fault that your Wendy's meal took ten minutes to get to you. It's the fault of people that you'll never meet, and it is illogical to "take it out" on somebody else. Usually if you smile you will give them a sense of relief that, yes, it's not their fault and no, they don't need to be worried. On the internet, I find it far more gratuitous to respond to trolling attempts with humor than to flame the troll right back. They are trolling you to get an emotional response, so if you are rude to them, then far more often than not they take glee in that. Being nice to trolls actually bugs them more than being rude. It confuses the hell out of them.

I see this all the time when people discuss the possibility of an above-human level artificial intelligence (ASI, or artificial superintelligence). People who are scared of this AI say that we, as puny humans "could never hope to understand its motivations." Yet very often, these same people will begin to discuss the actions of this ASI with an implicit understanding of at least some of its motiviations. IE, that it would take actions to sustain its existence, that it has the motive of self-preservation. Even though they said that an ASI's motivations "could not be understood." So they steal the concept of "understanding" and smuggle it back in. Insects and snails do seem to "remember," though. And people can be subconsciously primed or suggested. If this is not memory, is there a better term for it?

By Rand's definition I am exonerated from the label of "racist." "[Racism] is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man's genetic lineage" No argument that I have made here applies to any particular individual, to no man in particular. Nor does any belief that I privately hold or publicly espouse. Rather, my arguments apply to any sufficiently large group of men. This dichotomy between the group and the individual is one that I have belabored to the point of exhaustion, carefully crafting my words to ensure that not even the appearance of me judging the individual based on race is present. "the notion that a man's intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry..." I would agree with Martin Luther King that we should not judge an individual by the color of his skin, but rather by the content of his character. "Racism claims that the content of a man's mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited." I have said nothing in regards to content of a man's mind being inherited. Everybody is born tabula rasa. Ayn Rand went out of her way to specifically exclude "not his cognitive apparatus" from her definition. That would seem to indicate that she viewed cognitive apparatus as being inherited... at least to some extent.

I'm quoting you here because in the Rushton video that I linked in the post directly above this one, he actually discusses the Minnesota Twins Study at around 24:57.

Neuroscientist Sam Harris, and political scientist Charles Murray. Psychologist Dr. J. Philippe Rushton.

I categorize groups and averages based on objective characteristics for which I have numbers and statistics to do so. My stated purpose was not to "divide people" based on racial intelligence. My stated purpose is actually to unite people by realizing that we have differences on a group level, but on an individual level everybody deserves individual moral evaluation on the content of their character, as Martin Luther King would say. Whites have the edge in intelligence, but there are many areas in which blacks are superior to whites. Physical resilience, mental resilience, physical athletics. Is that a "divisive" statement, too? Or is it acknowledging reality that only one group can go outside in the sun and not get roasted, or get skin cancer? Is it divisive to recognize the predominance of African-Americans in sports not just in the United States, but in other black countries at the Olympics? Is it divisive to recognize that blacks are 3x less likely to kill themselves? I'd consider that a superior trait which is not explicable by environment, but is probably very much due to genetics and the prevalence of mental disorders. I explain this more in my response to 2046. I'm not a racist. I believe that mankind is a rich tapestry of different groups of people who are good at different sorts of things... on average, within each group you will find exemplary individuals in all areas of human endeavor.

No, I'm literally somebody who is self-interested. Leftists actively go out of their way to destroy my self-interest through welfare, taxes, and anti-white sentiments. White nationalists are neutral in the culture war... they just want their own country and to be left alone. Fine. Give them Australia or something, I don't really care. More America for the rest of us. I support those things which enrich me and oppose those things which detract from me. Vs. yourself and MisterSwig, who feels obligated, like a sort of Kantian duty, to morally condemn literally everything in the world which isn't Objectivist. Hint: you don't have to. You get to decide. You get to be selfish with your moral judgments and only explicitly condemn that which furthers your own interests to condemn. I don't morally condemn my allies, even when we disagree on some minor point. Such as most Trump supporters... we're allies, doesn't mean we share every belief in common. Nor do I morally condemn somebody who is of literally no concern to me... like most non-evangelical Christians, or white nationalists. I can choose not to morally condemn even if I disagree morally. Yet you and Swig condemn everything under the sun. You verbally sacrifice yourselves to whatever cause isn't objectivism by giving it the time of day and bothering to loudly condemn it and alienate yourself further. All while claiming to be selfish individuals. Selfish self-sacrifice, I would call it. Mixed with pseudo-intellectual trolling. You're the most basic of jokes. In one area only, that of intelligence. I am not claiming that whites are unconditionally superior, like a Nazi would claim. In many areas, blacks are objectively superior. Please see below where I address 2046. See above. There is no Objectivist duty to respond to, or argue with, something that you don't agree with. You first, buddy. I'm not racist against any individual. Nor am I racist against blacks in general as a group. I'm not a racist, period. Racism is a belief in superiority, not in mere differences. Do you acknowledge that blacks on average have darker skin and curlier hair? Doesn't make you a racist. Differences aren't a bad thing. The only difference I've thus far discussed is intelligence, where whites have the edge, but there are other differences which favor blacks, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them. Whites aren't able to just walk into Africa without sunscreen and not get roasted. Or even out in America on a sunny day. Statistically, whites in the US are about 3x more likely to kill themselves than blacks. Blacks are statistically far better athletes than whites, as well. Look at any professional football team, those are 70% black. Look at who wins track matches in the Olympics. It ain't usually white people. This is speculation, but if there were ever found a gene for creativity, I'd also probably give the edge to blacks. So many talented black musicians, for only 13% of the US population. Life would suck if we only had white people around. It would be like a boardroom meeting all the time. No fun at all. We need art, we need athletics, we need black people. They're amazing, incredible as a race. I actually miss black people... I used to live in Atlanta and then I moved to Colorado Springs, a pasty white city. One of the few things I miss about the South. I'd never move to an all-white country; I'm not a white nationalist. People are different in unique and varied ways. Just like dogs or horses. Acknowledging this difference is part of what makes us human, and what makes the human race as a whole, so varied and incredible. We need blacks, whites, Asians, Jews, Indians, all sorts of people. They're all part of the rich tapestry of mankind. Find me a racist who would say any of what I just did.

Of course I would expose a Clinton group, because liberals are an existential threat to America. Nazis are not. They're just a nuisance. "Siding" as in wanting them to have their own country so they get out of mine? Conclusions such as...?

If it gets them to voluntarily move out of America then I'm all for it. Socialists and America is like a bad marriage... It ain't working out. Time for a divorce.

Yet another example of Peikoff being an Ayatollah and excommunicating people from the Church of Objectivism. You cannot morally evaluate everything all the time like Peikoff demands. Impossible. Is it wrong to be a racist? Yes. But all okay means is that you have to be okay with it. You can whine and whine but you're not going to change people's minds. And that can bug you--as it seems to--or you can accept the reality and be at peace emotionally. Because their propaganda is in this case a true statement. I've yet to hear a reason why that's a bad idea. It's a win win for both sides.

It's almost like fun isn't a prime virtue, and I never said it was. 😉

Hence my assertion that orthodox Objectivism has a problem with fun. They don't know how to have it, and they don't recognize it in others.

It's easy to make quippy comments when I don't know what I'm arguing against. What is the government's proper role in regulating immigration, if any, in your view? Does it have no such role at all?

For someone who preaches about context, you sure do miss a lot of it. I wasn't drawing a conclusion about any individual based on their race. I have never done that. I was drawing a conclusion about a group based on their race. The average IQ of blacks in America is 90. So it stands to reason that a large enough group of them, plus their stupid liberal white "allies" whose average IQ is probably 70 would end up taking offense to a f**king transposition mistake. Tell me, would a smart person take any issue with what Keaton accidentally said?