CartsBeforeHorses

Funny how I'm the one who gets ridiculed as an "ayatollah of fun" when people in this thread were questioning the validity of an objectively fun thing. I don't judge you if you don't fantasize. I think it's a mental faculty that lots of people (not everyone) might find enjoyable to develop.
Considering that I was being attacked for a position that I never held... that "fantasy is a fundamental virtue," I was confused at why this strawman was being set up and shot right through the straw.
I appreciate your tolerance.

Having a good attention span is critical, if you have a short attention span then you will never fini

What has happened with the government of the Ukraine is indeed more of the same regime change bullshit that has been American foreign policy for some time now.  American foreign policy had been captured by an ideology of globalism.   
Crimea had been conquered and subsequently settled by Russians in the 1700's and has been directly administered by Moscow from that time until a bit after World War 2. Stalin decided to reassign it to a larger Ukraine regional political district in a purely administrative move that did not reflect any change in the language, culture or governing political ideology of the Crimea.   Crimea has been part of Russia for longer than Texas has been part of the United States.  It was completely valid for Russia to re-annex that part of the newly neo-fascist puppet government of the Ukrainian region.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JElnt-C4dI
The part that made my day starts at 25:57. Only lasts 15 seconds, and I love how he never even had to think about it. Just a snarky "ehh", and a matter of fact dismissal of the whole basis for altruism.
But the whole thing is brilliant, if you like comedy, or you just want to watch two really smart, well educated people, who respect each other, have an hour long conversation.

At the end of the day, even Russel had to wake up every morning, put on his shoes, and walk out the door to go to work or wherever he was headed. His actions betray an implicit knowledge... you need shoes to protect your feet, you need to keep the door closed to prevent burglars or heat escaping your house, etc. When he conveys the idea that "knowledge is impossible," he actually uses knowledge to do so... his knowledge of the English language, and his knowledge of the concepts "knowledge" and "impossibility."
Even the deniers of absolute knowledge act as if they have knowledge. That speaks volumes more than their denial that knowledge is possible. Such hypocrisy is what Rand called the "fallacy of the stolen concept." And it's what I call "the most basic of jokes."

I agree with the posters here. In English, statements that are not gramatically complete are called sentence fragments. I.E. The sentence "walking the dog." There is no object of the sentence, who is walking the dog.
I would propose that sentences that are purely self-referential such as "This sentence is true" are cognitive fragments. There isn't enough information in the sentence to evaluate it.

The post that you're quoting said the words "if" and "might," not "is" and "does." Such words on behalf of MisterSwig seem to indicate that he wasn't trying to diagnose anything, merely suggesting a possibility rather than making a diagnosis or prescription.
Also, you don't need to be a doctor to know that anti-psychotic medication is prescribed to treat schizophrenia, bipolar, and other mental disorders.

There is zero scientific consensus on this matter. For some conflicting evidence, consider that post-op transgender people still have a suicide rate that dwarfs the general population. If SRS was truly a cure, you wouldn't expect to see that. The truth is that transgenderism is a mental disorder. Body dis-morphia and mental dysphoria aren't only present in transgenders. They are also present in anorexics and bulimics, who feel that they aren't "thin enough" so resort to under-eating or to binging and purging. Is the correct treatment for them to give them liposuction so that they can be ridiculously thin? No. The correct treatment for a mental delusion is not to give in to the delusion; the correct treatment is psychotherapy.

In the November 1966 issue of The Objectivist, Ayn Rand wrote:
It might be said that fifty years ago nominalists self-identified as "non-binary definitionists." True and false pertained to propositions, but not definitions. A proposition suggests mere possibility, but a definition suggests actual certainty. And certainty implies knowledge of reality. If the goal is to enslave people's minds, then you certainly don't want to encourage them to pursue knowledge of reality.
Fast forward fifty years to today, and the nominalists' appetite for slavery has turned to the social-political realm. Now they self-identify as "non-binary genderists." Male and female pertain to propositions, but not definitions; the mind, which possibly reflects reality, but not the body, which certainly reflects reality. If the goal is to enslave people's bodies, then you certainly don't want to encourage them to pursue knowledge of reality.
Slavery is about controlling people's minds and bodies. Nominalism is a philosophy of slavery. A nominalist wants to be a master, a ruler of humans. And so he places himself above normal humans, both mentally and physically. Mentally he is a "non-binary" word-maker, whose speech must not be questioned. And physically he is a "non-binary" entity, whose very identity must not be questioned. When he says he is this or that, then he is this or that. And if he orders you to call him she or they, then your duty is to call him she or they. For he is the master, and you are the slave. He is a member of the "non-binary" royal family. And you are part of the lowly, unenlightened "binary" or "cisgender" class.
If Rand were alive, she might say that nominalism has managed to reach an even deeper depth than anyone ever imagined possible. Verbal and sexual aberrants are being crowned as intellectual and moral superiors. And we, the normal ones, are the tolerated clown jesters of the circus kingdom.
Drag queens and miladyboys.
Bow down to your new rulers!

 

Disturbed—The Sound Of Silence
 

In the battle for the mind, how does "groupthink" factor in?
Each individual mind needs to do the work independently to arrive at a valid conclusion. The exchange of ideas can help to reduce the amount of time to discover valid conclusions, or conversely it can hinder reaching a valid conclusion.
In order to streamline the process, those committed to such a task need establish the veracity of their idea(s) prior bringing them to the table. When a valid conclusion is served properly, it can then be consumed on the basis of its own merits.

I'll denounce white supremacy until it goes away but what do I after that?  The left is not going to believe me and they will call me a racist because I'm not one of them.  

I have only been on this board for a couple months, but I find you to be a particularly bright, intelligent individual with a happy sense of life. Whatever you might have been in the past, you have obviously changed for the better.
I would recommend reading Dr. Joseph Murphy's "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind." I should warn ahead of time that the book is from a New Age author who was an ordained Jesuit minister, so there are references throughout to the "law of attraction" and miracles... Nevertheless I still recommend the book because Murphy does the best job of any author that I know of describing 1. the nature of the subconscious mind, 2. how to change its contents, and 3. how to harness its power. For only $1 on Kindle, I would consider that money well spent.
Also know that "Life is practice." The learning and refinement process never ceases. It is a continual journey and you will gain wisdom along the way, knowledge of what you did wrong and how you could do better in the future. In that sense you are never a "finished product" and should never hope to be so... that would mean that your personal development has come to a stop.
I wish you luck on your continued journey--and know that you will not be alone. I too am constantly refining my reasoning process, and my psycho-epistemology...
I think Huey Lewis put it best... "All I wish for tomorrow, is to get it better than today."

Love Caravan Palace!
Over the Hills is definitely a good one, but my favorite Nightwish song is this:
Nightwish - "Planet Hell"
 

"Imagine the whole of Nature stretched blooming at my feet; a line of blue, misty hills encompassed the horizon in the east; the sun was sinking in the west; all Nature's temple lay before our enchanted eyes. Like Thetis, I could have flown down, and sunk into those flowery rivers. [...] At length, when the sun had just set, a mass of blossoming spring roses came floating up out of the dying rays - the tops of the mountains glowing, the woods all aflame - and illimitable Nature melted into soft rosy tints; and as I was gazing into this ocean of purple, [...] all stood enchanted before me, and sweetly smiled at me." — Robert Schumann, from a letter to a friend, dated Aug. 29, 1827
If all life were to disappear off the face of the earth, would beauty still exist? Obviously not. Beauty is an evaluation, made by a mind whose nature allows it to experience the phenomenon of beauty. Thus, one philosopher concludes: "beauty does not actually exist in the world. When the Poet says that roses are beautiful, he is not referring to something that exists out there. He describes a subjective mental construct. To him, either beauty exists out there in the world, just like trees and stars do, or it only exists in man's mind. Only non-mental things are real, and to be of a mental nature automatically means to not have reality or substance. 
But all mental experiences - whether we refer to sensory form, beauty, intuition, freedom, the grasp of poetic allegory - are real, as real as trees and mountains and stars. Man comes to know them through the ostensive process that stands at the base of all knowledge: direct experience. While his consciousness provides him with valid information about the world, he cannot ever step outside of consciousness. Every experience that he goes through during the span of his life is an experience of consciousness, but for some reason, that dimension has no reality for the philosopher. And nothing is more dangerous for a man's proper functioning than to doubt or deny the validity of his own consciousness.
According to our philosopher, only descriptive statements, such as "Today is raining", can be factual. As soon as we enter the realm of consciousness, we aren't talking about reality anymore - we venture into the world of subjective experience. But man's mental faculties are not separate from nature, they are as much a part of it as everything else. The Poet, then, is right. When the Poet's consciousness encounters roses, a real and distinct phenomenon of consciousness occurs. The rose, as perceived and evaluated by a particular man, is beautiful. Or, certain types of daffodils, as perceived by a specific kind of consciousness, are yellow. And further, if life has identity, then its chemical origin and mechanism must be similar on every planet that can give rise to life. And if there are life forms on other planets, their emotions (or equivalent faculties) probably pertain to the exact same categories as earth's animals possess: fear of threats, desire for values, pain, pleasure and so on. If existence is identity, evaluations are not arbitrary.
Our philosopher prides himself in doing whatever he can to perceive reality as it really is, without tainting it with his own mental nature. And in doing so, he's willfully suffocating his consciousness. He represses his spontaneous emotional reactions, intuitions and connotative associations. He struggles to express himself in the driest, most 'objective' way possible - after all, he equates the evaluative with the unreal.
For each category of value, there are countless options that are just as good as the others - in fact, some tastes and preferences might be randomly shaped by childhood experiences or determined by genetic differences. And this makes the philosopher feel that his personal infrastructure of chosen values is a subjective construct. Feeling emotionally invested into any such infrastructure would mean non-objectivity, an evasion of the arbitrary nature of his choices. Consequently, life to him is just a play, a pretense. In his attempts at making objective choices, he is not aware that objectivity encompasses the entire context - including his psychological makeup and what is possible to him in a world that has identity.
When our philosopher discovered that volition can shape man's character and psychology, he formed the unchecked premise that his mind and subconscious do not have a specific nature at all - that they are identity-less and entirely shaped by the self (or the environment). He thinks that there is no need to pay much attention to his own consciousness, because going through a series of proper conceptual and physical motions will eventually culminate in involuntary happiness and conscious-subconscious harmony. In doing so, he misses heaps of important and ostensively available details about himself, information that can be known only by direct introspection.
One of the philosopher's contemporaries and friends is a German Idealist. His eccentric and poetically-minded friend believes that reality is a mental construct. To him, Nature's objects, the mind’s abstractions and his evaluative emotional experiences are all equally real and spring from the same source: a supernal productive imagination. Though his philosophy is factually wrong, he is much happier than the first philosopher, as his characteristic way of facing life seems to suggest. So, is it true that ignorance is bliss? If there is no God, immortality or primacy of consciousness, doesn't that make reality... stale? A pointless cycle of survival and reproduction? Our first philosopher objects: you can have all of these things without indulging in mystic fantasies. But in truth, deep down he doesn't feel that this is true. He does feel that his existence is a bit dry and pointless.
A man's beliefs about the world shape the way he perceives his environment. His philosophy doesn't affect the raw sensory data, but it does control how he relates to it, what he experiences in his mind's eye. It's not a surprise, then, that when the two philosophers took a stroll through a nearby forest and discussed metaphysics at length, they saw the forest in completely different ways - even though their eyes and minds took in the same sensory data. If we tried to illustrate what went on in their mind's eye, the result would probably look something like this:

The first philosopher saw a lifeless chunk of matter. The second philosopher saw Poetry made visible. Their subconsciously integrated and automated philosophy has stylized their consciousness, imbuing objects with connotative meaning, giving Nature beauty and staleness; it made the two men focus on certain aspects that affirmed their own worldview, while ignoring the aspects that seemed to contradict it. The two quintessential preconditions of human happiness are a world that is auspicious to joy, and an exalted view of man's nature. And for some reason, our first philosopher feels that the world is stale and pointless, while the second philosopher is intoxicated by it.
Philosophy and religion are important and invaluable sources of information about human psychology. A lot of philosophical systems distort the truth not because man is blind to ostensively self-evident axioms; in truth, a lot of people are afraid that they'll end up like our first philosopher. They create systems that rationalize what they want to be true, worlds in which they intuitively feel they would be happy in. The proper attitude is not to shun those philosophies - but to study them, and learn which human needs are so compelling that they end up tempting people to discard the 'unpleasant truth'.
A German Idealist proposes an organic system of Nature, where everything (including inanimate matter) is alive, and all concrete existence is an expression of Self's productive imagination. Why is that appealing to him? Because if everything is a part of him, he is not a tiny little man anymore - he is an all-powerful creative intelligence striving for self-awareness by objectifying himself to himself. This prospect makes his own self-esteem and view of man go up. If what he previously thought of as dead matter is actually organic in some way, he acquires a feeling of kinship between him and the entire Universe. If everything in existence strives for the same goal, the universe ceases to appear frightening or alien to him - it takes on the mantle of a benevolent and even exotic or elevated realm. If pleasure has a forbidden quality to it, values seem to become more tantalizing than if no mind-body breach existed. If the entirety of the universe and human life can be rationalistically deduced and contained by a crow-friendly system, he is at an advantage - because reason is his means of knowledge, and he longs for that type of crystal-clear and unshakably certain conceptual guidance - his need of self-esteem is again peeking through the curtain.
What about religion? Man's nature as an integrator pushes him to unify his life into infrastructures such as culture, subculture and religion, infrastructures that integrate most or all aspects of his life (including ethics and very identifiable ways of dressing and behaving) into single, coherent systems. And the prevailing epistemological errors? Some philosophers intuitively feel that a world in which concepts merely classify the world - instead of shaping it – would mean that the nature of the external world is sharply different from the way their own consciousness is naturally built. They perceive a threat to the potency of their consciousness - to their self-esteem. And wouldn't it be nicer if Nature actually was as we perceived it, if sensory form was a myth? That would certainly give objective validity to what goes on in one's inner eye. Man would never have to doubt the metaphysical validity of his richly evaluative experience.
A wrong system of philosophy can comfort man in the short-term, but will ultimately lead to existential and psychological turmoil. And a largely correct system of philosophy that was not properly integrated into his mind, can lead to worldly success, but also to the inability to enjoy that success. As man's nature dictates, if he implicitly believes and feels that the truth clashes with the requirements of his life or consciousness, truth will become his enemy.
The solution is to identify and correct those faulty integrations, the ones that made the first philosopher discard, among others, the realm of poetry and emotional investment. In poetry, metaphor does not equal non-objectivity - poetic language describes facts of reality, as grasped by a human mind that relates everything to his own life, a consciousness that needs to clarify meaning by comparisons to other objects to which he attaches symbolic meaning. A proper human consciousness is staunchly anthropocentric. In the case of emotional investment, optionality does not equal the arbitrary. The nature of man and the universe dictates that he must achieve and settle for what is, to his current knowledge, the absolute best he can get. If he believes that 'everything could have been different', he is factually wrong - he can only live one life, not an unspecified number of parallel existences. And he is weakening his will to live, because he can't wantonly dive into the pond of Life while not being fully convinced that his particular values allow him to actually make the most out of his existence. Equally important is the issue of human greatness. Does he think it actually exists in reality? Or are humans just cavemen with high pretensions?
The truth-loving philosopher does not need to make peace with the staleness of the world. After all, he lives in the exact same universe as his life-loving friend, and if the German Idealist can be happy, he can be happier than him. To unlock the beauty of the world, he must award the same reality to his own inner world as he does to the external world. He must give free reign to the natural realm of his emotions, inclinations, fears, desires, intuitions, yearnings. In every moment and issue of his life, he must be focused not only on growing and optimizing his practical excellence, but also on making the most out of his inner experience.
After a full system of philosophy, psychology is the most crucial science that man must develop and master if he is to be fully guided in his life. He must understand the psychological causes of joy in all of its myriad forms: love, excitement, importance, luxury, humor, the Sublime, affection, curiosity, the exotic, the unusual, the cool, the beautiful, the idealized - as well as the nature of personal taste. In doing so, he will eventually tie them back to the two fundamental preconditions of happiness: the feeling that the universe is auspicious, and that man is an exalted being.
"Miss Rand used to be a strong advocate of what she called 'the pleasure-purpose principle.' She meant the idea that on any level, whether we're talking about thought or action, you cannot function without a purpose that brings you pleasure, something you want to achieve, that you enjoy achieving. You can see this in an everyday example in the contrast between getting up on a day when there's something that you like [...] as against that kind of gray, dragging yourself through some dutiful routine, which can only go on for a limited period of time, after which you either end up giving up action and giving up generally, or else you say, 'I can't stand philosophy,' and you become an emotionalist. The point here is that pleasure - and we mean here personal pleasure, personal interests, your likes and dislikes - is essential to your functioning, in action and in thought". — Leonard Peikoff, Understanding Objectivism: Lecture Ten
"Learn to be at home and well acquainted - I would almost say, be on intimate terms with your emotions. [...] After you've become acquainted with yourself emotionally, when you no longer have any great mysteries to yourself, then you can start to identify your sense of life. And the best - perhaps the only way to identify it - is by observing your own reactions to art." — Ayn Rand, 1974 Q&A session
"How comes it that, to every tolerably cultivated taste, imitations of the so-called Actual, even though carried to deception, appear in the last degree untrue - nay, produce the impression of spectres; whilst a work in which the idea is predominant strikes us with the full force of truth, conveying us then only to the genuinely actual world?" — F. W. J. Schelling - On the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature (speech on the celebration of the 12th October, 1807, as the Name-Day of the King of Bavaria)
The most important insight that a rational philosophy can give you is this: the profound efficacy of consciousness. Here, I am not confining myself to the ability to acquire objective knowledge. I am referring to the whole of human consciousness, including, among others, the perceptual, conceptual, subconscious, evaluative and emotional levels.
Life is not a series of empty abstractions and standards of value. Abstractions stand for a rich symphony of specific values and content. Man's god is set by his nature: Joy - or survival, which cannot be legitimately sundered from Joy. His Religion is his particular value infrastructure, his love for everything that he strives to live here on earth. And his philosophy and heroes are the signposts that guide his footsteps.

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?

Speak for yourself. I don't follow white nationalists in any way and imagine their agendas must be as dumb as they come, but I think "It's OK to be white" all the time to myself when I read the moronic public, racist displays of "black lives," "mormon lives," "women lives," or whatever else.

Nature did that, not me.
If I say, "aquamarine is a pretty color," that doesn't by itself imply that I've assessed any of the other colors.
"Divisive" is an anti-concept just like the word "polarizing."
Capitalism is divisive. Doesn't mean that we shouldn't advocate for it.
No, all that will take is an end to Israel-worshiping. We can start with Yaron Brook and his "Israel-first" mentality.

Alright, I'm going to riff this piece, Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. The piece is enough of a joke, might as well joke about it.
Except for Odd Thomas, and the ARI.
lol
Well obviously, Trump loves Russia and Rand was from Russia. Makes total sense to the fake news mindset.
Whole, as in "all." Quite a wager considering that Trump agrees with Objectivism on quite a few key political goals... preserving the 2A, repealing regulations, repealing Obamacare, standing up to the Global Warming fraud, destroying radical Islam instead of making excuses for it, etc.
So what does our prophetess have to say exactly, Mr. Ghate?
She obviously didn't foresee the rise of the Internet.
Except for Ron Paul, a far more intellectual and principled candidate than Trump, which the ARI opposed because... uh, why exactly?
A limit which apparently led for her to vote for Nixon, a far worse candidate than Trump, over McGovern, a far better candidate than Hillary.
and who channel a dead woman... oh wait, that's the ARI.
Yes, the first candidate in 30 years to not thank God in his acceptance speech, and who says that he has "nothing to be forgiven for" is a "mystic." He might as well be a closet atheist who pays lip-service to religion because politics and votes.
No, what's illuminating is your attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole.
You mean like government-sanctioned torture, or the Waco raid? That sort of justice?
None of which are evident in Trump's decades of honest business dealings, Mr. Ghate would assert. If he had been a Madoff-like crook, surely evidence for it would have arisen by now.
Apparently calling out fake news represents "disdain for the truth."
Ah, Anderson Cooper, a bastion of journalistic integrity.
Because he's not a liar.
Apparently YouTube viewers don't count.
Apparently respect for women involves denying one's own sexuality and the beauty of the female form.
Ghate would have us equate spur-of-the-moment tweets with Trump's considered opinion.
No, it's because none of the things you just mentioned were lies.
Actually it captures basic marketing principles. The defenders of capitalism sure don't know much about how business works.
Says the ARI, an organization which hired Carl Barney, former Scientology church owner and current college swindler, and takes his dirty money. Obviously they would assert that they only hired him because people can change. Well then, we had objective evidence that Trump no longer desired to be part of the swamp and only had to be in order to run his business effectively.
Apparently concepts like slogans and the process for choosing them to reach mass appeal are alien to the ARI. No wonder there are so few objectivists.
And apparently unless you constantly repeat those things, your own inherent goodness means nothing.
"It's true because I want it to be true" actually perfectly captures the tone of this hit piece.
I'd rather have a man who acts moral but never talks about it, than a man who never acts moral but preaches how moral he is.
Fine people want to preserve their history for the sake of remembering, not tear it down for the sake of nothing. Not every person defending the confederate statue at that rally was a neo-Nazi.
No other president actually stood up to North Korea and forced China to play nice. I'd call that quite an accomplishment. In addition to the hundreds of regulations that Trump has repealed. If Ghate and Brook had their way, Hillary would be president and these would still be on the books.
Don't forget about Jesus and Buddha while you're making your fake list of people who Trump never said that he's better than.
Or, you know, it was a joke.
Yes, how dare he be loyal to America first instead of globalists.
I guess that Trump's business achievements count for nothing.
As opposed to the objective thing to do, which would be to hire men who would betray him.
As it should be, given Comey's lack of fidelity to justice in the case of Clinton.
What you're hearing is patriotism towards America, not tribalism. I know, it's hard to recognize for a member of an organization like the ARI that puts Israel above America.
And Hillary apparently would've played no part in this drift.
Political hucksters rely on strawmen, such as saying that Trump blamed "all" the country's problems on any particular group.
By this logic we should never elect a county sheriff who pledges to crack down on criminals. That would be tribalism, apparently.
You mean like Hillary calling half the country "deplorables?"
Oh look, a nugget of truth!
You're forgetting some qualifying adjectives. Illegal immigrants, dishonest journalists, globalist "free" traders, and corrupt elites. Trump opposed none of those things intrinsically.
Sales should be soaring, but the ARI fails at marketing so they're not.
With funny names like Floyd Ferris, Wesely Mouch, and Onkar Ghate.
You mean like how Leonard Peikoff squandered Ayn Rand's intellectual heritage? That sort of progeny?
I'd trust a snake oil salesman like Alex Jones before I'd trust Anderson Cooper or wherever Mr. Ghate gets his "news."
And by letting in the entire Third World into America all at once. She also advocated that, apparently.
America to Israel, America to globalists... just kidding, he doesn't say that.
So this is what makes you happy? Writing baseless schlock about the president?
What about the Convention of States? Oh wait, the ARI hates states' rights.
I mean, I think that she would have said that too, but not in the way that you mean. After all that bloviating, this is the best you could come up with that Rand might have said?

Lol, "The Anti-Intellectuality of Donald Trump".  Same thing could be said of nearly every politician and every modern president.  It is routinely trotted out against republicans for example Reagan and both Bushes.  I am not sure why that particular feature is even notable given the quality of what passes for an intellectual.  The corruptness of Hillary Clinton is not a less venal character trait, and in a president is more so in my opinion.  I will again take this opportunity to remind all the readers here that Ayn Rand endorsed Richard Nixon, of all people, simple because she was that much against McGovern.     

I never said that I was.
It's okay to be white. And it's okay for me to say so.

Set us straight here.  Do you believe in blood guilt and/or original sin?  Because invoking those crimes of the past is same thought process.   
I am not guilty, and I am okay with being white.

Not only does he not mention volition, he doesn't mention philosophy either. Not a single reference to the Enlightenment or the Renaissance is to be found in the book. See above, where I paged through the index in vain to find them.